We woke compleatly socked in, in fog. You couldn't see across the street. Within an hours time the fog was lifting and the beautiful view out our bed room window opened up.
We are in the mountains now. Every turn of the head tells you so. It was hard to get going because of the beauty right out the window of our room.
After a lite breakfast and a few adjustments to the brakes on the bike, we headed out to what was now a sunny and drying day, all up hill.
Most of our ride has been around 500 feet above sea level. some ups and some downs. A few days beck we had large climbs into hill top towns, but never above 700 feet. Yesterday we went above 1000 feet and todays finish was at 3500 feet.
I noticed about half way through the day that our rear derailleur shifter cable was breaking. When they break, just at the lever it starts to frey leving sharp single strand cable ends. It can go like that for weeks. but when it brakesm its not good.
I had used my spare to replace the Drag Brake cable this morning and no longer had another. Having the cable compleatly brake would mean no low gear. We are "living" in the low gear these days and losing it will be dificult.
Stations of the cross
The route got a little mixed up crossing a huge vally with a wide and flat open space.
after 3 times of sitting down and studying the mapm each time we were able to figure out a safe route. Sometimes in the mountains you need to go back to go forward and when all the traffic as well as the river and train tracks go through toe only space avaliblem it gets a little tough. Hard as far as map reading and as far as trying to not get hit. We choose to walk the bike if things become questionable.
All the cows here have bells around their necks. you can hear them for miles.
We reached the Swiss border today. We have crossed the whole country of France by bicycle. Thats not a bad feeling at all!
After the border crossing, it's down hill for about 4 miles. The road is narrow and drops down on both sides about 20 feet. There is no sholder. We rounded a large corner and the afternoon sun was coming through the mountain to our right and was lighting up only a herd of cows. Everything else was dark. I told Barb I notice the differance of being in Switzerland already! Their cows are all lit up! How do they do that?
We came to the town of our hotel and nights stay. The first store we came across was a bicycle shop. It was open and they had a stainless tandem gear cable for 5 Euro.
This is the first time for me in Switzerland, another country that my lovely daughter Madeline has beat me to!
Two days left to ride.
glad that you had the luck to find a gear cable! great pictures, looks just like switzerland, haha.
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