Cycling trip blog

Going for old school approach and writing a short blog post on my recent cycling trip to the Vosges mountains. It was clear from the pretty limited number of cyclists I saw plus the tiny number of club mates and friends on the strava segments that this part of world is not well known. Which is crazy because its an amazing area for riding and a great alternative to the Alps (and arguably its better than the Alps). Logistics. Its about 5.5-6 hour drive from Calais depending on where you go to. I opted for getting a ~7pm Eurotunnel on a Friday evening, so I could leave London late afternoon. I drove around 2.5 hours Friday night from Calais to Reims staying in a super-budget hotel (F1/Ibis etc), leaving 3.5 hours to drive Saturday morning. This worked quite well, arriving at lunchtime leaving plenty of time for a medium length arrival day ride. For the return I left at lunchtime (after a modest departure day ride) and did the drive in one day catching a Friday evening ferry. I went for the ferry back because it was significantly (~£100) cheaper and didn't need the flexibility that Eurotunnel give you - driving in France on uncongested roads you have far more certainty on driving time compared to a UK journey. Slower crossing meant more of a break before the drive home from Dover, and arriving home at around 11pm instead of 10pm was fine. Yes you can get to quite a lot of places in 9-10 hours door-to-door travelling time from London, but simplicity of putting bike in own car and not having hassle of putting bike in case, stress of whether airline will lose or damage it etc. is easily worth several hours of travel time, and meant I did decent arrival day and departure day rides. And driving long distances in France on toll roads is easy driving albeit often a bit boring. Location I chose Gérardmer. Mainly based on recommendations in the comments section of a 9 year old blog post about La Planche des Belle Filles https://inrng.com/2013/10/planche-des-belle-filles-climb-tour-de-france/. Being next to the lake was nice for alternatives to cycling, swimming, SUP, kayak etc. If you want to ride La Planche des Belle Filles (and you should) then you don't want to be any further north than Gérardmer, unless more than 140km and 2,800m vertical ride is no problem for you. The riding The area is 'medium' mountains, with the highest peak (Grand Balloon) about 1,400m and +950m climbing. This means lots of 5-8km climbs with only a handful of long (10km+ ) climbs. Typical gradients are 5-8%, but no sustained 10%+ climbing. The big advantage over the Alps is the wide choice of roads. Also many of the climbs are well shaded which was nice in the hot sunny weather. My riding (my strava account is set to request to follow but these rides are posted as viewable to everyone) Schlucht and Lacets de Bramont https://www.strava.com/activities/7670281944 Ballon d'Alsace https://www.strava.com/activities/7676362236 Col d'Oderen and Lacets de Bramont https://www.strava.com/activities/7676362236 Super Planches des belles filles https://www.strava.com/activities/7686460374 Grand and Petit Ballon https://www.strava.com/activities/7698193946 Col d'Oderen loop reverse https://www.strava.com/activities/7702146743 With hindsight I would have explored west of Cornimont a bit more. Also would have been good to try the Col de Brabant to reduce the number of times riding the relatively dull (and touch busy) road from Cornimont to La Bresse. But overall very happy with my route choices