La Tour de France -so much more than I could have dreamed.

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Joined
Oct 2, 2007
Messages
1,676
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Location
Sierck-Les-Bains, France, (Formerly Benoni, SA)
Bike
Triumph 800 XC
Just over A year ago, I completed a ride in the Himalayas with an old school buddy. It was indeed the ride of a lifetime where we went to places unknown, got higher than we ever have before (altitude!!), and made friends from all over the globe. The question was: What now?

How could we possibly do something that would captivate the imagination like the Himalayas ride without trying to re-do it or imitate it in some way? There was also some unfinished business on the part of another buddy who failed to join us on the Himalayas ride, but promised to join on this one.
So, a "Tour de France" was proposed, because it could be done on a budget and I live in the Northern part, close to the German border, while Jules lives in the Southern part, near the Spanish border. All we needed was a plan which links the two, passing through the most scenic parts we could practically link up.
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Purely slabbing it is a 1200km journey, which is totally out of the question. Mike then came up with a plan, following much research, which was broken down into stages.
It ended up looking like this:

Day 1: Bousseviller to Le Hohwald (In the Vosges, France) via a detour through the fabled Black Forest in Germany.
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