Annual Bike Ride - Day 5, Part 1

We packed up, straightened the apartment, and departed, leaving 30 euros as a thank-you to our hosts. 

David's Kitchen Bed

David and John Ready to Leave Friday Morning

We headed back to Champagnole for three reasons – we needed to find the start of the next leg [more later], needed some coffee and pastries, and John needed to have his bike’s brakes looked at. 

We first had some coffee and pastries, and John took his bike to a shop up the street.  David looked at his maps trying to figure out where the start for the next leg of our ride began.  Across from the bike shop was a Tourist Office which did not open until 10AM.  David checked in at the bike shop to see how things were progressing – the repair guy had no experience with hydraulic brake systems, so progress was slow.  David went back to the bar where we had coffee and chatted with Roger, bringing him up to date, while we had another coffee.

10:00AM arrived and David went back to the Tourist Office to enquire about the PLM Velo Route.  The extremely helpful woman made copies of two maps – one showing how to get to the start of bike trail, and another a map of the complete trail.  Another "unhelpful, rude French person".

Preparing to Leave Champagnole

As mentioned before, the PLM Velo Route is the right-of-way for an old branch of the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranean railroad, which just happens to be the same company that built the old Gare de Brotteaux in Lyon.  The route goes straight to the outskirts of Lons-le-Saunier, and is 35km long, paved, and well-marked, with only a few pieces requiring traveling on roadways with cars.

John finally returned with his bike, with new brake pads on the offending wheel.  As we prepared to leave, a man pointed out to John that his derailleur mechanism on his back wheel was not completely assembled.  So, back to the bike shop where the best that could be done was to ‘fix’ the system in a middle gear until it can be seen by someone who could make proper repairs.  The man in the shop certainly tried, but unfortunately was out of his depth with John’s high-end bike.  This stage of our trip did not require any real climbing and mostly trended down a gentle slope, so the lack of gears would not be critical.

We set off and, with the map, easily found the start of the PLM route.  We started off on a beautiful, paved, empty, scenic trail.  The only negative was a bit of intermittent rain sprinkles.

Roger on the PLM Velo Route

John on the PLM Velo Route

Beautiful Bike Route!

More Great Biking Territory

We made good time, stopping once to try to shelter from a downpour and put on rain gear.  

David Trying to Stay out of the Deluge

We got off-track once, but soon found our way back to the route.  We detoured a kilometer or so to stop for lunch, where we managed to eat outside and not get wet.  After lunch, David put his poncho away, as the weather seemed to be improving.

We had lunch at an interesting restaurant in the town of Doucier.  Doucier is in an area of glacial lakes, and the near-by Lac de Chalain is the site of remnants of prehistoric dwellings built on stilts along the lake shore.  The restaurant is called Le Pic Vert or the Green Woodpecker and served an assortment of regional dishes and also crepes and galettes.  It is open only from mid-April to mid-September, and there were lots of folks having lunch inside, along with a few other hardy souls outside.

Rose at Le Pic Vert

Because there was so much we saw and did Friday, I will create another couple of posts in order to fully tell the story.