I will be there for the 1st two weeks of April. Any advice on places to run, rent a bike or maybe swim although much prefer
to ride?
Is it too early to be riding the high mountains. Would the TDF stages be rideable ?
http://www.letour.fr/2009/TDF/COURSE/us/1500/etape_par_etape.html
http://www.letour.fr/2009/TDF/COURSE/us/1600/etape_par_etape.html
I will be staying in Plan Les Ouates, just outside of Geneva.
thanks for any advice and suggestions.
If you have your wetsuit with you you could swim in the lake. There’s also a nice 50m outdoor pool by the lakeside, although not sure it will be open as early as April.
Bikewise, I’m afraid I don’t know where you’d rent a good one, I was in Geneva for a while but picked up a secondhand bike to use. If you can find one, then the mountains will definitely be passable in April unless there’s been fresh snow and even then they’d clear the roads pretty quickly. Cycling out from Geneva, the Jura mountains are pretty close by, and you can go up the Col de la Faucille which is occasionally featured in the TdF. If you have a car and are prepared to go a bit further afield then Alpe D’Huez is a couple of hours away, obviously being that much higher it’s going to be pretty chilly up there at the moment, particularly on the descent. If you want a flatter ride that is easy to navigate then just go along the side of the lake - east side takes you out through Thonon and Evian, West side is less picturesque but still a nice ride. A circumnavigation of the lake is doable in the day at 100 miles plus change. Another really nice area to ride is the wine regions to the south and west of the city, or a bit further out down near Lake Annecy to the south.
Runwise, the easiest thing to do navigationally is to just follow the lake again. On the west side you can run out towards the airport, I used to do a nice little loop that took in the botanical gardens, the UN, the US Embassy, and the airport.
When I was there in 05 I just either ran around the lake or along the Rhone - this way it was hard to get lost. BTW, If this is your first visit to Geneva you will just love it. It is a very beuatiful yet moden city, also the people are great. Chamonix is about a 45 minute bus ride away - a highly recommend visiting Chamonix if your schedule allows.
Dave in Va
I second the plan of riding in the Jura mountains. At 10K long the Col de Faucille is plenty long and you can do several 5-10K long climbs in a long ride in the Jura, which frankly I find much more interesting for real world age groupers than doing a couple of 10-20K climbs on a long mountain laden ride especially early in the year. I imagine that even in April there will be snow when you ride through the Parc Nationale de Jura on the French side.
I was there at the end of May last year and swam at an outdoor 50m pool in Divonne on the French side. From there the Col de Faucille is a short ride away. Frankly I think Divonne would be a really nice place for a tri camp. Good mountains, flats, rollers, trail running, 50m outdoor pool and open water swimming in Lake Geneva. Also, a good Thai restaurant in the town square!
thanks for the tips! For running is it easy enough from where I am staying or are there trails and places to run that is are fairly traffic free and safe?
I love climbing so the more grueling the better, I will see about riding from Geneva for 1-2 days and then maybe get public transport or car rental to go out to Alpe D’Huez or something similar.
@ DC Pattie - yeah I can’t wait to get there!
@ Dev , thanks for the ideas!
I am coming from California so I have been able to do a good bit of climbing already this year. Maybe do a mixture
of 1-2 days in Jura mountains and head for one of the famous Col’s like the Alpe D’Huez. My main concern would be
if the roads are rideable in the high mountains although it looks like the bike rental place at the Alpe opens on April 1
so it may be ok.