Climbing Unknown Territory
I had an early start today, an early drive to my favorite bakery in town - Le Panetier. I purchased a large sourdough, a “Margeritenbrot” (daisy bread) and a couple of croissants. The start of today’s bike ride was anything but early. I left the house way past twelve. Since my Air 9 Carbon is packed in a box on its way to the Niner folks in Colorado, I pushed my trusty old Litespeed out of the house for a loop through the Jura. Very unlike me, I even had a ride planned. I left Biel to cruise to St. Imier, where I started the climb to Savagnière. That’s the turn-off point to get into the next climb up to the Col du Chasseral and the point to decide if it was worth a try. Well, the whole hillside was still white, so I decided not to climb up to 1500 meters. Instead I continued to Le Pâquier, Dombresson and Savagnier to hit, according to my bike map, a steep climb to the Grand Chaumont. I’ve never ventured out that way and I must say it’s quite a cool area to road bike. The turn to reach the climb is easy to find. As you ride into Savagnier, the road will make a right-hand turn, continue a couple of hundred meters and at the church turn left. My map was not kidding about the steepness. The climb is between 10 and 18% and on average probably around 15%. Once you’re in it, the road will never give you a break until you reach the top at 1133 meters. The climb is followed by an awesome descent to Enges. The wooded descent and its pothole riddled pavement reminded me a lot of the roads around Occidental. Funny how places so far apart can be so much alike. Instead of going all the way to Enges, I turned left to ride to Nods. Wonderful pavement here. From Nods, I returned on my usual way back to Biel - Lamboing, Orvin and Evilard. 80 and some kilometers and 3 hours and 10 minutes on the bike. GPSies says I climbed 1470 meters, Google Earth believes I did 1710 meters. Unimportant, I had over three hours of great riding and no numbers can capture that.
| Distance: | 80km (50 miles) |
| Total Climb: | 1470m (4800 feet) |
| GPS Track: | GPSies.com |
