La Petite Douanne to the Chasseral
After I had taken a break from cycling yesterday, I was well rested today to attack the Chasseral mountain, which I had not visited since my bike accident in July. A sunny Sunday is usually not a good day to go up there on a road bike, but my plan was to stay off the busy roads for the climb up to it. I left Biel for Corgémont where I began the climb up to the Anabaptist Bridge. Today marked the first time I saw someone else on a bike halfway up the climb. A female mountain biker. I continued to the Petite Douanne on a lightly climbing road and as soon as I crossed a Bovi-Stop and the road sharply turned left, I was on gravel. Nothing a road bike can’t take until it intersects with the fireroad coming from the Place Centrale. The next two kilometers to the Metairie de Morat were the ones that concerned me most. I knew this trail from mountain biking and I was prepared to walk. Well, it turned out that they put some new gravel on the trail and it was perfectly fine to ride. Once out of the forest, the last 600 or so meters were on dirt, but the dry conditions allowed it to be ridden too. At a cattle gate I greeted a mountain biker who came the other way, but the guy on his full suspension bike only returned an unfriendly look when he saw my ride. Oh well. Two more climbs were waiting ahead. A short pitch across the Petit Chasseral at 1572m and the steep climb to the Chasseral antenna. After enjoying the view from up there, I dove down to Nods. Today, I stayed on my brakes almost all the way. Lots of cars, motor bikes and bicycles were making their way up the road and just like myself others were going down too. Definitely too busy to let it fly. I did fly later though. On the slightly descending stretch from Nods to Lamboing, I had a nice tailwind pushing my speed between 43-48 kph. I continued to Orvin and hit the short climb to Evilard to return back to Biel. Overall riding time was just a minute over 3 hours.
| Distance: | 64km (40 miles) |
| Total Climb: | 1600m (5260 feet) |
| GPS Track: | GPSies.com |
