Ride 3.6: Mulhouse to Cungy and that's all folks! (10/6-10/11)

Monday, October 6, 2019

Today was a day of many rivers. When we left the campsite, we were still on the Rhine-Rhone canal, but over locks and bridges we passed between the Doubs, the Scie, the Allan, and a handful of nameless canals. It was a beautiful day, but one that never really warmed up, and when we got to Chez Menon in Baume les Dames, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I did not have Trench Foot or frostbite. The lovely lady running the establishment rents almost exclusively to EV6 riders, and she freely admitted that the season was over except for a few crazy stragglers like us. We briefly contemplated going out for dinner, but decided to stick close to the electric heater, even if it meant a second meal of cheese and crackers.

Tuesday, October 7, 2019

I think we shocked our hostess by devouring whole the beautiful breakfast she laid out for us. After a quick stop at the local hypermarket, we set off on the Doubs. Aside from a couple of misty spells that had us thinking about pulling out our rain capes, we had a gloriously sunny day. Besancon is home to an enormous mountaintop citadel, but what we liked best was a pedestrian- and bike-only river tunnel that burrowed under the town. The Doubs eventually morphed into a tree-lined canal that escorted us into Dole, the birthplace of Louis Pasteur. Camp Pasquier was on a small island, and we were the only crazy tent campers that night, so we had the whole lawn area to ourselves. We walked around the center of Dole because it was too pretty of a day not to, before our pasta dinner. I started reading “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, which I’m realizing I should have started at the beginning of our ride.

Wednesday, October 8, 2019

The day started off promisingly, with blue skies and partial cloud cover, with a couple of misty bits. The Rhine-to-Rhone canal confusingly led us to the Saone, and we followed that for a while. We had a lovely lunch from a boulangerie in Seurre, and even managed to capture a few rays of sun while sitting on a bench outside the post office. However, as soon as we resumed our ride, the headwinds and rain kicked into gear. Now rain, as I’ve mentioned, is unpleasant enough on a bike ride, but headwinds are truly evil blighters. Unlike uphills and downhills, they’re not an inevitable part of the terrain, and there’s no return on your energy deposit, just an endless sucking. I was starting to curse everything in sight ("I hate France, I hate trees, I hate clouds, I hate ducks . . ."), and then we took a gummy bear break under a tree, which gave both the wind and the rain a chance to die down, and when we started again, I no longer hated everything in sight. The rain eventually went away for good, although we were battling headwinds until the Saone turned a corner at Chalet-sur-Saone. Knowing it was going to rain all day, we had made the brilliant decision to forgo camping in favor of a safari tent at Camping du Paquier Fane at Chagny, which was large enough for five people, and luxurious for two, with a kitchen and a dining room table and a covered outdoor area.

Thursday, October 9, 2019

Today's weather was much improved from yesterday, with milder headwinds and rain showers. We were mostly riding along the Dheune and Center Canals, both of which were in pretty poor repair, and in many places so shallow as to be impassible for any boat larger than a kayak. For a large part of the day, we detoured off the canal and biked through rolling cattle farms. We learned that the region’s principal industry is charolais cattle farming - I’m guessing charolais cattle are those white ones we saw running around everywhere. At one point we stumbled upon the DigoinCastle, which was, as far as we could tell from the road side of the wall, magnificent, and may have explained the otherwise inexplicable detour we took away from the river. We finished the day in Paray le Monial, the “mosaicked city”, which was graced with a number of large stone buildings and mosaicked sideways, hence its name. We stayed at Quarre de Verneuil, a hotel that was built in the 1850s, recently renovated, and only open since March. The owner had preserved the stone walls and exposed ceiling beams but then installed all the modern amenities (including an induction stove!). The owner's son did everything at the hotel with only the help of a cook for lunch and a barman at night. I’m sure it will be booked next cycling season, although we pretty much had the place to ourselves, and the owner had plans to convert the downstairs area into a concert venue for the off-season.

Friday, October 10, 2019

The theme of the day was: leave them wanting more. The sky was glorious, with not a cloud in sight. Our guide book posited that the cheapest way to dine in France is in boulangeries, but I don’t think it placed enough emphasis on how delicious that is. We’ve been picnicking with baguette sandwiches with pastry desserts every day since we got to France, and we haven’t repeated a sandwich or pastry yet. I’m hard pressed to imagine why you would eat anything else for lunch. We crossed the Loire twice, had a rest stop by it, and camped by it (in Decize), but most of the day we were in cattle land or on the canal that runs parallel to the Loire, which is creatively named the “Canal Lateral a la Loire”. It occurred me as I was setting up the tent that this would be our last night on the trail, and I had to push the thought away because it made me so sad.

Saturday, October 11, 2019

The sun rose straight over the horizon into a cloud, so it felt like we were riding into the sunrise all morning. The clouds piled up behind us in layers, and followed us until our boulangerie break in Cercy la Tour, when they gathered enough force to drizzle. David and I were too stubborn to put on our rain capes at first, but then the skies truly opened up, and we wore them until we were able to duck under a sheltered rest area. To wait out the rain, we boiled water for tea until the rain had let up somewhat. Finally, after a whaloping centimeter of rain, the sun made an appearance. We were on the Nevernais Canal all day, which has an un-canal-like twisty bit and an even less typical ladder of 16 locks in a row, making it one of the steepest canals. My mom met us on the canal and led us home, through some of the most bucolic landscape we’d seen yet. The calves looked up, startled at our passage, but their mothers had seen it all before. After a couple of fairly grueling hills, we pulled into her driveway in Cungy, and just like that, our bike ride was over. I can’t wait for the next one.