When you have to haul two bikes and bags in cardboard boxes across London at 5:30 am to the airport Mark Beaumont knew what he was talking about...
But I have a feeling this is going to be the most epic cycling adventure I've ever done. The reason is I have my son Callum with me. Precious cargo indeed. I am so lucky to be able to do this together. Hang on a minute, as you read this you have no idea how it ends up. No spoilers then. Lets go back to the start of this epic trip, it is going to be very hard.
We plan on cycling over 320 miles in 6 days climbing 6 of the hardest and longest mountain passes (called cols) in the French Alps which will see us climb higher than Everest.
The fact that I have no idea if I can do this is one of the reasons to do it. Cal is very fit and I am sure he can do it but he hasn't cycled that much so it is also unknown how this is going to go. The only rule is to take care and enjoy it. So Cal's bike has been modified with a larger rear derailleur to give him an extra large cog on the back to help get up hill after hill. We've also had it serviced, what could possibly go wrong !
Below I have uploaded all the photos from the day....
The plan is to get to Geneva and get the bikes to Charlys Bikes to get them professionally rebuilt and checked again.
The flight today is from Heathrow with BA who allow a bike each for free if you don't have any other checked baggage which we absolutely do not. All we have with us is our overnight gear and some throw away charity grade clothes for leaving in the bnb. Hopefully they will get to a Swiss charity although I don't think they will be sought after by the residents of one of the richest countries in the world.
One very quick example of this is how much the taxi cost us for the 10 minute hop from Terminal 1 at Geneva to Charlys store.... did he say 60 euros !!!!
Bikes dropped off it was time to explore....
We headed across the road into Parc Mon Repos with great views of Lake Geneva and the water fountain, Jet d'Eau de Genève. Cheeky pints and food by the lake.
Heading back to the bike shop later Cal spotted a Swiss bank note on the floor. It was a 100 Swiss francs !!! One hundred of their Swiss francs is about £90 !!!! What a result !!!
He said he wanted to buy something Swiss with it as a momento. I suggested he could pick up the BnB bill later but I don't think he could hear me properly as that was ignored hehe.
He bought some souvenirs and a Swiss flag.
The game was on. What a great start. Bikes were perfectly prepped for us by Charly. Strongly recommended that bike store if you are ever in Geneva. https://www.charlysbikestore.ch/
Next was to head to the BnB in the centre of town. Checked in and then head back out for some proper food.
However, before this I wanted to find a bike shop as I always buy CO2 cartridges for quickly inflating the tyres if we have to change an inner tube but Charly didn't sell them so I was off out on the hunt. Three bike shops later and no joy. So tomorrow would be a bit more stressful knowing all I had was a rubbishy hand pump but fingers crossed we didn't get an early blow out.
We had booked a table on the island inbetween the two channels of the Rhone river on the island called L'lle. Very nice is was too. Food was going to be so important. We very quickly discovered this fact and I failed in my role of dad and protector. He is 22 and can eat his own body weight of food an hour and I should have planned for this... Cal doesn't have an ounce of fat on him like me. But it made for an interesting story. More on this later.....
The food was great, the company was greater, we facetimed Deb back in the UK and got an early night.
