The final selection of photos from the Chamonix to Zermatt Haute Route trip with Ride the Alps are now up on the site. I also set up a Flickr group for the trip so you can see the photos from the other members of the group. Check it out.
I like the sound of this. It appeals along similar lines as the trip across France to Luzern did. Not quite sure if I’ll ever be in a position to do what Mark, Ruth and a pair of Pompinos did:
It’s a dull day in the office. It’s winter. In London. I haven’t been out on the mountain bike for months. The only redeeming feature of sitting here with no work to do is having Internet access. Since finding Singletrackworld.com nearly 3 years ago I think I have spent more time in the forum than I have asleep. But even the flood of junk that appears there can’t make today seem any more interesting.
I decided late last year that following our partial move away from Landaan back to my home county of Worcestershire that I would eventually leave my salaried job and go self employed. At the same time, Ruth and I could take the opportunity to go on a trip. A long one. One that stretched from one end of the summer to the other. And it was going to involve bikes.
Most people who come and read this blog will have got here either through a link at STW or by following a link I will have emailed you which makes you either a cyclist of some sort, related to me, or fully versed of my cycle addiction problem.
The plan was to ride the length of the Danube but the obvious topographical predictability of riding along a big river’s flood plain and the fact that most of Germany try and do it each year lead us to change our plan into something a little more adventurous.
Our itinerary is not over planned as the unknown will be as important as the trip, but the gernal plan is to ride along northern Spain, down the French side of the Pyrenees, across into Provence and then northern Italy. From here we will either turn left up through teh Alps and Bavaria back to northern Europe, or south down through Tuscany and into the Mezzogiorno of Italy. When we work it out, you will be the first to know…
Finally, just to add a little quirkiness we are going to be doing it with hardly any gear. R and I always travelled light anyway, but one thing I have no intention of doing is dragging a bike laden with bar bags, low riders, rear panniers and rack packs, weighing 100lbs up a col or mountain pass. So we are only taking bar and saddle bags. For the technical junkies around the first few weeks of this blog will bore for Britain about the gear we are taking. R will almost certainly write something more interesting a little later. Once we are on the road of course, it will be much more of a journal and a photograph repository.
Oh, and the bikes only have one gear. Each.
We like a challenge.
R O T H A R . C O M 