Day 11: Montbéliard to Port-sur-Saône
7 okt 2026 · @Edwin Noordover
Day 11 at a glance
Eleven days into the round trip to Lucerne, the wheels were pointing firmly west again. Today’s stage ran from the Montbéliard area across the rolling hills of Haute-Saône to the riverside town of Port-sur-Saône. It was a long, quiet day through French farmland, with more climbing than the map suggested.
- Date: 17 July 2020
- Distance: about 85 km
- Moving time: about 4 h 50 min
- Highest point: 493 m
- Lowest point: about 255 m
- On the road: about 09:00 to 15:35
After my first hotel stay an a real bed since 10 nights it was a welcome change of sleep and a private warm shower. The day after the longer distance then planned i had stronger legs then before this trip. I think the reel good and deep sleep helped me a lot.
Morning: a pink bridge, quiet villages and the day’s high point
The first photo of the day was taken just after nine: a steel truss footbridge, painted an unexpected shade of pink, spanning the water on the way out of town. It was a cheerful send off before the town gave way to open countryside.
By ten o’clock I was rolling through the kind of village that makes cycling in France so rewarding. There was a small mairie with the tricolour hanging out front, a war memorial in the square and the church clock keeping an eye on things. Nobody was about, and it felt like the whole village was still having breakfast.
The road then started to climb. Halfway up I passed a quarry, with big slabs of pale stone stacked under a heavy, grey sky. It was not the prettiest sight of the trip, but it was a reminder of how much of this landscape is built from the rock underneath it.
Just before eleven I reached the highest point of the day at 493 metres, and the reward came straight away. A narrow lane dropped off the ridge with wide views over the valley. A no-entry sign stood at the top, only for cars coming the other way, luckily. The road wound down in long, easy bends towards a village tucked in the valley floor. With fully loaded bags, a descent like that is pure enjoyment: no pedalling, just the wind and the view.
Around midday I took the longest break of the day, almost an hour, somewhere around the halfway mark.
Afternoon: following an old railway line
The highlight of the afternoon came at around half past one, when the route joined a disused railway line converted into a cycle path. This is where touring gets easy. The gradients are gentle, there is no traffic, and the trackbed carries you through the landscape as if it was built for bicycles.
The old line still shows its history everywhere. The path runs through a cutting blasted out of solid rock, under a graceful stone arch bridge, and past an old station house that once saw trains stop here. It was hard not to imagine steam engines puffing through the same cutting a century ago.
I stopped to take a photo of the bike leaning on the rail trail. It was fully loaded, with the Ortlieb panniers front and rear that have carried my kit all the way to Lucerne and now most of the way back.
After a couple of short stops the last kilometres rolled by easily. I reached Port-sur-Saône at about 15:35, early enough to enjoy the rest of the day.
Evening at Port-sur-Saône
Home for the night was Camping de la Maladière, a peaceful municipal style site on the edge of Port-sur-Saône. After pitching the tent and cleaning up, I went for an evening walk. Next door to the campsite is the football ground of Club Sportif Portusien, and around ten o’clock the sun went down behind it, turning the sky orange over the empty pitch. It was a simple, quiet scene, and exactly the kind of moment that makes a long day in the saddle worth it.
By the time I walked back past the campsite entrance, dusk had settled in. With day 11 done, the Netherlands was getting a little closer with every pedal stroke.
