“Buzzing” through Switzerland…

Erwan takes a snap of me on our way out to Gex...

Pump jockey... Refueling before I cross into Switzerland where the price of fuel is a wallet-numbing €1.72 per litre...

I followed Erwan out of Saint Jean de Gonville, skirting the Switzerland border, and then heading northeast to the town of Gex, where I refueled. The price of petrol in Switzerland was and eye-watering €1.72 per litre, (R16.40 !!) but on the French side of the border it was ONLY €1.36 (R12.97)… Even though Erwan was in a car ahead of me, and not on a bike next to me, it still felt as though I was riding with a mate… We stopped in Divonne-des-Baines to say our final goodbyes… I had made another great set of friends in Erwan and Chloe, and if they ever decided to continue with their travels, we promised to try and meet somewhere on the planet, to renew our recently forged friendship…

Erwan and I say our goodbyes in Divonne-des-Baines close to the Swiss border...

Somehow, I managed to get myself riding through this forested area ona narrow road... A beautiful mistake....!!!

A small logging operation brought me to a standstill...

I crossed into Switzerland a short while later and then skirted the French border for a while before turning towards Cheserex. For some strange reason, my GPS decided that Switzerland would best be seen if I headed out into farmlands and forests, and before long, we were winding our way up a very steep and narrow road, into a heavily forested area, where logging was taking place. The road was barely wide enough for one car, and it had rained just before I got there, so the surface was as slippery as any I had ridden on… The pine needles dropped by the logging tractors did not help matter either…!! There was no way of knowing if a vehicle was barreling down on us from up ahead, and I went around some of the very sharp corners with little more than a hope and a prayer…and riding at only 30 km/h…

Pretty as a postcard... I rode past a number of villages just like this one... I would have liked to have pulled over and lay down under a tree to drink in the peace and tranquility...

I sipped on a strong coffee while the Big Fella stood gazing out over Lac de Joux....

This girl rode with us through the mountains for about half an hour... The Big Fella made me promise I would never register him in Switzerland...

The road broke out of the forest just outside the village of Sant Cergue and then followed a railway line all the way to La Cure, before crossing back into France, which was a helluva surprise…!! A few minutes later, and we re-crossed the Swiss border and rode alongside the L’ Orbe River to the southern end of Lake de Joux… This is a very beautiful part of the world, and Switzerland really is “pretty as a postcard”… At the lake’s northern end, I stopped at the little town of Le Pont and bought a cup of coffee, while I watched the local Swiss go about their business… The pavement café was obviously a meeting point of some kind, as many folk dropped in to greet their friends, have a light snack and then move on again…

Cyclists stooped here too, and I had passed many small groups who were obviously touring, judging by the amount of kit they had strapped to their bikes… The road followed the eastern edge of Lake Brenet and then took us higher into the farmlands surrounding the town of Vallorbe… Cattle grazed in neatly fenced paddocks, and on one narrow road I wandered down, a herd of them completely blocked the road, the bells around their necks clonking loudly as I pushed my way through them…

At the town of Le Creux, we crossed back into France again… The road curved through the thickly forested slopes which seem to mark the border here, and I thought that I had seen the last of Switzerland… It ran north, then turned east abruptly and went back into Switzerland and into the town of Les Verrieres… This was getting a bit confusing, as I could not remember setting a course which zig-zagged across the border as often as I was now doing… But then something happened that completely took my mind off where I was going…

Then there was a herd of Toblerone on the hoof that had me braking frantically...

When I finally shook all the bees out of my sleeves, I had to go about the delicate task of removing the sting on my right wrist...

High up in the mountains behind Le Cernil, while crossing a beautiful meadow between two stands of pine trees, I rode into a small swarm of bees… I was riding with my visor open due to the warm weather, and the first bee bounced off my left cheek and when zinging past my helmet. I shut the visor with alacrity, and was just counting my lucky stars, when I ran into another small swarm, and this time a few of the buggers were scooped up into both sleeves of my jacket…

I was on a very narrow road, with a few cars behind me, and had no place to pull over to extricate the little devils… I kicked the bike into neutral, put my hazards on and cruised slowly to a stop, but before I had come to a complete halt, I was stung on my right wrist…!!  I sat the bike and gently shook my left arm, dislodging three or four bees that flew out of the sleeve and went back to their work in the fields off to my right… The few bees in my right sleeve were a different matter entirely… When a bee stings you, it gives off a chemical message which basically invites its pals to join in the festivities… This I needed to avoid, because I am allergic to bee and hornet stings and a few more stings in the same area would mean a very serious problem for me…!!

