09-08-2018, 09:34 AM
Friday dawned - we packed up, after a quick shower and clean of teeth we were off.
I had arranged to meet a long standing friend (Jean-Luc) at his home in Megeve that night. Jean Luc had been picked up, whilst hitch-hiking, by another friend (Tim Bartlett) in his racing chummy and the two had travelled around the UK for a few week in the car together before visiting my parents and staying there in 1986. We had been close friends ever since and after a four year gap I was looking forward to seeing him.
I had chosen to retard the ignition slightly, the electronic distributor is incredibly sensitive to timing but when correct runs smooth, so smooth that I think I had too much advance - this was the final setting of the trip and proved excellent for the tour. Singing continued!
With little other choice we drove through the very centre of Macon without issue and the same with Bourg en Bresse. French towns are almost always circumnavigated by a large fast road and the centre, with it's many (many!) speed bumps, traffic lights and change of priority junctions can actually be quite quiet. Progress is slow but steady. At last we start to see signs of mountains, stopping for a picnic beneath the shade of a large tree we enjoyed the vista towards Annecy.
We wove our way through busy Annecy hugging the the turquoise lake, keen to avoid the busy roads leaving the popular and pretty city I headed up into the mountains and over the Col du Aravis - this is a short, but steep, Col and the car was soon in first gear. Climbing continued at a steady but slow pace as we wound the hairpins before eventually reaching the top and onto an Alpine meadow.
Travelling back down into the valley we once again found ourselves in first gear to prevent runaway - the houses changed in chalets and cyclists sped past at breakneck speeds. Cow bells filled the air and once again we were climbing - Flumet passed in a steep sided water filled valley and soon we were at Jean-Luc's. The car and we had come some 740 miles in three and a half long days - the longest sustained pull of the trip - and we all needed a rest. On his veranda overlooking the mountains Jean-Luc passed me a cold beer, I accepted!
I had arranged to meet a long standing friend (Jean-Luc) at his home in Megeve that night. Jean Luc had been picked up, whilst hitch-hiking, by another friend (Tim Bartlett) in his racing chummy and the two had travelled around the UK for a few week in the car together before visiting my parents and staying there in 1986. We had been close friends ever since and after a four year gap I was looking forward to seeing him.
I had chosen to retard the ignition slightly, the electronic distributor is incredibly sensitive to timing but when correct runs smooth, so smooth that I think I had too much advance - this was the final setting of the trip and proved excellent for the tour. Singing continued!
With little other choice we drove through the very centre of Macon without issue and the same with Bourg en Bresse. French towns are almost always circumnavigated by a large fast road and the centre, with it's many (many!) speed bumps, traffic lights and change of priority junctions can actually be quite quiet. Progress is slow but steady. At last we start to see signs of mountains, stopping for a picnic beneath the shade of a large tree we enjoyed the vista towards Annecy.
We wove our way through busy Annecy hugging the the turquoise lake, keen to avoid the busy roads leaving the popular and pretty city I headed up into the mountains and over the Col du Aravis - this is a short, but steep, Col and the car was soon in first gear. Climbing continued at a steady but slow pace as we wound the hairpins before eventually reaching the top and onto an Alpine meadow.
Travelling back down into the valley we once again found ourselves in first gear to prevent runaway - the houses changed in chalets and cyclists sped past at breakneck speeds. Cow bells filled the air and once again we were climbing - Flumet passed in a steep sided water filled valley and soon we were at Jean-Luc's. The car and we had come some 740 miles in three and a half long days - the longest sustained pull of the trip - and we all needed a rest. On his veranda overlooking the mountains Jean-Luc passed me a cold beer, I accepted!