Cycling Through Vineyards

WHAT A DAY. I've been on some beautiful rides before (Cote d'Azur, Provence, DC), but the Alsace Wine Route is flat-out stunning. What made the day even better was that Patrick decided he wanted to join my father-in-law and me on the ride. Taking a 10-year old on a 90+km ride didn't seem like a great idea so we cut the route...but just a bit. In the end we started in a town just south of Obernai and ended in the spectacular village of Eguisheim -- giving us a total of about 62 km for the day (which Patrick handled like a pro!) We passed through some of the most important wine villages in the region -- places like Ribeauville, Riquewihr, Chatenois, and the list goes on and on. I can't begin to describe it so the short video and the end of this post will have to suffice.

Les and Patrick were a bit nervous about what they were getting in to when, just 2k into the ride, we hit a nice climb at a 13% grade (that's a lot -- especially for a kid on a heavy mountain bike and a guy on my wife's hybrid).But after the bitter start things settled down and we rolled over the vineyard hills for the next few hours, taking lots of breaks for water, snacks, cokes, and...

[Note: it occurs to me that it was probably a good thing that I had the camera all day. Right now my son and father-in-law are probably trying to figure out how this photo of them has hit the world wide web. They better hope this post doesn't go viral!]

It was a terrific day and one that I'm sure all three of us will remember for a long time. And if we forget, we'll just watch this video:

Late Update: a reader ponits out that I may have the name of the Chateau wrong. There are dozens along the route so it's quite possible I'm off by one or two, but I'm too lazy to look it up now.