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Lac Léman

Club member Ian Collins recently moved to Geneva. Since then, he's ridden some of the sport's greatest routes. In his latest article, Ian goes training around Lake Geneva. This is no mean feat since it is Europe's largest lake. With vineyards and views of Mont Blanc, it makes for a picturesque ride. Ian explains more...

I spent the festive period back in the UK re-acquainting myself with British “chocolate” (though the Swiss resolutely refuse to accept that heated-up sugar and vegetable fat in the form of Dairy Milk is in fact chocolate) and returned to Geneva somewhat above my racing weight. No problem, I thought to myself, sign up for the club training camp in Alicante and work off those extra kilos in the company of your new clubmates. However, when it became clear that the camp involved the PEV team car and a masseuse who used to work for the CSC pro team, I realised that I might need to do some pre-work just to survive. While it felt a bit like dusting the house to avoid embarrassment before the cleaner comes, I thought I would save myself a lot of pain if I turned up in Spain at least able to hang on the back until the hills started.

In this frame of mind, I noted with interest on the club website (www.pev-geneve.ch) that the PEV boys were going off on a New Year tour round the whole of Lake Geneva at a moderate pace and imagined this was just what I needed to kick-start my 2005 training regime. Ok, at 170km, this was perhaps more than I had anticipated for my first group outing of the year but since the training camp was at the end of February, I thought I didn’t have too much time to get up to speed. So with some trepidation, I headed off for the rendez-vous at the Geneva tip of the lake (or “lac Léman” to the locals).

I arrived to find just three other Pévistes and a couple from another club – apparently many felt it was too long a distance at this stage in their training. Gulp, what was I letting myself in for?

Thankfully, the weather was truly glorious. The sun was shining brightly and the snow covered mountain peaks which surround the city looked magnificent in the clear blue sky. Mercifully however, we wouldn’t be going over any of them as the route round the lake was pretty much flat – so flat that one of the guys with us remarked to me that the tour du lac was as much a mental as a physical challenge owing to the somewhat monotonous roads we would be pedalling along.

Everybody seemed to have lots of food stuffed into their jerseys and I imagined a couple of stops along the way, perhaps to take in the lakeside vistas at Lausanne or Montreux which are both to the east of Geneva. How wrong I was, as I later found out.

We set off at a more than reasonable 30kp/h and maintained this speed for the entire trip. It was pretty windless and with the flat terrain I felt pretty comfortable as long as I didn’t have to do too much work at the front. Thankfully, one couple did the first 90kms without a break…. Along the way we passed several cyclists out on training sessions in the beautiful weather and one or two tagged onto our bunch for a chat. A few seemed to know other PEV cyclists and asked about them while others just wanted some company. One guy ended up doing the entire route with us.

My French still has some way to go to put it mildly but I was managing to chat as we went round – it appears that there are one or two at most in the club who can speak English, though in a way I am quite glad of this as it forces me to speak French. The ride itself was pretty uneventful in most part. I was concentrating on conserving energy so as not to get dropped half way round but did manage to enjoy the sun on my face and the fantastic views on offer. The road we were on pretty much skirts the lake the whole way round save for one small section and thanks to the motorway between Lausanne and Geneva, for the most part it was quiet. In any event, motorists seem to respect cyclists much more over here. Even in France, where car drivers are noticeably more reckless than the Swiss, you are usually given a wide birth and it is not unusual to get some words of encouragement. There are even roadside signs emblazoned with “Respectez les cyclistes” on part of the route.

As we passed Lausanne at about the 75km mark, I began to suspect that stopping to enjoy a sandwich was not going to be on the agenda. Leaving Montreux at the 90km mark, I was sure of it. The others were all regularly tucking into energy bars and sandwiches while on the move and I decided that I should do the same to make sure the dreaded bonk didn’t hit me for the stupid reason of not having eaten because I was waiting for a break.

As we left Switzerland and cycled onto the French side of the lake, we unfortunately lost the sun behind high mountains and the first signs of fatigue started to strike. This was my first really long ride for a few weeks and as I got colder I also started to feel a bit numb. Unfortunately, we had also found ourselves in an increasingly tough headwind and volunteers for being in the front somewhat mysteriously vanished. We were down to six people and since two had already done 90kms out front, it felt churlish to hang back and force them to take over again. Consequently, I found myself taking regular turns at the front just when I was starting to feel tired and hungry. It didn’t help that I was being defeated psychologically by the apparent ease with which everyone else was riding – it’s amazing how other riders never try to let their discomfort show, even on training rides. But then again, these guys were simply better than me.

Nevertheless, I did manage to stuff a couple of fig bars down me and as we came into the last 30kms or so and the Swiss border got closer, some added strength appeared from seemingly nowhere. I have to say I was pretty pleased with myself as we made our way back into central Geneva, even if the thought of an eyeballs-out sprint at the end made me shudder. The more I cycle, the more I realise how tough the elite riders are….

By the time I got home my computer read 176km at an average speed of 29km/h in something around 6 hours, exactly the kind of base training I needed, even if I was a bit too knackered at the end. I’d read somewhere that at the end of a base training session you should feel fresh enough to go and do it all again. Bollocks to that!