To Chalon-Sur-Saone

May 18, 2022

With a short, simple ride north to Chalon today there’s no rush getting out the door, except to avoid the heat as much as possible and to manage our time until our next home becomes available at two. We don’t leave the room until 10:30, and don’t actually leave town until after stopping by Tournus Abbey to take turns seeing the interior of the remarkable structure we walked around in amazement after dinner the night before last (photos to come later).

Save for a few hundred yards the ride is uneventful - a nearly flat 23 miles through surprisingly plane river bottomland blanketed with broad fields of grain, with barley the predominant crop. Quiet, easy riding, as simple a day as we could hope for. Surprisingly though I have a hard time of it and am exhausted and in need of a nap as soon as we arrive. Between the heat, the lack of sleep and maybe from the cumulative effect of a dozen straight days on the bike I’m exhausted. Biking in hot humid conditions is becoming more of an issue for me all the time, one we’ll have to start treating with more respect.

So, maybe not the most interesting ride to report on, with one important exception. Mostly just one grain field after another.

For the first few miles we followed the river greenway, paved and pleasantly free of cottonwoods. When the pavement ended though we angled away onto paved farming roads.

It wasn’t all grain fields today. Here we cut through a walnut orchard.

Barley on the left, something else on the right.

So a pretty but pretty mundane ride, and not at all challenging - just what the doctor ordered for an old guy in need of a nap. There is one other thing about the ride to mention though. A few miles from town we come to a bridge crossing the Grosne, a minor river that empties into the Saone here. It’s a pretty area, with the river widening to a bay-like expanse with a few islets in the middle. I’m admiring the numerous swans drifting on the surface when Rachael gives a shriek and suggests I look up.

The mouth of the Grosne. Very appealing.

So I do, and for the next fifteen or twenty minutes we both look up, completely stunned. A stork nursery! We see the two obvious nests first, one stacked atop the other on a tall snag; and then notice a third. And then see a small head peek up from the nest - a stork baby!! I zoom in, and see there are two of them; then a third head appears. Triplets!!! We look around, we see another nest, and another and another. Seven nests, all occupied, all with youngsters bopping up and down and occasionally flapping feebly with their still-tiny wings.

So that’s the ride. It’s still another five miles to Chalon, most of which is through suburban neighborhoods and small parks on bike paths the whole way. A pleasant way to come to a large town, noteworthy especially for the first tunnel I’ve ever come to with a warning for bikers to dismount, duck, and walk. Good advice, unless you’re experienced here and short.

Crossing the Saone, just past the stork nursery. We’ll bike on the left bank for the next few miles and then cross back again when we enter Chalon.

Video sound track: Partout je te Vois, by Celine Dion

Chalon is a larger place than we’ve been staying at lately and looks like it must have some attractive features beyond its problematic traffic situation. For me though it’s most memorable for the three hour nap I took when I arrived, followed by making an early night of it after dinner. Plus the humiliation of asking for a carafe d’eau at dinner and having the waitress respond “Rouge ou blanc?”.

For Rachael though the town had a different significance. While I was down for the count she was continuing with her research project she’s been on for the last few days, to find a replacement for her damaged, increasingly temperamental GoPro (pro tip: don’t drop them on the sidewalk). She’s not had any luck at all, and was at the point of asking Susan if she’d order one for us to pick up in Paris when we arrive there; so she’s ecstatic when she finds one at the FNAC here in town, just a ten minute walk away! Just in time for the big meet-up in Beaune tomorrow!

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Ride stats today: 23 miles, 600’; for the tour: 1,850 miles, 96,000’

Today's ride: 23 miles (37 km)
Total: 1,878 miles (3,022 km)

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