April 28, 2025
Day 70: Besancon to Montbeliard
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PlWe somehow didn't take the time to check out the various sights in Besancon, which did seem to include a nice bundle of churches. This was unusual, because at the start anyway, we thought we had plenty of time to get to our next hotel. Rather, we charged through the streets, which look generally like the one shown below, and landed up at the river and under the citadel.
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After passing out of town, we took to the type of path we would have for most of the day - paved and flat, beside river or canal.
To one side we would typically have the placid river or canal:
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Quite quickly we came to our first Route Barreé. We are always curious but apprehensive about these, because you never know what they really mean.
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Even more interesting to us was ongoing silage harvesting. The stuff looks really good.
We also passed a number of churches with those regionally popular tile roofs:
In the town of Deluz we came to the ruin of a former paper mill.
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Next we entered a section where the Doubs ran between quite steep cliffs on both sides. It was all very dramatic. Surprisingly we did not remember this section, though we surely were here in some past year(s). Although the path remained quite flat, I was mistrustful of these mountains so near by. Never trust a mountain!
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Next up was a bit of a glitch, that easily could have been a big glitch. Dodie decided to get off her bike to negotiate a sharp curve, and in just one of those things, the heavy thing unbalanced and over she went. Kind of embarrassing. But there were also some consequences. Dodie had been coping with a pulled shoulder for some days, the result of hoiking the bike up a curb. Now that pull was worsened. It was a bit like what I did with my shoulder more or less in this same Burgundy region, last Fall. And Dodie's new Shimano brake level on that side got scraped and bent a bit. No hydraulic leak as yet.
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We continued along the river, running at points into really gorgeous views off to the side, of wooded hills and flowered meadows.
Beautiful as it all was, it was becoming abundantly clear that the estimate of 60 km for the day's ride was way off. It was the same darn thing as yesterday - the wiggly EV 6 was eating up as much as 50% extra distance, compared to any "more rational" routing. When the distance ran over the estimate, and we were still nowhere, I began to squeak a bit. I pointed out that even though Google had us 10 km from our destination at that point, left to the tender mercies of EV 6, who knows how much further we would still be pedaling!
But the thing was, we could not just take Google's route from that point forward, guaranteeing that it would be only the 10 km further, because Google might be achieving its short distance by taking us over a mountain. We agreed that this type of figuring had to be done calmly at home, and not on the spur of the moment. Even so, I recorded our distance, to see just how much more than the 10 km we would end up with, should we ever reach the end!
Looking ahead on EV 6, we saw that we would be following a loop of the river, past the town of L'Isle. Ok, let's do it. I recorded what L'Isle looked like - only fair if we were going to get dragged through it.
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17:00 did become an issue, because the hotel was locked up tight, at 17:00, and beyond. We phoned their listed number, and got an answering machine! So we phoned Booking. Booking itself took 15 minutes to pick up the phone. Then they said they would send a message to the hotel, giving them 30 minutes to show up and open their doors. In the end, ands hour and a half slipped by, between when we arrived at this hotel and when we saddled up to ride our bikes, their batteries depleted, a further 17 km into Montbeliard, where we booked a "real" hotel. (That's why you see two tracks at the top of this post). So all in all, we found a way to cycle 98 km today. Pretty soon we could be following Scott, and cycling our age in miles! That will only be 123 km.
Our new hotel, which is called Hotel LaBalance put us in a "superior" room. I am not sure I can fully support that designation, but I can confirm that it is Pink! Those little rose pillows, as well, may be cute but then you have to find a place to stash them out of the way. But whatever I may say about this place, it has the major advantage of being open!
Tomorrow will start for us with the adventure of finding our way to a bike shop that we have been told might be able to bleed my rear brake and/or replace the handle. It's a repeat of the problem that affected Dodie's bike, that got mostly fixed in Spain. Since Magura is showing itself to be so weak on this, I am kicking myself for not bringing along a bleed kit. Even if we might not want to be carrying the fluid, having the fittings would help the bikes shops we have checked, that have fluid but not the connectors.
We plan to cycle quite far early tomorrow, to reach the bike shop when they open at 9, and maybe they will be able to do something. We will then have to claw our way back to our track and carry on. It will all probably be futile - what a pain!
Again today, we did not spot any "new" birds. But that does not mean we saw nothing, and we did get a couple of nice shots, like these:
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Today's ride: 98 km (61 miles)
Total: 2,277 km (1,414 miles)
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Me? Not so lucky! My osteoporosis is so severe that the doctors warned me “IF I fall, I will shatter like a piece of glass”.. so, I will defy their orders and stay upright on the bike when we get to the Netherlands 🇳🇱.. ha!
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