We woke up this morning in Montargis, breakfast set at 7:30am. The skies were cloudy, rain was falling. Oops. After five days of beautiful weather, we finally had that day I was clever enough to plan for - I had hauled both my raincoat and my fenders along. I'd like to say it was the thunder and lightning that caused us to re-think the day, but there was none of either. But, frankly, we were a bit tired of riding, faced a 145 mile day with lots of vertical challenge, and we were comfortable, we had a lovely morning market in the square to entertain us, and we could entertain riding later. So...we had a brief breakfast of bread, croussants, coffee, orange juice, and headed out the door to the market.
Oh, my. The market. Just like I had been dreaming about. Cheese displays to die for. Butcheries filled with rabbit, quail, duck, and other oddities artfully displayed. Floral displays One vendor preparing a tomato based chicken soup in a bowl about 5' in diameter, and 8" deep. I wanted to come back for that. I did purchase some very nice local cherries for later snacking.
By the time we finished catching up on our blogs from previous three days, checking and responding to emails for work, etc. it was about 1pm. We picked a drop in point on Stage 6 well into it with some good downhill ahead, and headed off. Rather than joining the stage enroute, we decided to start driving it from the beginning. By the time we reached our drop in point, it was 4:30pm and starting to rain a bit again, making the roads wet and slick. With the long downhill sections remaining, we had hoped we could travel at high speeds, but the road conditions would prevent us from making the good times we were hoping for. (Hey, even a car has a problem making good time on the various stages when not cordoned off. Travel through the various villages was slow going, and the windy roads took about as much time to traverse by van as they had by the Tour bicycles. It makes you really appreciate the amount of coordination the Tour planners and the teams must provide for each stage to assure that everything goes smoothly and the racers are provided a totally trouble-free route.)
On another related note, let's talk briefly about roads. All those picturesque scenes I so enjoyed in the HDTV filming of the 2010 tour passing through adyllic countryside assumed the riders were, to some degree, enjoying themselves. What we found, and today was no exception, was a lot of red oil mat and chipped gravel roads with multiple patches. Unlike asphalt, these roads are very rough and constantly vibrating the riders, chewing up the tires. An entire peleton must have raised a cacophony of machine chattering that could be heard for miles. I'm guessing the riders were switching to new tires every day.
We concluded that riding was off the table and, after finishing all but the last 10 miles of the Stage into Guegnon, we headed off East towards our lodging halfway between Guegnon and our start the next day in Tournus. By the time we arrived at our bed and breakfast chalet in Trambley it was 7:00. We had stopped about two miles outside Trambley when Roy spotted a cow calving just next to the road. We stopped, Gwen took pictures of the newly expunged calve laying on the ground, being licked by its mother. At first we thought it might be still-born, but it started to wiggle its ears, and by the time we left, it was attempting to make that first stand towards "life as a cow". Hope it is all worth it, and I wish him/her good fortune.
Our lodging is an old chalet with a lovely grounds. Gwen is in heaven, the gardens are immaculate, both flowers and food. From strawberries, rasperries, to asparagus, peas, beans, squash, rhubarb, you name it, the garden covers about 1/4 acre inside a stone wall. Francois has his job cut out for him, tending that garden.
We have had a great day. Tomorrow we will get back into the cycling, attacking one of the great mountain legs of the Tour. Since our host does not serve breakfast until 8:30 am, we will be able to sleep in and get a reasonably late start tomorrow. Stage 7 will be too long with too many hills and too many obstacles to finish in one day and we will need to jump in somewhere and cycle as much of it as our bodies and time allow. We think the next few stages will be like this and are resigned to the fact that we will just need to enjoy ourselves and get as much cycling in as time allows. (Oh, darn..)
We are all feeling very fortunate that we are on this adventure.
Oh, my. The market. Just like I had been dreaming about. Cheese displays to die for. Butcheries filled with rabbit, quail, duck, and other oddities artfully displayed. Floral displays One vendor preparing a tomato based chicken soup in a bowl about 5' in diameter, and 8" deep. I wanted to come back for that. I did purchase some very nice local cherries for later snacking.
By the time we finished catching up on our blogs from previous three days, checking and responding to emails for work, etc. it was about 1pm. We picked a drop in point on Stage 6 well into it with some good downhill ahead, and headed off. Rather than joining the stage enroute, we decided to start driving it from the beginning. By the time we reached our drop in point, it was 4:30pm and starting to rain a bit again, making the roads wet and slick. With the long downhill sections remaining, we had hoped we could travel at high speeds, but the road conditions would prevent us from making the good times we were hoping for. (Hey, even a car has a problem making good time on the various stages when not cordoned off. Travel through the various villages was slow going, and the windy roads took about as much time to traverse by van as they had by the Tour bicycles. It makes you really appreciate the amount of coordination the Tour planners and the teams must provide for each stage to assure that everything goes smoothly and the racers are provided a totally trouble-free route.)
On another related note, let's talk briefly about roads. All those picturesque scenes I so enjoyed in the HDTV filming of the 2010 tour passing through adyllic countryside assumed the riders were, to some degree, enjoying themselves. What we found, and today was no exception, was a lot of red oil mat and chipped gravel roads with multiple patches. Unlike asphalt, these roads are very rough and constantly vibrating the riders, chewing up the tires. An entire peleton must have raised a cacophony of machine chattering that could be heard for miles. I'm guessing the riders were switching to new tires every day.
We concluded that riding was off the table and, after finishing all but the last 10 miles of the Stage into Guegnon, we headed off East towards our lodging halfway between Guegnon and our start the next day in Tournus. By the time we arrived at our bed and breakfast chalet in Trambley it was 7:00. We had stopped about two miles outside Trambley when Roy spotted a cow calving just next to the road. We stopped, Gwen took pictures of the newly expunged calve laying on the ground, being licked by its mother. At first we thought it might be still-born, but it started to wiggle its ears, and by the time we left, it was attempting to make that first stand towards "life as a cow". Hope it is all worth it, and I wish him/her good fortune.
Our lodging is an old chalet with a lovely grounds. Gwen is in heaven, the gardens are immaculate, both flowers and food. From strawberries, rasperries, to asparagus, peas, beans, squash, rhubarb, you name it, the garden covers about 1/4 acre inside a stone wall. Francois has his job cut out for him, tending that garden.
We have had a great day. Tomorrow we will get back into the cycling, attacking one of the great mountain legs of the Tour. Since our host does not serve breakfast until 8:30 am, we will be able to sleep in and get a reasonably late start tomorrow. Stage 7 will be too long with too many hills and too many obstacles to finish in one day and we will need to jump in somewhere and cycle as much of it as our bodies and time allow. We think the next few stages will be like this and are resigned to the fact that we will just need to enjoy ourselves and get as much cycling in as time allows. (Oh, darn..)
We are all feeling very fortunate that we are on this adventure.
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