Month: June 2014

Left Switzerland for France today, which was probably good timing for the French nationals in our group after last night’s 5-2 thrashing of Switzerland by France at the World Cup.

Straightforward ride from the farm we were staying at near Möhlin, along the Rhine through Basel, a half-kilometer trip through Germany to the “Bridge of Three Nations” (an elegant EU-funded footbridge over the Rhine) and into la belle France, and also back into the Eurozone – no more messing around with Swiss francs!

The rest of the ride to Mulhouse (pronounced something like “Mull-ooze”, if you wondered) was mostly along old canals and through small villages. It was hot but not unpleasantly so, but the dust on the unpaved stretches of the old canal towpaths was the worst we’ve seen so far – we all arrived at the Mulhouse hostel covered in fine white dust. I just washed the bike off in Switzerland, too…

Now that we’re in France the official receptions have started, the AF3V being a French organization. We got to listen to the mayor of Mulhouse go on in French for a while, had a couple of mercifully brief remarks from others, then got some free samples of local beer and wine. We have a bunch of these over the next weeks in France; providing the alcohol supply and quality are kept up they’ll be survivable!

Off to Belfort tomorrow and Baum-les-Dames the day after, but internet is likely unavailable so expect another flurry of backdated posts in a few days!

(The title comes, of course, from Casablanca, and no, the line is not “Play it again, Sam”. Go watch the movie again if you don’t believe me…)

Short day of riding today and another Swiss farm stay, sleeping in the straw again.

The ride was the now familiar mix of farmland, villages, woods, and the occasional town, with warm but not hot weather – and unlike yesterday, no mid-afternoon rain.

Leaving Switzerland for France tomorrow, which also means returning to the familiar Euro instead of the Swiss franc, which has been a nuisance!

My grandmother pointed out in a email that I hadn’t talked much about the other people along on this tour, so here’s a very general introduction! The group is roughly 50 people, but we’ve sorted out pretty much by language.

First is the French-speakers, mostly actually from France, including our hard working chef du course Marc, who works for the AF3V, a French organization that helps organize cycle routes, including the long distance international EuroVelo routes like the EV6 that we’re following. Overall there are about twenty French, with a number of them only doing a few weeks of the ride instead of the whole route, which included a few Belgians who were with us the first week or two of the ride.

The French include a sub-group of three polio survivors and their support riders. The polio survivors are all riding hand pedaled lightweight trikes – I’ll get a photo up when I can, they’re fascinating machines.

The next largest group is about 19 strong and are all from Hong Kong,  a number of whom don’t even speak much English, nevermind other European languages.

Finally there are currently ten English speakers, five Yanks, two Brits, a Kiwi couple, and some arrogant twit from Canada.

During the day when we’re riding we tend to ride in groups of two to six or so. Bigger groups of cyclists tend to be awkward, in my experience. We tend to sort by both language and riding ability/comfortable cruising speed on the road.

Short and straightforward ride through Switzerland today, mostly along the Rhine from Schafhausen to a farm near Bad Zurzach.

“Schlaf im Stroh” means “sleep in straw”, and I originally thought it was just the name of the B&B/lodging program for Swiss farms, but here with the Schneider family outside Bad Zurzach it really does give you the chance to sleep on straw: clean straw packed into frames in the loft of a converted barn. The ground floor is a very nicely set up group dining room and washrooms, and there is also space on the lawn for tents.

It’s still a working farm, too, with a couple types of cows (including a herd of hairy Highland cattle), crops, and a couple of goats.

Good weather for most of the day, except for a short but very intense rain squall which we could see coming up the valley toward us in time to retreat to the covered cafe terrace of a local thermal bath/rec centre. We had an afternoon coffee and watched it piss down for about half an hour then stop, which was much nicer than riding through it!

Random biking in Switzerland moment from today: rolling through the forest just above the Rhine (which is the Swiss-German border as well) and turn the corner to see a substantial concrete bunker, still in very functional shape, peering over the river toward Germany.

We had a chance to briefly meet one of the senior people in SwissMobility, Lucas, who joined us for the day’s ride. Hopefully he got some good feedback from us on what we’ve seen here in Switzerland and earlier on the trip.

Off to another lodging farm in Switzerland tomorrow, then finally France on Saturday when we pass through Basel and spend the night in Mulhouse, France.