Long Ride
A perfect day to head out for a long ride. Today my goal was to reach the Chasseral from Biel on my Niner SS. Armed with my Niner, dressed in shorts, my Provenance jersey and a pair of Shimano sandals, and fueled by a flask filled with honey and a single water bottle (plenty of refills on the way) I climbed up to Gaicht. From there I hit a trail towards the Twannberg and turned down to Lamboing. A short stretch through the village, I turned right and climbed up La Pierre. Once the road made a wide U-turn, I left off to the left, climbing a rooty trail through the forest, crossing a shooting range to reach the small paved road named La Croix. Climbing the road for a while, I left it to take a gravel road going down to Les Près Voillons from where I followed a gentle hiking trail up to the Méterie de Prêles. Once I reached the Méterie, I turned left onto a paved little road bringing me up to the Place Centrale. The last few hundred meters before reaching the top, I had to slow down due to a herd of cows and calves walking up the same way in a rather lazy tempo. Well, I got there in the end and turned left onto a wide fireroad taking me to the Méterie du Milieu from where I continued to hit the final steep climb up to the Chasseral at 1607 meters. Hardly anyone was up there on a Wednesday. Now the brutal part of the ride started with an extremely steep and tremendously rocky descent to Nods. My 160mm Magura SL brakes are not quite up to the task for such a steep, long descent. I actually think I used to manage this downhill better with my Cantis. From Nods I returned to Lamboing on the road and turned off the same way back towards the Twannberg. I hit a different and more fun downhill trail to Gaicht and headed back to Biel on the same way I came from a few hours earlier. Awesome ride that I really felt in my legs. I would have taken pictures along the way, but my wife had the digital camera for the day. I’ll take some next time.
