Day 5 – Dijon – Les Rousses
183km
Sleeping near field mice is not recommended. They rustle about a lot. Anyway, I emerged from my bag under a moody sky and rode into into Dijon. It has a beautiful historic centre, with a plethora of architectural styles ranging from timber framed houses to immense gothic churches. I noted many of the roofs had vibrantly coloured tiles arranged in geometric patterns that sparkled in the morning light. After some aimless wandering it was time to head south.
The hills of yesterday had disappeared and the road was once again pan flat as I slid past field after field, without fighting a headwind. I could see the Jura way off in the distance and buzzed with excitement as I past the sign indicating I was now in Le département du Jura. I passed through a few towns that were on the river and had huge quays with pleasure boats swaying in the breeze before stopping for a warm lunch in the sun outside a church.
After 100km I arrived at Lons le Saunier at the foot of the Jura alps. As I stood outside the supermarket swigging on several litres of fizzy orange I first noted how hot it had become, and then realised how big the hills were that I surely had to ride up to cross the Jura. And so it began. After some small amounts of descending I rode up a few insanely steep hills on narrow roads through villages comprising of only a few houses, that seemed to be hanging onto the hillside for dear life. Eventually after about 200m of climbing I was deposited high up on a main road at about 500m and it was time to traverse the Jura.
Once I was up high, it was actually surprisingly flat with only 1 really big descent, to a valley home to alpine meadows and the heart warming clang of cow bells – a sound that I associate with descending from climbing mountains in the alps and it being the first sign of civilisation having ascended one of the fantastically secluded peaks.
After seeing a particularly exciting looking information sign for a waterfall, I thought I’d go check it out and rode down past a huge lake to packed carpark / info centre. I donned my finest hiking boots (flip flops) and strolled up the trail to the waterfall, only to find it was a bit lacking in water due to a hot summer. Fortunately, there was enough of a pool at the bottom of it to dowse myself for an instant cooling effect.
Back on track and feeling a bit fresher,the perfectly smooth road surface I had become used to disappeared, turning into a gravel nightmare, which I rode on tentatively expecting either a puncture or to topple over at any moment. It’s never good riding through gravel on 23mm tires. 144km in, I started riding up hill and kept trending uphill for the next 15km. Then it was then time to do a super long descent which I wrongly assumed was the drop into Geneva despite being able to see more hills ahead of me…. at the bottom of this the first real test piece of the holiday reared up. Starting at 700m, I kept cycling and the hill just kept going up. I rounded a corner, and still more ‘up’ presented itself to me. There was a distinct lack of ‘down’ and I frankly was starting to feel quite knackered. On my right the valley floor was getting further and further away and some time later I reached the top at about 1100m. Was this the last hill before the descent into Geneva? It wasn’t. As I rolled into Les Rousses I decided I may as well call it a day, feeling like it had been a long ride to this point. It turns out 183km was the distance for the day. It also occurred to me that I was higher than Mount Snowdon in Wales! A local map told me there was one more pass before Geneva and it was getting a bit late for slogging up another hill. I followed signs to an old fort that overlooks the town and surrounding hills, after wandering around trying to find the best view to sleep near (and not summoning the courage to walk into some pretty ominous looking dark rooms and stairs), I decided to sleep in the place I found in the first 2 minutes, on top of the fort wall.
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