"Henning Tveit" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:
I am going to spend more or less the whole of July
in/near Geneva
this
Quoted message said:summer, and I wouldn't like to be without a bike the whole
time. So, the short version, does anyone know:
1) How is the terrain in the area suited for biking?
(Mostly MTB I
guess,
Quoted message said:both for sight-seeing and training.)
2) Is it easy to rent a decent bike, or should I bring
my own?
Please take into consideration that this will be mostly
trips of hours-duration, not trekking for days, since I
will be busy 9-5 on workdays.
Any tips about biking in the area will be very
appreciated, thanks.
--
Henning
Well, I have a Geneva bike map in front of me, which their
Cycling Officer was distributing at a conference once, but
I've never cycled there. The map has a list of bike shops,
but none of them mention renting.
The town is tiny, and so, in fact, is the entire canton. You
can not only cycle out of the country in any direction, you
could probably walk. The immediate surroundings are fairly
flat, but at the border you hit the Jura mts on the west,
and Mont Saleve on the east.
The bike coordinator's name and e-mail is Claude Morel [email hidden]-
ge.ch, phone no listed as 022/418 42 00. He gives out the
maps, free, it says. I think it was him that I talked to,
and that he spoke fluent English. The bike map is just of
the town, not the entire canton. I should think something
like the correct French IGN 100 000 scale map would probably
show the surroundings pretty well - I don't know what Swiss
maps there are.
The map says that the the Touring Club Suisse, their
automobile club, has a local bike section, which does
rides., web site www.tcs.ch, phone no of the Geneva section
022/735 46 53. It also lists some user groups, ATE, Aspic,
and IG-Velo, web sites www.ate-ge.ch www.aspic.ch/aspic
www.igvelo.ch
I have a guide book, published in England, Cassini and
Lamory, Haute-savoie and Mont-Blanc, Two Heads publishing,
1994. The closest rides to Geneva that it gives are a couple
along the top of Mont Saleve. It says, "The Grand Piton de
Saleve (1379m) is the high point of this ridge which
overlooks the Genovese basin. The entire range is suitable
for mountain biking and offers wonderful views of Annemasse,
Geneva, le Jura, and in the distance, Mont Blanc. I don't
know whether the cable car takes bikes, but that's almost
after-work distance.
I hope this helps
Jeremy Parker
