Birdlady42
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| Red is the route we took up, blue is what we should have stayed on and how we came down |
My biggest fear about today was getting off the “mountain” we went up yesterday. I know it wasn’t really a mountain, but that road was at least a 20% grade and really only a road by name – it was actually just potholes strung together with a little pavement. I’m not very confident in my decent skills and we don’t have disc brakes on our bikes. I was worried it would be a bunch of hairpin turns all the way down. So I found a map of the city in the room and lo and behold! There was a marked road for the EuroVelo 6 right on the map. Our hotel was literally around the corner from the road we needed. And guess what? There weren’t any 20% grades and only one minor hairpin turn. After maybe a quarter mile, we had passed the point where we turned off and were back on the main road up. If only we had remembered the rule of climbing – a spiral is always a better choice than a straight line. We wouldn’t have ever taken Google’s directions and would have just kept following the main road as it spiralled gently up. I don’t think we would have made it without walking since we were so tired, but it wouldn’t have been so soul-crushing.
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| To the right is where we started down the hill this morning, to the left is where we went down to (and came up from yesterday) |
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| I made friends with a donkey while we got our bearings getting back on the trail, so not a waste of time 😉 |
After a bit of fumbling with finding the path and the signs, we got on the Eurovelo down in the Loire Valley. I try really hard not to be superstitious, but it was Friday the 13th and after the day we had yesterday, I had some trepidation about today. Besides day 3 is usually my worst day on a trail. Our legs were stiff, and here’s a new one for us – our arms and my abs were sore from pushing our heavy bikes up that road. But getting on the bikes wasn’t too bad. Once we were underway, we could tell we weren’t at 100%, but could enjoy the day. We had scoped out a town the last night that was a tolerable distance away, but we couldn’t find any towns to make it a super short day, so we decided on Nevers and made a reservation at a hotel right on the square.
Fortunately, we had eaten a late breakfast, but they were just pastries, so they didn’t last too long. We saw a sign as we had started to look for a place to stop for lunch that advertised a farm up about 4.5 km that had quiches, other light menu items, a little boutique shop, etc. Sounded perfect! When we got there, we found a large sidewalk sign with all the details and turned into the drive. The first thing we were greeted by was a peacock!!! It sauntered along the drive and then ducked into a bush to watch us pass. We also passed a couple llamas that looked mildly annoyed at our presence. When we got around to the back the dogs started barking and……..the gate said “closed, sorry for the inconvenience” in French. I was soooo looking forward to it! Ah, well. We pressed on into the next
town, Charité-sur-Loire. It was beautiful, but we had taken so long to get there that lunch service was over for many restaurants. We finally found a tiny little place, Les Mets et Les Mots. We had an amazing lunch with an amazing view. The proprietress even offered to share with me her recipe for the dessert, nectarines in a red wine glaze. I will have to try it when we get home.
On we went. A few miles from where we needed to cut off the trail into our town for the night, I noticed Brian’s bike making a different sound. I looked down and saw his rear tire was flat. Of course it was the rear! We don’t remember ever getting flat on a ride like this, but we are always prepared. I captured video of the change, which involves taking all the bags off, pulling the wheel out from the chain and the doing everything in reverse to put it back on. Fortunately he found the thorn in the tire almost immediately, so he was able to remove it to ensure the next tube didn’t get punctured.
We had very carefully researched our entrance into Nevers. There was a way in using the Eurovelo, but it first followed the river south, then past the town and back in – adding another 8 miles. We used a combination of Google and the official Eurovelo paper map to cut straight in before the path turned away from it. The very beginning after we crossed the bridge into town went uphill a bit and was a busy street with no bike lane. Then we got a separate bike lane that took us along the D-road almost the entire rest of the way. Brian had seen the bike lanes using Google Streetview, so it wasn’t just luck. The shortcut saved us about 8 miles, making our day come in at just under 38 miles.
So our bad luck for today was only the flat tire. We are in a lovely hotel on a square that has a market in the morning. I’m looking forward to some fruit and maybe a new scarf for me 😊
We have reservations to a town very close to this one tomorrow. We need to do laundry and a short day is sounding pretty good right now after the last 2.