Annecy <OT>

[Dave Blizard]

Hi all,

Heading to Annecy France today. Any recommendations on renting a bike? Groups to join for a spin? Resources regrading routes?

Riding there looks amazing and will be bringing some gear in case things work out with finding a bike.

Cheers,

D

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Dave Blizard

[Mark Kahn]

Mission goes to the French Alps every year and sometimes works in an Annecy ride.  See https://www.strava.com/activities/642814999.  Take a look at Dylan's rides from July of every year.

[Keith Whitwell]

The etap route around the lake and up semnoz is a pretty good ride.

Best suggestion is to buy one of the paper top100 maps and search out the green squiggles indicating scenic roads, string them together in a loop.

[Guilherme Germoglio]

this guy lives in that area and writes a few nice reports about his rides http://www.cycling-challenge.com/?s=annecy

[Faye]

Hey Dave,

I spent a week in Annecy cycling when I first started road biking (and I lived in France for 7 years before that).

I will have to be quick for now because I am behind the 8 ball with school, but a few quick comments:

-seems like aI have a few ride son strava in August 9-15 2010 when I went (though somehow not all of the rides I did...). A few of the famous cols are accessible- from Flumet (better to lop off the miles to get to it) I did col de saisies followed by cormet de roseland (with an interlude in beaufort which has the awesome beaufort cheese)- those were fabulous climbs. Another famous one I did is a loop from annecy including col des aravis. That one was busy in my memory. Some of the famous cols in the tour are ski stations and very busy tourist destinations so they have a steady stream of cars.  I liked the smaller cols that are not in the tour and are not as well known- MUCH more peaceful. e.g. col des leschaux. I did a lot of noodling from where i was staying. Yo ucan't relaly go wrong- once you are out of town, just follow signs to navigate to points away, and then follow signs back to annecy. I did not have any gps or system of navigating but once out of town it is the countryside and you just arbitrarily make turns and see what looks good and climb some stuff and when you have had enough, follow signs back to annecy.. 

-here is the best bike shop (it is not right in town, you will have to drive to it but the only real/serious shop): https://www.dvelos.com/

-do NOT rent from roule ma poule in town.  They are HORRIBLE.

-be warned that traffic in and around town (all around the lake) is wretched. there is a single ring road, so there is exactly one way to get anywhere. you are best off taking the bus. But from a cycling perspective, this means you have an unfortunate choice between the cycle path full of pedestrians, idiots, bikes, skate thingies, etc (picture the GGB scene) as well as lots of bollards, or the road where there is mostly not a real bike lane (not in and of itself necessarily problematic) with bumper to bumper traffic.  So if you are out in that very early in the AM, you can probably ride as fast as the cars and it will go well. if you are out during traffic, it will be painful. I guess the path is the best bet then.

-Sevrier is a nicer part of the lake and a bit less hectic.

-here is a local bike club: http://www.velo-club-annecy.fr/

-if you don't have other options for renting, you can prob arrange for something from switzerland (I think there is a swiss company that delivers bike rentals and Annecy is very close to Geneva). That wouldn;t be cheap, but really, do not rent from that horrible joke of a tourst trap in town.

-there is a nice outdoor 50m municipal pool right down town and it is super cheap to get in (this is true of all french municipal pools). they may require speedo style suits and or swim caps (I can;t recall, it varies by pool).  They often have vending machines where you can buy these things if you didn;t bring them.

-nowadays with strava and all of the gps stuff, I am sure you can find loads of rides on strava and or ridewithgps and if you have a fancy garmin, download to it and navigate.

Have an awesome time! Wish I were going there and not stuck in New Haven Connecticut!!!

F

[Dave Blizard]

Thanks everyone for the insight. It's an incredibly beautiful place. Looking forward to finding a bike and exploring!!

Cheers

D

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Dave Blizard

[Dave Blizard]

A quick recap.

I managed to find a decent road bike at a rental place located in Annecy. Most places in town rented only cruiser style bikes and it was a bit difficult to find a proper road bike. The details of the shop are here:

Cyclable

8 Place aux Bois, 74000 Annecy, France

It's funny as Cyclable had other shops in town that did not carry road bikes. It took quite a bit of asking around before I found out they had road bikes only at this specific location.

Note: I did bring my helmet, pedals, shoes, and kit. The only thing that I forgot was a hex wrench but the shop was fine to let me borrow theirs.

I did the classic ride around the lake along with a slight detour to add a small climb. Luckily a friend of a friend took me out and showed me the route. My Garmin was in a constant state of "Working..." for much of the ride, but the last bit was captured on Strava. Really beautiful place to ride and there were so many cyclists enjoying the weather and scenery!

Along the way, we stopped at a shop bASECAMP and we chatted with the owner. He's just setting up a business here after spending the past few years launching Rapha in Asia. He was super knowledgeable and enthusiastic about his new venture. They are marketing some Tours and Events which look really amazing! They also rent some really nice bikes!

Cheers,

Dave

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Dave Blizard

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dave blizard  ||  founder: casa xixim  ||  twitter: blizzzz

[Patrick Lea]

Before a time zone change it is good to clear your Garmin of its history. Otherwise they all update and it is pretty screwy. Note this will happen again when you come home. I still just turn it on at some point and let it do it's business then later when I want to actually use it things go better.

[Dave Blizard]

Thanks for the tip. Yup that sounds like what it was doing. The odd bit was that it started up normally but then I took a coffee break and it powered off due to non use. When I turned it back on it went into the "waiting..." mode. Wish it would have just done the time zone stuff at the start. 

D

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Dave Blizard

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dave blizard  ||  founder: casa xixim  ||  twitter: blizzzz

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Dave Blizard