After a few minutes of sitting like a statue and muttering dark things about the insect world to myself, a few more bees crawled back out of my right sleeve, and flew off… I was only then able to flick the dying bee that was still attached to my wrist, off my arm… I managed to scrape the stinger out and then realized that I had better get going before my arm swelled too badly, and kicked the Big Fella back into gear and rode hard for the French border, past a long narrow lake and into the town of La Brevine…

Sure you are, Darling....!!!

I popped in and out of France like a jack-in-the-box...

Strange building on the way to Strasbourg...

The pain in my arm grew worse the longer I rode, and pulling on the front brake became a bit of a trial… With every twist of the throttle, laser beams of pain shot into my elbow and up into my shoulder… I still had more than 400 kms to ride to get to Luxembourg, and I knew that the rest of the day was going to be a mission…

We hammered on through Le Locle and on through the mountains to La Chaux-de-Fonds, and then began a painful series of twisting hairpin bends that had us climbing higher and higher up to the French border near Biaufond… The road on the French side was not any easier to ride with a rapidly swelling arm, not to mention the fact that it felt as though a small fire was burning in my sleeve…!!

To make matters even more interesting, it began to drizzle, and then rain… The roads became slippery, causing me to have a few hairy moments on some of the sharp bends… This had me feathering the front brake most of the time, with painful results… I stopped to put my rain jacket on and then pulled over in the village of Mathay to get out of the driving rain and take a break… It felt as though somebody was sawing through my wrist with a dull knife, and I considered looking for a pharmacy to get a quick anti-histamine jab…

“One jab a day is more than enough, thank you…” shouted the part of my brain that has a fear of needles, and the rest of me agreed immediately…

I rode onto the A36, and thundered north towards Strasbourg. I paid hardly any attention to the scenery on this part of the ride, stopped in Anould to refuel and then hopped straight back onto the bike and gave the throttle a savage twist in frustration at having to endure the pain in my wrist… That increased the pain even more, which made me even more frustrated…

Shortly after entering France, the weather closed in, making riding on the twisting roads a little tricky...

Not having the best of days....!!!

Lunchtime in Arnoud, France...

The highway skirted Nancy, and then Metz, before heading due north for the Luxembourg border… By the time we crossed over it, I was groaning into my helmet, wishing that the kilometres to my arrival at my friend Simon’s house, would count down quicker… But I was into traffic now, and a maddening set of roundabouts that had my right hand and wrist working hard… I had long ago lost feeling in the fingers on this hand and my response on the throttle was more than just a little impaired…

I pulled over under a bridge on the outskirts of Luxembourg City and punched in the address to Simon’s house, hoping it was somewhere very close… Thankfully, it was only a dozen kilometres away, and I was soon making my way down to the address which the Garmin Girl swore she knew…

Luxembpourg was in our sights at last...

“Arriving at destination on left” came through the earphones and I happily turned into one of the steepest driveways I had seen for a while… Turned out I was the wrong bloody house, didn’t it…?? I would have poked Gi-Gi in the left eye, had I not been engrossed in trying to stop myself and the Big Fella from falling over… Up above me, a patio door opened and a blond lady came over to the balcony and sweetly enquired why I was attempting to park my bike in her flowerbed…

A few deep breaths were required to still the urge to let loose with a loud scream…

“Is this number 25…?” I asked…

“No… It is number 17…” she replied…

“Is there someone here who can help steady the bike from behind, so that I can try and get out of your driveway without bringing your house down…?”

Will the REAL No: 25 please stand up...!! Simon's home in Steinsel, Luxembourg...

Her son ran down the stairs nearby and after much grunting, we managed to get the bike pointed back down the driveway and a few moments later, I pulled into the driveway of the REAL number 25…!! By now, cramp had taken over my right hand and I struggled to straighten my fingers enough to let go of the throttle… Simon came out to greet me, and did not notice the wince that crossed my face as we shook hands…

I was in serious need of a stiff drink to begin the pain dulling process, and before long, I was hard at work, reducing Simon’s stock of Scotch to zero as I went… Luckily he had a few other bottles of “medicinal” brandy that I was able to continue my “treatment” with… We enjoyed a braai out on the back patio, watching the full moon rise up into the night sky… I struggled to close my fingers over the handle of the knife as I cut through the meat that Simon had barbequed for us…

Red Wine was required to take my mind off this little problem… By midnight I wasn’t sure that I even had a right hand, let alone that I had been stung on it…

Medicine is a wonderful thing…

©GBWT 2010