To Tuchan, France

June 9, 2025

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We asked for an 8 AM breakfast. Amazingly, we were out the door by 9:20. Temperatures were pleasantly cool at the moment. I mentioned that I was using Jacinto's Komoot route today. We should have been exactly on the same roads. But it wasn't working. My Coros kept telling me it was rerouting, while Jacinto was on the correct route. We will try again tomorrow. Even with the GPS, we almost always make at last one wrong turn in town. It's hard to tell if the narrow roadways are actual roads, or alleys, or what. The signs are almost all very small, and hard to see while riding. The good thing about following a GPS vs a route on my phone is that the GPS will reroute when I go the wrong way. Towns are stressful. I like open roads.

Today we had perfect open roads. My favorites are the no center line kind of roads. We had those almost the entire day. Leaving Céret, we again saw many cyclists. Few, if any, acknowledged us. We had an 800 foot climb leaving town, that cumulated with a col sign! I may have been using my granny gear, but I sure wasn't panting like the day into Céret! That day deserved a col sign.

Jacinto waited for me any number of times to regroup. He is being very patient, but I know going this slowly is hurting his ego. One of his most important statistics is his average speed. Let's just say it hasn't been up to snuff this trip. I did warn him multiple times that I'm slow. As if he didn't know already.

We did not see any touring cyclists today, but saw a peloton of 20-30 cyclists whirring up the hill as we descended into Tuchan. I sure would have had a cold drink. The phone said 87 degrees, which is a reasonable number, but I was still quite warm. We had some trouble finding our lodging. The end of the story was that the address on booking.com is where the cars need to drive, but the front door really was where our route ended. It was one of those streets that don't look like a street, and we couldn't see a sign, so we eventually went around back. The lady was watching for us. She sent us back to the front. Her English was hesitant, but good. Our bikes have their own room, the bathroom is in the hall (a downside), but the bedroom is large.

There's a restaurant open up on the corner. Today is Monday. Almost everything is closed in France on Monday. Jacinto had called this restaurant yesterday. If their English is accurate, we can get dinner. I hope so

Today was an excellent riding day. It had just enough climbing to make me feel confident. Having two col signs seems a little overkill. Jacinto is correct that we didn't work near hard enough. But I'm always happy to take a sign when they give me one!

Edit - added thought. This morning over breakfast, we discussed with the proprietor, how long he had been there, local population, etc. He said there was a population of 8,000, with a strong foreign born community. The second week of July is a bull run right past the hotel, and bull fights. The population of the town swells to 60,000! I wonder where they could park that many cars, forgetting finding the people beds. He said that they've had a group of people book the entire hotel for that week, 15 years running. I did ask about the actual bull fights. I had read that in France the matadors now pull ribbons off of the bull's horns. He said that is not true in Céret, they have traditional bull fighting.

7:30 PM edit -

Well. No dinner for us. We went to the restaurant Jacinto had called yesterday. Closed. Four construction type workers walked up at the same time. Damn.

Then we googled a grocery store - 600 feet away. Guess what? Closed.

Now Jacinto is walking to a gas station, 15 minutes one way. I am not putting my faith in that. I’m back to the room, where we have a half a croissant, a few slices of cheese, and 3 slices of Iberian ham. I counted. There’s also some snacky things. Peanuts. One apple. One orange. Those were supposed to be for tomorrow. We won’t starve. But I bet we are both wishing for Jacinto’s usual stock pile!

Jacinto found the best WiFi connection in our room was leaning against the wall.

My traveling banana holders. Otherwise known as shoes.

Abandoned buildings catch my eye in all countries.

Jacinto is sure we didn’t earn this sign.

We see occasional snail encrusted items.

There were wind turbines all through the valley. Happily they were still today.

Typical scenery today. Note that the road is so small there is no center line.

These wild yellow flowers were fragrant.

It’s too bad the car is blocking the attractive mural.

I did not see any sheep. I’ve never seen a sheep warning sign before.

Typical scenery. Wait is that a castle? I need to look carefully on this trip. Research showed that is the Chateau de Aguilar. I wanted the sky to be a brighter blue, like Colorado.

I like this bright mural at the entry of Tuchan.

See that giant sign announcing our gîte?

Another pass? I had no idea we were working so hard!

Today's ride: 40 miles (64 km)
Total: 174 miles (280 km)

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