Trying Mountainbiking

A few months after I started at CERN I was invited to a welcome session for new staff and fellows. One of the coworkers I met there, Nathalie, turns out to be an avid mountain biker. Ever since I wanted to join her in one of her tours around the Swiss and French countryside. I really enjoyed biking about the backwoods in Nova Scotia. When moving to Vancouver though I was too chicken to deal with the very real mountains. Over the past years it seems I have grown more confident in my abilities. A couple of years ago I joined my climbing buddy Chris in cycling around the Heartland trails by Mount Work. Ever since I have been toying with the idea of getting back into mountain biking, so I am happy to have somebodies coat tails to hang onto.

After trying to pick up used bikes, a hard task for somebody my size, I finally gave in and just rented a mountain bike in Geneva ($18 for the day at Geneva Roule). From there I cycled out to meet Nathalie in St Genis. She knows the area well and does this a lot so I depended on her to set a route. We headed up to the Le Tiocande. From there we took a beautiful, flat dirt-road over to Crozet. At Crozet we climbed up to the ridge of the Jura. At this point I started having trouble keeping up with my avid guide. After some lunch with a beautiful view of Geneva and the Alps we continued along the ridge line to the Col de la Fussile. A beautiful ride with the French countryside to the left and a view of Geneva, the lake and the Alps to the right. We cycled down the road from the pass and through the countryside from Gex to Previssin. There we stopped for a coffee and some pastries.

After that fantastic (albeit exhausting) day of biking I really want to get a mountain bike. For a guy my size (196cm, or 6'5")  it is really hard to find a used bike. I am monitoring the local used stuff slites: anibis, leboncoin, glocals, and the CERN market. There is also the biking forum pinkbike. And Nathalie and my coworker Tim suggested the following three sites for a new bike: bike-alm, bikesportworld, and chainreactioncycles. Nathalie pointed out that currently the 2014 models are being cleared for the 2015 ones, so not may be a good time to grab a bike ... let's see how it goes. I think a mountain bike set up for touring would be a fantastic way to explore Switzerland, for example there is a trail between Geneva and Davos, here.