So I took the bike out for the first time this year yesterday.  Sara was off to Annecy to sell some Mulebars, the sun was shining, it was reasonably warm (well, 8 or 9 degrees) so I decided to join her and take the (shhh) road bike out.It was the ideal first ride out – fairly flat, quiet, sunshine and so on. A lap of the lake is just under 40k. Perfect.So I set off from Annecy and rode around the lake. Got back to town in time to meet Sara for a Coffee & galette for lunch in the sun. Next to the canal. No hoards of tourists like the summer. Hard life eh!?Then came the not so great ride – I decided to ride to Bonneville to meet up with Sara after her afternoon meetings. On paper it’s a fairly straight forward ride. Adding 34k on to the morning ride, only a small col to climb over (Col d’Eviris 811m) – so barely 400m of climbing.  However, somewhat naievely, I did not expect it to be such a busy road: Trucks and cars forcing me over to the rough side of the road; cars travelling at 60-80mph, overtaking etc etc. Not much fun. To make it even less good was the fact that under the fast retreating snow there was just dank brown fields surrounding run down villages. Not a road I’d recommend to anyone.I can now see why the roadies go for the harder option of climbing over the Colombiere. Sadly not an option until June 
And even better – if I’d have looked at a map a bit closer – the Petit Bornand pass isn’t much higher than the Eviris and would have been a whole lot nicer.Next time…
