Just starting to plan next years spring trip and noticed the Jura and Vosges recommended on another thread. I have passed through both areas but don’t really know them so has anybody any advice on where to stay and where to get route info for either?

Metabief in the Jura usually opens their uplift in May (weekends only ?). Loosely speaking the hills are bigger at the Western end. You can do some mountain railway uplifts to St Cergue and Col du Jammin/Roche Naye above Montreux (great views of the lake and PdS mountains).

MTB or Roadie?

I base myself in Xonrupt Longemer in a mates ski chalet, Always take the roadie though so can’t help on the trails side but there are certainly 1000’s of forest access routes and ski trails you “could” use.. check first though.
As is roadie riding is awesomnez. Just go compact and either 28 or 30 as your biggest and be prepared to climb, climb then climb some more.
Spring can be cold, snow still up on top and the pine forests tend to keep the cold in the trees and some of the lanes up top are still single track rutted hard pack snow, get near April and most of the high snow has gone with only the big drifts thawing out.

It’s really rather bloody ace, still quiet and unhindered by anyone really.

I took the road bike to the Jura this year, family holiday so just had a morning on the bike. Plotted a route on ridewithgps using roads that looked a bit twisty-turny and it turned out to be an amazing ride. You can take that to mean all the road riding in the area is brilliant!!

Food for thought…
linky

We went to both the Jura and La Bresse this summer, and took the “gentle pootle” options at both.

The Jura does look like the perfect roadie area, lightly trafficed, great views, and some challenging hills. MTB, there are bike parks in the area, mainly in the Eastern part which is hillier, but we didn’t try them. The marked routes are mainly fire-road based with the odd piece of single-track, and fun, but without challenge.

La Bresse in the Vosges is another stunning area, and there’s a bike park just outside the town, which looks great fun, and has a lift. Once again we didn’t ride it, but it wasn’t very busy in the middle of July. As above, the routes on the linked map are mainly fire-roads with some good descents, but nothing too testing. We stuck to blues & reds so the blacks may be different. It does look like the area is a lot more MTB aware, so maybe the locals can help you out? Very busy with roadies, but it’s a lot hillier than the Jura.

Another thread gave details of the 2 different types of marked routes, 1 more biased to fire-roads, the other may have more single-track parts?

Thanks to all for suggestions, I had thought about making this a road trip as half the other participants are really roadies but there seems to be plenty to go at for both. We are hoping to drive down from Zeebrugge as we are the Four Yorkshiremen and Hull is handy for us and there doesn’t seem that much distance difference on the other side. We went in May last year to the Vercors which was excellent so hoping the temperature might be reasonable by then.

Temps in spring are 15-17C but it’s the wind off the forests and lakes that’s the coldest. Take long legs and shoe covers because the rain/mud run off from the forests onto the roads is both thick and very grimey with running streams across roads to the other side back into the forests..