Tuesday, 10 September 2019

Day 5- St Helene du Lac to Vizille, 41 miles

The forecast was for rain today but it was dry when we got up and stayed dry all the way to Vizille, it was fairly cool, about 15 degrees but pretty good for cycling.  

I had originally planned to start the day off by going along the D923 which had a cycle lane alongside it, but it seemed really busy last night so we took a detour along some farm tracks which were of variable  quality but ended up giving us a great traffic free route to Pontcharra where our breakfast was far better than Sandra's face would suggest.





After crossing over the river we joined a waymarked cycle route along a series of tarmac farm roads which were reserved for pedestrians, cyclists and farm traffic.  I wasn't expecting much from today's route as it was running parallel to the motorway and railway line but we were far enough away that you never noticed them.  It was great rolling along on empty roads with a  variety of crops from maize, lentils, orchards, wee appley things which Sandra correctly guessed were walnuts and some big leafy things which we still don't know what they were.  There were also a mildly alarming number of guys with guns wandering around, but they claimed they were just hunting pheasants. All of this with the huge cliffs of the Bauges Massif directly above us.



After a lunch stop at St Nazaire les Eymes our route took us on the cycle route, initially through an industrial area but soon on to the banks of the Isere until we reached the outskirts of Grenoble.  Rather than go through the city of Grenoble we turned off over the pass to Uriage les Bains.  This involved a bit of climbing on a fairly busy road but there was a decent enough cycle lane at the side of it



Uriage les Bains is a quaint wee spa town, Sandra thought it was somewhere Edward Whymper would have stayed, I thought it looked it looked like Strathpeffer.

As it was only another 6 miles downhill to our campsite a beer was in order.  The last few miles were again on quiet side roads.  We got pitched up just as the rain started, but it doesn't seem too bad so time for a shower then into town for our tea

https://www.strava.com/activities/2696165538

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