Day 68: Chalon to Dole

April 26, 2025

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The centre of Chalon is small, but it does have some attractive bits. for example, just by our hotel, the building below would surely offer some very nice apartments.

A quick pedal brought us to city hall, where a small market was just getting going.

The two main attractions in town are the St Laurent cathedral, and the Nicephore Niepce museum. Niepce (1765-1833) in 1824 was the first to obtain a more more or less permanent photographic image. Below is his statue, by the water. The museum, of course, was closed.

Chalon downtown is sufficiently jumbly to look quaint:

Beside the cathedral are some half timber houses that add interest to the scene.

The cathedral was undergoing renovation, and we could not find a way in. Te best was a peek at the cloister:

That was our visit to downtown Chalon. But for added excitement, when we made to leave we found this:

Of course we sidestepped this and were soon on our way.

Eurovelo 6 passes through Chalon, and i assumed we would be jumping on that, while leaving the Voie Bleu. But it's not that simple, as the two routes intertwine for quite a bit. It was also a bit confusing as to which river we were following, as the Saone and the Doubs run close together and our track crossed one and then the other, and back.

Our ride today focussed on rivers and fields. A lot of the fields were tilled and waiting to be seeded, and with these we marveled at how weed free the fields had been left. We figured this was the result of continued tilling, since only in one field was there any evidence of herbicide use. For fields that were not still fallow, we could see corn - germinated and about an inch high now. This is a month ahead of what we would have back home.

Something really different from home, but super common from here through Germany, is Rapeseed (Canola), or what the Germans call Raps. The plants are tall and brilliant yellow, and with a scent halfway between flowers and broccoli!

Overall, the area feels super pastoral, with the tilled fields, rapeseed fields, and also pastures of very nice looking grass.

At one point we came to a point of interest - a demarcation line between what was the annexed part of France in WW II, and the part left to the tender care of the Vichy government.

This kind of stuff has an unpleasant echo in the situation of modern day Ukraine.

We continued on, past Cergy. You can see how the bikeway follows the river, which in this case is the Saone. Soon the Doubs will join in, and we will find ourselves on the Doubs.

Ever since Laurie's comments on how the Charollais cattle did not appear to have proper large "cow eyes", we have been "eying up" the creatures we are meeting in the fields. How about these?

Because this is France, we soon came to our next blockade. We point out peevishly that such blockages are being done to EV 6, which is a premier international bike route. Not that the workers with the signage probably know or care about that.

With a "Route Barreé" there are three critical considerations: Can we broach the initial blockage? Is the way really impassable further on? and Can we escape the area, past the blockade at the other end?

In this case, not only can we get round the blockade, but the public has worn a nice path around.

This was the cause of all the fuss - a bit of collapse of the pavement.

And at the other end, another nice path around. So this was an ideal Route Barreé

Down the road a bit further, and we encountered some Holsteins - genuine dairy cows. How about their eyes? Well, it's tricky, because their eyes are disguised by black.

As we rode beside the river, and seeing that we were apparently still on the Voie Bleu, I mused about whether rivers really were "blue". This really came up on the Blue Danube, where we have never seen any blue. Now with the Saone, I decided it was silver-black, though it's hard to look at it and decide what kind of colour you are really looking at.

But when we stopped to eat our sandwiches in Verdun-sur-le-Doubs it was clear that the Doubs is green! So this should be the Voie Verte!

Next we came to a more serious style of barrier. There was a warning of the closed road some distance (3 km?) before the obstruction that is meant to keep you from proceeding. Should one respect that early warning? The answer is a resounding no, since the only way around would be at the cost of 15 km. Next the actual barrier, in this case some gates and two steam rollers. We bypassed that without too much trauma.

The worksite, where the risk is they might have dug a big trench across, or have a dismantled bridge, was just a km or so of unfinished road.

On the other side, there were some gates and barriers, not to hard to defeat. But then there is the ominous warning sign - 3 km out.

Here is where we were able to be really helpful to several pairs of cycle tourers, approaching us. Just seeing us coming would tell them that they could make it through. But we also stopped and described to a few what they would find. After a while we quit doing that, leaving people to figure it out since we were getting far from the scene of the crime. We sure hope no one took the sign seriously and wasted their time and energy trying to go another way.

We had been off the Saone for a bit, but came back to it at Losne. This is a nostalgic place, because one year Keith Klein cycled down from near Dijon to meet up with us for lunch here (or maybe that happened twice?). Keith lives at Givrey-Chambertin, near Dijon in the heart of wine country.

The town across the river from Losne is St Jean de Losne.

We now began to fall victim to a classic routing problem. We were following EV 6, which is the track I had put into Dodie's phone. But for rough planning purposes, Dodie uses Google Maps to get the distances between places and so to book hotels at appropriate intervals. Normally that works alright. But there is an exception case. It comes up if we are following a wiggly river route - something famous and official, like EV 6, or the Via Rhona, or the Moselle. Then the river route can be 50% longer than the Google route. It was not quite that bad for today. Dodie had us down for 75 km, and this turned out to be 95 km. But actually it was a problem, because 75 km is already far for us. And we had a headwind almost all day, so the bikes felt it as if we were in hills. Headwind is actually worse than hills, because hills are up and down, while wind never quits!

By the time we had left Losne and eventually turned south, along the Canal du Rhone a Rhin, we had to all but quit using the assist. That made things extra tiring. Also the clock was beginning to run out, though there is extra time now that it's April, before the sun will go down.

These cows made us nervous, because they were preparing to go home to their barn for the night. But we were still far from our home for the night, and our assist batteries we not at all happy.

Except where the wind came in, the canal path could make for rapid progress.

This White Wagtail was still busy building its home.

Really dog tired, we eventually got our first look at Dole.

Our hotel was up a steep hill. People sitting on the terrace looked so animated and rested. It was a state I had forgotten could exist, over 20 km ago.

The hotel, thank goodness, had an elevator. If not, dragging the gear to our third floor room would have killed us. I flopped on the bed and napped for ten critical minutes, before I could do anything else. I was disappointed in my body, because I had carefully loaded in a huge pile of calories at the Kyriad's nice buffet in Chalon. But now, I could hardly move. Dodie on the other hand was tired but not catatonic. I had struggled to keep up with her, too, during most of the ride. We both have the same extent of assist - she is just Superwoman.

We spotted some familiar raptors today as well:

A more together Common Buzzard. What an unfortunate name, though.

And of course, by the water there were many Mute Swans to see all day.

Today's ride: 95 km (59 miles)
Total: 2,116 km (1,314 miles)

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