Tandem Club Tour Basel-Saignelégier

On Saturday morning at 09:00 we started at the Basel SBB train station. Since our route for the first days followed the well signposted national bike route 7 (Jura route), the way out of the city was easy to find. With our 5 tandems, we were able to quickly switch from big streets to small neighborhood roads.

Shortly after leaving the urban area, the climb up the Chall Pass began, which demanded a lot from us.

After a short break at the top of the pass, we were able to enjoy the forest path over the crest of the hill. This was followed by a rapid descent to Kleinlützel.

During the lunch break at the Kleinlützel playground, two more group members joined us, so that from then on we were on the road with 6 tandems and one racing bike.

From Kleinlützel we followed the Lucelle until our stop for lunch in Lucelle. The following short climb was followed by a nice downhill. After that it was almost flat until Courgenay.

After this day we moved into our rooms at the Hotel du Boeuf and enjoyed a wonderful dinner.

The next day we could warm up well on the ascent to the Col de la Croix :-)

After the fast descent to St. Ursanne, a long and exhausting climb followed, where we (Rana and Moritz) reached our limits with our camping luggage.

After we reached the height at the lunch break, we went with smaller climbs to Saignelégier, where we separated from the group to go directly to La Chaux de Fonds.

Vacation Tour Saignelégier-Lyon

In contrast to the lightly used roads of the Jura route, the main road to La Chaux de Fonds was a bit busier, but this way we could do without more altitude... To keep up with the other participants of the tandem club had demanded a lot from us, since we were on the way with an estimated 100kg more luggage.

Arrived at the camping site in La Chaux de Fonds, we put up our tent again for a long time and cooked outside.

Fit and well rested, we drove to Le Locle the next morning. There we visited the impressive Moulins Souterrain.

Afterwards we continued southwest through a very beautiful part of the Jura. In Les Verrières we decided to deviate from the Jura route again and made a detour into France. In Vallorbe we came back to Switzerland. In Vallorbe we pitched our tent again.

From Vallorbe we went once again uphill until shortly before Le Pont. There we enjoyed another nice downhill before a first lunch break. Along the Lac de Joux we drove to Le Sentier, where we had another lunch break, fortunately in a restaurant, so that we stayed dry during the downpour.

In the afternoon we drove in the direction of France in not so nice weather anymore, but without rain.

After the resort of Les Rousses, there was a wonderful downhill ride to Morez. Morez itself was a little less beautiful... a rather dull little town. Because of the announced rain we decided to stay here in a hotel. We chose the better of the two hotels and we were very happy not to have chosen the worse one. The wonderful dinner compensated for the slightly less good room.

Because of the rain we decided to take the train from Morez to St. Claude. In the modern, comfortable and very spacious train we had enough space for the tandem and the trailer. In the process, we almost doubled the number of passengers.

Unfortunately, it was still raining in St. Claude, but that was no obstacle for us to go anyway. On the very slightly sloping, low-traffic road in the direction of Dortan, we fortunately made good progress. Shortly after Dortan the rain stopped and we could really enjoy the ride along the Ain again, until we reached the campsite in Poncin in the late afternoon.

The next morning we were woken up by renewed rain. A rain break was just enough to take down the tent, but then we started again in a light drizzle. Until the lunch break in Ambronay we could do without the rain clothes again. After Ambérieu-en-Bugey we crossed the last hill before Lyon with an ascent of 100 meters.

After crossing the Rhone after Langieu, we tried to find the bike route V60... we tried. Unfortunately with moderate success :-( But with GPS support we could then choose the side roads so that we probably rode partly on the V60.

In the late afternoon we reached shortly before Hières-sur-Amby a simple but nice and very clean campground where we stayed for the last time for this vacation in the tent.

Finally we could start the following day without rain. Since there were no more challenging climbs until Lyon, we were allowed to face the challenge of finding a good route. Although we didn't see the route V60 signposted anywhere, we discovered two big crossroads in the countryside, which even had bike lanes and their own bike signalization. 100m later the whole spook was over again and we were allowed to look for the way by ourselves again....

From Jons we mostly followed the bank of the Rhone. The road quality varied from bad gravel roads to bike highways.... On the bike path, which was now getting better and better, we crossed generous parks before Lyon. Except for a construction site, which we had to bypass, we were able to ride right into the city without any problems.