After making very little progress on Wednesday and Thursday through the Vosges mountains I’ve decided to take a different route. 

Going up the hills on the trail was mostly ok – but the lack of front suspension made me have to dismount and walk on all the long steep downhill sections (too many exposed roots and big rocks). At some point I calculated an avg speed of 5.6mph!

Yesterday I tried again for a couple of hours but having made only 12km I realized it would take me weeks.

Found a different route around- I’ll catch the trail again in Valence

Slow moving river on a small plateau in the mountains ..

Had to take the paved road down around one of the MTB sections (Mountain Bike)…

Town hall in a small mountain village

Even in small villages they have huge churches ..

Thursday I stayed in Belfort – really cute provincial town with a nice downtown square …

Families and kids hanging out in the evening

Yesterday I changed route and decided to take the EuroVelo 6 trail to Chalon-sur-Saône so to stay mostly on a bike path and off the main roads. EV 6 trail is a long trail going across Europe from the Atlantic coast to the Black Sea.

This section of the trail follows the Doubs river through canyons and fields ..

Today was extremely hot – was difficult to keep cool even when biking

Had to get two ice creams …

Even the cows were getting in the water …

Great when the trail was in the shade under the trees

noticed that many of the smaller village churches has a roundish top covered with tiles in this region …

Made it to Besançon in the evening …

Another nice provincial town ..