September 18: It seems that I have a day on every trip when my optimism and enthusiasm outweigh my normally conservative approach to touring. Today was one such day. Before leaving the hotel in Lausanne, I noticed that the bike was low on oil. I found a Honda dealer not far from the hotel and the guy took the bike in, gave it a once-over and then topped up the oil for 6 Euro. A kind gesture, and it restored my faith in mankind.
I left along the shore of Lac Leman toward Geneva and at Nyon, turned inland and immediately got lost. I found a taxi garage and the guy was headed out on a call so he led the way to the route I was trying to find. Score: Mankind 2 Failure 0. The pass over the Jura was really nice. It was pretty and with not a lot of traffic, I started to make good time. All of this put me in an optimistic mood, and I started thinking unrealistically about how much ground I could cover during the day, and I mentally picked a town that was really too far for my own good.
I was following a “tourist map” for motorcyclists put out by the Doubs region. A great idea but the map was essentially hand-drawn and had some roads that were not numbered, and towns that seemed to be in the wrong place (according to my infallible internal compass). So the navigating was a pain in the ass, and it took most of the afternoon to cover a relatively short distance. At this point, a sensible person might have decided to look for a hotel and call it a day, but I was committed and, to make up some time, I got on the Auto Route and wailed up toward Mulhouse.
When the Auto Route became tolled, I got off and tried to follow a cross country route to a pass over the Ballon d’Alsace and, of course, got lost again. had optimistically decided to see if I could reach Thann in Alsace. I’ve stayed in a hotel in the centre of town that’s quite nice but it was a huge gamble whether they would have a room when I arrived.
At this point, there was a huge thunder storm dead ahead and I was pretty sure that I would get soaked before Thann. But, by sheer luck, I found the pass and landed at the hotel. Of course, they had no rooms left. There is one other hotel in town, definitely a step down, but they did have a room and it was fine for the night. It looked like nobody was recently murdered there, and the commuter trains passing by the window didn’t keep me awake.
All in: 300 km, the longest day of the trip so far. Hot, exhausted, stinking and in need of a shower and a glass of vino, my self-imposed ordeal is over. But at least I avoided the rain. Ain’t travel great ?