French Alps 2026 Day 9: Cluses to Geneva

Last riding day! A short one, but we kept to the regular schedule anyway: 7:00 wakeup, I had a quick bite from my bag of supplies, and then the wrangling of the bikes out of the hotel’s underground storage garage.

First stop was a chain bakery, Boulangerie Ange. Harald got a coffee and ordered me a croissant, and came back with four. He’s perfectly capable of ordering one coffee and one croissant in French, so something else was going on. A special, maybe? We never found out. All four were mine, since he can’t eat a butter based pastry. So sad!

Then we crossed the Arve, which we’d be following all the way to Geneva. Fun fact: the Arve doesn’t flow into Lake Geneva at all. It joins the Rhône about a mile downstream of where the Rhône leaves the lake. A genuine geographic quirk.

So the plan was to stick with the river on whatever was available: commuter paths, gravel trails through nature reserves, and roads when we had to.

A few random closures forced some rerouting, but the whole area is well stocked with biking alternatives, so it was never a problem. The big A40 highway stayed on the other side of the river the whole time, and we steered clear of the noise and traffic.

As we got close to Geneva we found ourselves on the same multi use path we’d left the city on a week ago. We could also see the summit of our first climb (the Col des Pitons), which on that day was up in the clouds. Today, no clouds.

Our actual destination was a pizza place called Dieci in Eaux-Vives, known for good vegan options. We arrived hungry, about five minutes after they opened at 11:00. Six vegan pizzas on the menu, so we each picked one. Harald went with porcini (and some other mushrooms, I think). Mine was roasted vegetables: peppers, zucchini, eggplant.

Then, tragedy. The first pizza they made for me came out with dairy cheese on it by mistake, so we had to wait an extra three minutes for the correct one. They let me keep the cheesy one too. So we were flush with pizza. We walked across the street with the bikes and three pizza boxes to a little park and celebrated the end of the trip in the sun.

With the extra pizza factored in, we both ended up carrying leftovers. Dang!

There was time for a bit of tourism, so we went and got our picture with the big Jet d’Eau.

After that we went our separate ways. Harald had a train to catch back to Germany, and I had to get to my hotel by the airport and start packing the bike for tomorrow’s long day of flying.

I had a little free time and wasn’t sure my room would be ready, so I rode around Geneva a bit more. Here are two shots of my bike leaning against things.

And…

After checking in I took about an hour and a half to prepare the bike. No hurry. I enjoyed the process, in a sort of therapeutic way.

The rest of the afternoon was spent lazing about, listening to music and chatting with Liz. At about 8:30pm (7 hrs after his train left) I got word from Harald that he was on his last leg, a fairly short bus ride from Schorndorf to Welzheim. He was, of course, fully prepared to ride it.

Tomorrow I’ll either walk or take the hotel shuttle to the airport, bike in tow. Then a flight to Amsterdam, a dangerously short connection (55 minutes), and a flight to Detroit. I have a much more generous connection there, and if it all goes to plan I’ll be in Madison by 9:15pm or so.

Today’s stats: 35 miles, negligible climbing (680 ft) and about 3h30m of riding. A good wind-down day!