It was a 'Melbourne-like' day today - we started riding in the rain, and ended up riding in full sun, and a very strong headwind to finish. It just didn't have the cold with the wet.
David led us out of town and onto the Eurovelo route for the 95 km ride to our next stop, Chalon-Sur-Saone, a town with a population of around 45,000 people. Fun fact - the town is famous for being the birthplace of photography plus, local resident, Nicephore Niepce took the earliest surviving photograph. I knew you'd like that.
The rain was constant, however, it was rather refreshing given the heat of 28 degrees Celsius we rode in yesterday. Our American teammate, David, was setting a cracking pace early and it was challenging keeping up with this 72-year-old man!
Today was different from our first 3 days of riding. We spent time away from the canals and Doubs river, to explore the many French villages and towns en route. We rode through the town of Damparis - the car drivers were very courteous as we rode through the main street. One car actually drove slowly behind us for about a kilometre to ensure our safety until we left the main road. I personally felt that he was a talent spotter from Team Trek - Segafredo looking to replace their top rider for next year's Tour de France. After a kilometre he'd seen enough - I'll start packing my bags when I return to Australia!
We rejoined the river at Saint-Symphorian-sur-Saone (say that quickly 3 times), and rode another few kilometres to where we left the EV 6 at Losne to cycle across the bridge to Saint-Jean-de-Losne where we rode to the nearby brassiere to order a coffee and pastries. Unfortunately, we mixed this word up with boulangerie! No pastries but we could have had a gin and tonic. We finally found a very Frenched-themed cafe (who would have thought!) named the Comptoir des Negociants (Trader's Counter) and had our fill of coffee and tarts. I think the female owners were very impressed with what we were doing and we probably appeared to them as being much younger than we are until we all queued up to use the toilet ... like old men.
We continued our journey through French villages - Pagny-le-Ville, Lechatelet, and Labruyere. Although it was very green countryside and the river was full, it seemed that the rains didn't come early enough for the sunflowers and corn, many acres had been left to rot in the fields, I sprang off the bike gingerly had help to get off the bike, and opened an ear of corn growing in a crop near the road - it was unlikely to be even good enough for stock feed.
It was shortly after we had our morning tea fill of coffee that we stopped for lunch. This meant turning into the quaint village of Seurre which has the best Saturday morning markets in the province and perhaps all of France. It has stalls with the most exquisite foods, all prepared by artisans of their cooking specialties. How do I know this? They were pulling their stalls down as we arrived! A ham (jambon) baguette from the nearby boulangerie again. It was interesting 'people-watching' in the marketplace - you can feel that this market is where the locals not only come to shop but also to connect with others in the community, hear what is happening around town, even healthy gossip, ... and maybe even talk about the weird guy in padded bicycle shorts watching them!
As we passed through Verdun-sur-le-Doubs, the Doubs River (which we have been following since near the start of our journey), now meets the Saone River.
The only challenge of riding through towns and villages today is that it has meant riding on several secondary and tertiary roads. It's Saturday and traffic has been very minimal and generally drivers give you a wide berth when overtaking - unlike in Australia, where driving as close to the cyclist as you can without hitting them, is a sport.
We were now in the home straight for tonight's destination when the blazing sun came through the clouds, and we ran smack bang into a hurricane-force headwind. Just what you need after riding 300 km in distance over the past 4 days. I do need to call out again that I'm not a cyclist in Australia - I don't own lycra (but love padded shorts) and I've only cycled about 6 times over the past few months - none over 50 km. I'm probably doomed not to finish this ride!
After 20 km of hot and windy cycling, we arrived at our destination - to find out that our twin rooms were in fact doubles. After some negotiation, the kindly landlord rearranged the rooms to twin beds. We were charged a surcharge of 20 euros for a twin share, which we were aware of. David, my roomie for tonight, didn't go for my offer that we could save 20 Euro by sleeping in a double bed.
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