After arrival into Basel our Skedaddle team will meet you and transfer you to Mittelbergheim where we will have time to explore the village and check over our bikes before beginning tomorrow’s ride. Mittelbergheim is a member of the Les Plus Beaux Villages de France association, in recognition of being one of France’s most beautiful villages, with its vineyards producing one of the finest Alsacian wines: the Grand Cru Zotzenberg. What a great place to start our trip!

• Meals: Breakfast, lunch
• Ascent: 1,875 Metres Approx.

Our first day takes us through picture-book pretty Germanic style villages before exploring the wooded foothills of the Vosges.

Whilst there is significant climbing on our first day as we roll out for the first time it is onto easy rolling terrain. Passing through numerous small villages we may opt for our first coffee stop to be in the interesting town of Riquewihr. Its long history as a profitable wine growing area can be seen in its buildings – squat buildings from the 13th century through to the grandeur of the renaissance. Its cobbled streets are dotted with half-timbered winemakers’ shops.

As our day continues the climbing begins and we are treated to some spectacular views as we wind our way along the ‘Route des Cretes’ – a road of ridges. The steep sided ridge forms an obvious natural boundary between Alsace and Germany.

Our day finishes in Guebwiller, a dynamic town that forms a junction between the Route des Cretes and the Route des Vin d’Alsace.

• Meals: Breakfast, lunch
• Ascent: 2,475 Metres Approx.

Today we have the opportunity to challenge ourselves on two of Alsace’s most famous climbs.

Leaving our accommodation we set our sights first of all on the Grand Ballon. The Grand Ballon or Great Belchen is the highest mountain of the Vosges with a summit of 1,424m, though the road passes 100m below this. It’s alpine style climate and views make it unique in this region.

Having retraced our steps from the top to resume our route it is onward to the next major climb of the day the Col du Ballon d’Alsace. In case you are wondering Ballon actually refers to the rounded shape of its top, not the ball like observatory seen on the Grand Ballon. The Ballon d‘Alsace was the first official mountain climb in the 1905 Tour de France, the third year of the race and last featured in 2005. We finish our day in the attractive village of Giromagny, a jumble of ancient buildings, narrow alleyways and picturesque fountains, so an evening stroll is essential.

• Meals: Breakfast, lunch
• Ascent: 1,150 Metres Approx.

We leave the big climbs of the Vosges behind today and head into a region of smaller wooded climbs, the place names and villages becoming progressively more French in feel as we work our way toward Burgundy.

Our road leads us through gently winding wooded hill-sides on quiet roads. Mid-way through our ride we pass through Oricourt, an interesting small village famous for its incredibly well preserved castle originally dating to the 1200’s. It’s a double-walled castle where the outer wall encloses a farm and the inner wall a residential courtyard.

• Meals: Breakfast, lunch
• Ascent: 650 Metres Approx.

A gentle day of rural riding that takes us through open agricultural landscapes and into the vineyards of Burgundy.

Fields of mustard line our route, a brilliant yellow when in season, and a reminder of our proximity to Dijon. We pass through another Plus Beaux village, this time Pesmes, a village with a turbulent history because of the various occupations it underwent before it became French in 1678. Situated on the delightful River Ognon, we can see the 16th and 17th century dwellings that used to belong to leading wine growers, a reminder of the village’s wine producing past.

At the very end of our ride we enter the Burgundy wine producing region at almost its most northerly point in Gevery-Chambertin, one of the Cotes-des-Nuits villages, famous for its red wines.

• Meals: Breakfast, lunch
• Ascent: 1,000 Metres Approx.

Our route from today onwards takes us further south into the Macon wine growing regions of Burgundy.

Burgundy is famous for its gastronomy as well as its wine, “Let Paris be France’s head, Champagne her soul; and Burgundy her stomach!” Whilst Burgundy is blessed with terrain and climates that make it perfect for vines, these same attributes almost guarantee enjoyable cycling!

Wine growing in this area is based on a principle of ‘climats’; small plots belonging to individual growers, often marked by stone gateways standing isolated at the edge of the plot. This makes for a unique landscape, and has been recognised as such by UNESCO. They are linked by quiet, narrow roads that we wind our way through from one village to the next. Small hillsides allow growers to face their crops towards the sun and the gently undulating landscape is kind to our cycling legs.

• Meals: Breakfast, lunch
• Ascent: 1,300 Metres Approx.

A gentle start to our final day leads us toward the beautiful Beaujolais region. Here, tiny cols are heaped together creating tightly packed wooded hillsides and sweeping panoramic views of vineyards. The first part of our final riding day leads us by cycle path to the old medieval city of Cluny, once the largest monastic centre in Western Europe. The ruins of the Abbaye itself are partially restored but what was once a bustling town of pilgrimage and religious orders is now quiet.

From here we continue to the Roche de Solutre, a sphinx like limestone escarpment rising sharply above the Maconnais vines. It’s dramatic silhouette has drawn interest for thousands of years. In 1866 the geologists discovered thousands of horse, bison, auroch and mammoth remains at the foot of the rock, one of the largest such finds in Europe.

Our final kilometres draw us up into the hills, enjoying the views from a serious of minor cols, all of less than 1,000m, that give us a real feel for the change in terrain from Burgundy to Beaujolais, this handful of small mountains in miniature a reminder that we are now in the foothills of the Rhone-Alpes.

On arrival we can celebrate our journey and no doubt enjoy and reminisce with some of the vintages we have seen, drank and cycled through all our way.

• Meals: Breakfast

After our final breakfast we say our farewells and transfer to Lyon for our onward journeys.