Story of my tour through 7 countries in Europe

Camping Pré de Hon
Baccarat, France
19 July 2013

After a good night sleep I woke up 6 in the morning and was eager to get out on the road. The day before was rather easy on the legs and the scenery, save in the morning, wasn't too appealing either. The night before I had outlined this day's route, which would take me out of Lorraine and into the Vosges massif. I couldn't wait to tackle my first proper mountains. I forgot to mention that the shower on this camping was a-fucking-mazing. profound temperature adjustability, quality water beam, loads of space, sufficient hangers, a small bench that didn't get wet and most important: It was extremely clean.
Just before 7:00 I was in the saddle, ready to push my ass up some Ballons. No need for wind jacket, arm or leg warmers promised a warm day. I like warm, so that was only a good thing!

The first mountain of the day!

I think I was at about 200 m when I started that climb and it wasn't even steep, but it's a col nonetheless. Worth a photo.

Nice tarmac, blue sky and hills in sight. Everything got better from here on. It required some self-restraint not to pedal too hard though, as I wanted to actually climb something. However, I took it easy because enough road remained to cover.

This beautiful barn and TdF decoration, announcing an upcoming col, made me smile.

And the col itself.. Nothing special really, but after a petite descent the road started to elevate.

On top of that next hill was a beautiful quiet pond. I sat down for a bit and ate a banana or two.

My arrival in Haute-Saône made me shiver in a positive way. Real altitude couldn't be faw anymore.

Indeed it didn't take long to arrive at a proper mountain. The sun was hot and frankly the dense vegetation didn't throw its shadow very far. At this point it was about 32 degrees and I enjoyed every bit of it. Blowing drops off the tip of my nose felt satisfactory and sweat dripping down my balls even more.
About halfway up the Ballon de Servance, this Frenchman overtook me with a brief "bonjour". It was my pledge to keep up with him. I didn't want to go into his wheel, because I probably couldn't return the favour and at our speed it wouldn't really make a difference anyway. So I went in persuit with a few meters of distance in between us. Not did we ride very fast, but carrying up all that luggage didn't make it much easier either. What I didn't know was that the steepest part of the climb was yet to come. After a little more than a km of pursuit, I shifted into the smallest chainring and raised my cadance. The guy in front of me still had a spare cog while I was inhaling wasps at a swift rate. When I was about to give up the road started to get easier on me. Not enough to recover, but at least I was able to keep going. At the top I was exhausted. I wanted to follow this guy down, but he was out of sight before I knew it, and probably for the better. I took a while at the summit to drink some and freely spin my legs before I went for the descent.

The descent was beautiful and a good opportunity to put the handling of my packed bike and its tires to the test. I noticed this sign, which says it's prohibited for cars to travel these roads. More than halfway down, luckily on a straight part, I ran into a car. The Dutch couple in it didn't know they werent allowed to drive there. Obliged by my advise they turned around. I should've asked them for some water, mine was running out.

Not too afar there was some running, but even if there was an easy way to get there, which there wasn't, I was at low altitude. You never know what's in that water.

I started the climb toward La Planche Des Belles Filles, but I was tired, still had about 35 km to go and didn't have more than a few gulps of water left. I turned around with a grimace. It was a despisable moment, for I had very much looked forward to climbing up there. I had to get going and find something to drink rather soon than late. Luckily the road was in a slight decline from there onward.

Almost down in the valley I passed a small loggers village with some cute wooden sculprutes. The campsite shouldn't be far. But I couldn't find it. At a garage I asked the way, where they told me I had to go back up the road a few km and take a left. I remembered the road, but didn't think it would lead to anywhere when I passed it the first time. Dehydrated I rode back 6 or 7 km, the 1% grade killed me. I took the left into a forrest and found a restaurant. I decided to sit down and recover before my continuing to the camping. With the grumpy old barman I ordered a big coke and sat down on the dirty terrace. Only three more older men were there, obnoxiously staring at me. Never seen a brown fella in lycra before? I couldn't care the slightest bit. I was just happy to sit on a chair with my legs up and a cold beverage in my hand.

10 minutes later I was on my way. I passed a lake where I spotted this little creature taking full advantage of the shimmering sun. I think it's a beautiful photo.

When I had reached the camping, I was welcomed by a dirty woman in her late 20's. She and her also hippy-like boyfriend ran the place and so extremely friendly that I didn't mind their dirty, worn clothes and missing teeth. I asked how much for a single night with just my bike and a small tent. It seemed to me it was the first time they had a cyclist tourer around as the girl didn't know and turned to him. He pondered for a while before telling me that €3 would suffice, but they wouldn't accept my money before I had found a nice place and set up camp. I walked around and found the campsite to be a bit messy with many old rusty caravans and unattended foliage all over the place. I put up my tent on the least bumpy pitch I could find and just sat there in the grass for a while. Then I went over to the decayed sanitary building, where the camping owners were playing with a hose and spraying eachother. They then also told me that it was a natural camping. I didn't know what that meant so he explained that they didn't have electricity or warm water. I hate cold showers, especially with tense muscles after a demanding ride. But hey, can't have it all right? Fuck that water was below freezing point! I just couldnt do it so I only washed some parts of my body. Back at my tent I decided it was time to pay for the night and find a supermarket. The camping owners were nowhere to be found, so I hit the road and followed a sign to some big store where I stocked up on water, fanta, coke, crackers (as they were out of bread!?), eggs, apricots and a can of something with chicken.

On the edge of this lake I sat down on a pile of rocks and enjoyed a well earned dinner, after which I made another lap about the campsite to find the owners, without success. Time to brush my teeth, quickly plan the next day's route and sleep like the dead.

Baccarat - Champagney
138.9 km
1702 m