“I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike……”
Six die-hard cyclists subscribed to the latest outing with a promise of a long slow uphill ride, avoiding the usual Bonmont climb, but substituting the Genolier incline past the clinic up to the heights of Le Vaud. A ca. 55Km round trip from the Everness Hotel with a high elevation of 820m was promised with the lure of lunch at the Auberge Communale in Gilly, PeterD’s favourite hostellerie. In the event, Bill had to back out due to mechanical failure of his motorised transport on the Italian Autostrada near Verona on the way back from Croatia. PeterD had indicated a prior engagement with the dentist even though we started at 09.30 and not at the dental time of 14.30 (tooth hurty!….for the uninitiated, this is a Taylorism).
So it was Stephen, PeterT, Mark2Ts, Mervyn and e-Paul who accepted the challenge. There seems an increasing desire of the group to rate absentees on the validity of their excuse on a scale of 1-acceptable to 10-fully understandable. e.g. open heart surgery – 10, needing to collect dog from kennel the day before -1. More of this to follow in future blogs, I’m sure.
The weather was set fair and we meandered along the Swiss route 50 cycle track, having picked this up at God’s crossroads (another Taylorism). This took us up familiar trails through Arnex, Borex, Signy, Grens, Gingins and onto Givrins where we decided to postpone our coffee until past the worst of the climb. Such is the keenness of the group that everyone wants to perform at their peak. Indeed, Peter had had a sleepless night worrying about the Genolier Clinic hill and wanted to get this under his belt before enjoying any stop.
As the gradient increased, the lack of cloud cover made it hard and perspiring work. E-Paul drifted effortlessly from the back to the front, stopping on occasions to marvel at why the peloton didn’t also have e-bikes. We eventually stopped for coffee (or other refreshment) at Le Muids, kindly sponsored by Mark. He reflected on how much easier it would have been had he moved to Le Muids, as was under consideration a few years back. However, no time for long contemplations as bleader (bike leader) Stephen was aware that lunch was booked and there was still road to go in order to get there on time. A short stop at Bassins, with heads cooled in the local fountain before the less strenuous slope up to Le Vaud, our high point of the day. We recovered our breath before enjoying the long downhill through Burtigny into Gilly, helping us appreciate each of those 620m climbed.
We arrived at the Auberge Communale exactly at the booked hour. Beers were rapidly ordered and 4 of the 5 seated at the table ordered the menu du jour of salad, cheeseburger with frites, followed by an usual but palatable banana soup. Not for the first time. Paul challenged the kitchen to produce “super croquant” frites. The challenge was accepted and the chips on his plate did seem to arrive with a slightly darker colour but judgement was reserved on as to whether they actually fulfilled the brief. In any case, the meal was well up to standard. As usual, conversation drifted widely from politics to opera to TV shows with a new category of notable quotes from famous people such as Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde. Typically, more beer was drunk and no conclusions were reached (are the two related?). Absent friends were toasted.
Eventually, we had to accept the inevitable and leave the restaurant. Our legs heavy on the pedals due to absent blood which was currently engaged on digestive duties. Stephen’s plan was to follow the Swiss cycle route 488 from Gilly to Vich, avoiding the main road. Peter volunteered the use of his stylish, if somewhat loose, handlebar mounted smart phone to navigate the way. Unfortunately, the electronic guidance diverged with the road signage, which itself was somewhat sporadic. So we did end up for a while on the very road we tried to avoid. Rerouting was decided at Vich and we headed via Coinsins to L’Asse. At this point, e-Paul realised that his uphill antics had damaged the longevity of his battery support and he opted for a return to Le Grand-Saconnex on the train from Nyon. Schadenfreude for some reason comes to mind. The rest of us continued to battle the headwind on raw muscle power, following the farm tracks through Signy to Arnex and somehow missing the intended crossing of Landi’s car park. At Arnex more beers were offered chez Stephen but declined as other, more important, tasks had been planned by some for the rest of the day.