For some time I had planned to do this route using the trains. I noticed that there was a train from a place called Romainmôtier back to Aigle which was part of the local travel network which means that the ticket was particularly cheap. It’s not been a great summer so far for travelling anywhere on the train, there’s been quite a few landslides and storm damage and some lines have been closed. In some places the train has been replaced by a bus and that’s not quite as convenient if you have a bike to take with you. So almost inevitably when I left the village and tried to change down in the valley the first train was cancelled! So I had time for a coffee and to sit around a little before the next train came. Next train took me to Nyon on the other side of the lake and from there I was able to take the local train up to the Col de la Givrine.
My basic plan was to ride across a series of places that I know relatively well giving a route of a round about 65 km. Probably a Monday is not the best day to do this because typically mountain restaurants and cafes are closed on a Monday! The route worked pretty well, there’s a lot of really great riding and it’s a little difficult to make a choice between some really quite excellent trials.
As I descended into Romainmôtier on a rocky forest trail I struck a loose boulder and was thrown off the bike. Since I was doing a fairly brisk speed, I hit the ground pretty hard. And for a few seconds, or more like minutes, I was in some real pain and began to worry that I might lose consciousness. No one wants to have an accident like that particularly if you’re on your own, but we do need to plan for them and anticipate what we might do in this circumstance. This is a pretty remote area – in fact it’s so wild that we have wolf packs in the area now. It is a border area and for various reasons of geography and I guess the border the cell reception is very, very variable.
It would always feel more natural to ride a bike like we did as children, without lots of equipment, without a rucksack, and without a lot of fuss! But a hot day in a wild remote place that I do need to carry a rucksack and I need to carry at the very least some water and a little bit of food. I also carry some gear to fix the bike because mechanical failure is not unusual. And I carry a small first aid kit, as a first aid trainer it’s really difficult to know what to carry. It would be really easy to carry too much and yet I’m aware sometimes that prompt action and just basic equipment can make all the difference. In fact, for a bigger accident or if you’re working with a group then what you really need is some professional help.
I always carry some kind of communication. Years ago we didn’t even have access to mobile phones but now we have satellite phones and satellite communicators. Using my Garmin Messenger I was able to send my position and my status back home. I was able to coast down to the train and found a welcome bar with a beer and ice-cream. Next day it was confirmed I’d broken my arm quite badly along with a bit of stretching and twisting so a long recovery stretches ahead!
