June 7, 2023
Ouzouer-sur-Trezee to Le gite de Gaia
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Somehow most days seem to start with an uphill. Todays hill was small but still there and set us up for a nice overall decent for the next 30 miles. The canal path did a large loop so we decided to head across country and meet up with the canal again at the top of the loop.
The road this morning was fast and great tandem country. Tandems are fast down hill and slow up but if you can get the hills just the right size you can take your down hill speed, push across the bottom and fly up the rise. Doing this we can maintain a good rolling speed which is hard for most half bikes to match. When you combine these rollers with the general down hill of our route today it meant our moving average speed for the first couple of hours was close to 17 m/hr. Not bad for a badly bloated heavy built tandem powered by two 60 year olds.
The the canal path was once again a dream ride. We saw few other cyclist and mostly we had this perfect pavement to ourselves. The canal was busy and we came across several of the locks in the process of moving boats. We stopped at a lock and watched it gently lower two canal boats from one level to the next. Of course that got me wondering about the logistics of boating the lock and I came up with many questions to ponder. How do you pay? Can you only go one way? Are the locks always maned? Turns out you pay once for a period of time, you can go both ways and the locks are maned for certain hours but many are automatic or self operated.
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We stopped in Montargis to pickup supplies for lunch. It was a very pretty city with lots of flowers, small streets and plenty of places to find things for lunch. Today we went with three quiche Lorrain. After some time browsing the street and looking in the various stores we got back on the bike path and passed through the industrial and ugly part of town but we soon got back into the wooded, quiet tow path.
Our accommodation for tonight was out in the country side and so we had to bring our food for dinner and breakfast with us. I had mapped our route to go via the closest grocery store I could find which was still 10 miles from our destination.
We turned off the canal path and headed through the suburbs to get to the supermarket and then on to our accommodation. Komoot had mapped a route which started out good until it starting taking us through a massive interchange for the Autoroute that was clearly marked as no bicycles. We quickly consulted komoot again, changed from road cycling to touring and with a bit of prodding we came up with an alternate route that included a small section of dirt road.
These last minute route changes often lead to a good story or two about slogging through some unexpected path or overgrown trail and this one was no exception. We turned on to a rough dirt track leading down a steep hill. Kathy and I decided to walk it as a heavy loaded tandem bouncing down a dirt hill is not good for any of the combatants involved.
At the bottom of the hill came the story of this diversion. A small donkey was in a field with grass as high as him. He heard us coming and came at a run to see us and say hello.
Our path after the donkey was still rough so Kathy and I walked a bit further until we came to a section that was a paved road at one point but had not had any maintenance since the autoroute was built 200ft away. We picked our way around the holes and half eroded pavement until 1/2 mile later we were back on the road.
We turned west on the autoroute overpass and got our first real tail wind of the trip. It felt good except for the fact that soon we would be turning north east to get to our home for the night and it would be a head wind again.
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After showering we made dinner with a great salad and ate out on the terrace in very pleasant evening. Our host took us to the barn to see her horses and Kathy, Maddie and her were soon deep into conversation about all things horse.
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Tonight stays was very enjoyable sitting out in the country side and the animals. It felt more like being home rather than just another nights stop on a trip. The dogs soon became our constant companions for the evening and appeared again as soon as we got up in the morning.
Today's ride: 54 miles (87 km)
Total: 474 miles (763 km)
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| Comment on this entry | Comment | 3 |
Really enjoying your trip through France as we contemplate and plan ours
Safe travelling
10 months ago
I have read your blogs and look forward to following this years adventure.
10 months ago
Do look forward to seeing where you go next
10 months ago