October 16, 2022
Day 40: Forges Les Eaux to Gisors
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The breakfast at our Hotel de la Paix in Forges les Eaux was 11 euros each, which we thought sounded like a lot, at least for the expected croissants and coffee. It turned out they also had cheese and charcuterie and fresh fruit salad, but we were not flexible enough to switch gears and go for it. Instead we landed at the bakery in town, and though we did get a fair pile of stuff, including some baguette sandwiches for lunch, the 15 euro cost seemed on a par with the hotel.
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Dodie (asleep now!) wants to thank everyone that sent her birthday wishes. She apologizes for not responding to all the messages individually. Sadly, she did have a pretty rough day. It was a combination of feeling ill and weak and an inordinate number of long slow ascents. We did find a few antihistamine tablets in our kit and she took one last night and one tonight. That leaves one more. She is not used to drugs and they make her sleepy. So we would not want her operating her heavy machinery bike while on drugs, during the day.
It turned out that the beautiful and level rail trail we loved yesterday ended at Forges les Eaux. It was replaced by an on road section that extended to Gisors, where we are now. But on road was much different from the on road we generally use as a pejorative term. The roads in this case were the very definition of a quiet road. In fact, the main feature of the ride, in the morning particularly, was extreme quiet. I mean dead quiet. Not only was it dead quiet, but with early morning fog, vision was limited and we were in a complete silent cocoon.
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All morning, and in fact, all day, we faced reasonably gentle but long slopes. From my point of view it meant the unwelcome sequence of shifting down through the gears, until landing at the lowest I had. Then it was crank, crank, trying to occupy my mind with something other than how long the bloody hill looked. I can clearly say that these extended and frequent cranking sessions were no fun at all. Other than wondering when the hill would end, I spent a fair amount of time thinking malign thoughts about the mechanic that built my e-assist back home, and wondering whether we could ever find someone with both time and expertise for this in Paris. It's no longer a maybe simple controller swap, because now the bicycle resists rolling backwards. If it decides to also resist like that on forwards, I'll be walking.
For Dodie's point of view, being sick had put her on maximum assist for much of the day. Fortunately her battery had no trouble doing this. And anyway, she could always have swapped in mine, which spent the day doing nothing.
After one particularly long uphill session, we seemed to arrive at sort of a high plain. It was beautiful and open and flat. The photo also shows what I think was the bike path, but which equally could have been a road. Not that there were any cars to be seen.
A weakness that sometimes comes up with maps is that when two roads cross it may not be obvious whether one can get from one onto the other. On the GPS, it looked to Dodie like a quick left turn would get us soon to our gites (B&B). But some clever Johnny lifted the needed road completely out of our reach!
We had to proceed all the way into and through Gisors to get back around. This did give a chance to see a old "lavoir" on the river Oise, and downtown Gisors itself.
We arrived at Dodie's "birthday" chateau, and were immediately stopped by the imperious front gate. We fooled with the keypad at the side, but the one "pin code" we thought we saw in an email message from the establishment had no effect. So I phoned. The man who answered was a little peevish, saying that all the information I needed was in the text, or Booking message, or something they had sent me. But he finished by just opening the gate remotely.
We arrived at the Chateau, and did not find anything like a sign saying "Reception". But I found an open door, and there met the (young and pregnant) lady of the house. I went into my routine about give me the key and show me the room, we'll unload the bags, what is the wifi password, and where do the bikes go? But the lady had her own routine, based on they had already told us everything by SMS. This allowed me to use a word I had learned about ten years ago, on turning 65: aîné, which in this context means old timer. One this basis, we don't do SMS, I claimed.
Our room in the chateau, once we found it, was large and you would have to say elegant. But elegant may not always be practical. For example, look at the elegant low bed - great - if your knees work. But if not, it is well nigh impossible to get in and out it. That's basically why we quit camping. Tonight if Dodie wants to find the elegant bathroom, she will have to wake me up for a boost out of the elegant bed.
One good thing in England was that every hotel room absolutely supplied a kettle. That's because the English could not survive without a constant flow of tea. But not so in France. We like the kettle, though, because we make coffee and hot chocolate to take on the bikes in thermos bottles. Last night I found I could get a kettle by asking. So here at the elegant but high tech chateau, I tried the same strategy. This earned me a reprimand from the young woman, because I did not know that the Nespresso machine in the room also had a hot water function.
I meekly went back to study the darn thing, which it turns out has a devilishly well hidden "on" button. And yes, it will dispense 5 oz of lukewarm water into the provided 5 oz mug. A low tech old fashioned cheap plastic kettle would be much better!
Today's ride: 70 km (43 miles)
Total: 1,640 km (1,018 miles)
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Happy birthday regardless - we’ll look for some companion apple pastries to eat in your honour!
1 year ago
1 year ago