Day 10 - Saint-Agrève to Lachamp-Raphaël - Schnooks Explores the Beaux Villages - Tandem Tour - June 2025

June 11, 2025

Day 10 - Saint-Agrève to Lachamp-Raphaël

A day in the high meadows of the Ardèche

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What a day! Today we rode across the top of the Ardèche in a world of green meadows, wildflowers, and bright sunshine. What an amazing place!

Once again, we slept well. Le Bois Sauvage was not a high-class hotel, but the managers were incredibly sweet and accommodating. The breakfast was better than the average French carb-fest, with some meat, cheese, and egg options. We pushed hard and actually got out the door before the 1000h checkout time. The earliest we’ve had on this trip!

Rich retrieving Schnooks from the bike garage

We made a couple of stops in town. Amazingly, this dying town has an Intersport that is very well-stocked, especially with bike stuff. They do a lot of business renting e-bikes for the Dolce Via, evidently. And there’s a very nice Carrefour Contact market on the outskirts of town. Between the two, we got our errands done very efficiently.

We rode out of Saint-Agrève and turned west toward our first stop, Fay-sur-Lignon. It was a perfect day - bright blue sky and not too hot. Everyone in this area seems consumed with mowing - grass, hay, weeds…. Things must grow quickly up here once the snow melts.

We spent a bit of time on a bigger departmental road (with an actual white line down the middle), but there wasn’t much traffic and the drivers were very polite. After a few KM, we turned off onto a smaller road that led us to Fay-sur-Lignon. Almost no traffic passed in either direction for the next hour or two.

In Fay-sur-Lignon, we had a cool drink at “Les Délices du Mézenc” on a lovely shaded terrace. We weren’t in a hurry today. We have a 1730h checkin time at our accommodation for the night.

Fay-sur-Lignon has one of the most interesting “Monument des Morts” we’ve seen in France. These monuments are in every town and memorialize the local residents who have died in battle in wars starting with World War I. This monument was topped with a massive rooster. The fighting cock is used as a symbol for France, but we’ve never seen it used like this before.

Should we be afraid of a fighting chicken?

The next segment of the ride was to get to Les Estables, where we hoped to eat a light lunch. Again, fantastic landscapes with abundant wildflowers lining the roads. We geared down for the climbs, trying to conserve our energy. Today was the biggest climbing day of the trip, so Rich paid extra attention to hydration. It paid off really well!

Racing a tractor on the way to Les Estables

There wasn’t much going on in Les Estables, but Rich asked some locals whether there was a cafe open and we got directed to Restaurant L’Atelier, which was very busy and in the middle of a lunch service. The menu didn’t appeal to us, so we ordered drinks on the terrace and enjoyed a long break. They were nice enough to refill a water bottle for us, too!

From Les Estables, we were on top of the world as we approached Gerbier de Jonc, which is the source of the Loire river. We had views in all directions and some steep climbs to get over. Fortunately some of them had nice shade to keep us cool as we climbed. The toughest sections were the 8% ramps in the full sun. We felt strong, though, and we grunted through the challenge.

Robin, Rich, and Schnooks at the source of the Loire

From Gerbier de Jonc, we had a short ride over 2 climbs to our accommodation at Ciel d’Ardèche. One of them crested out at the highest altitude for this tour.

Robin at our highest elevation for this trip. Not bad for an unmotorized, loaded tandem with two old people pedaling!

Ciel d’Ardèche sits below the road, and the driveway is pretty loose gravel. We were early for checkin, too. We walked Schnooks down the driveway, admiring the wildflowers and the beautiful setting.

Since we were early, we parked Schnooks and pulled a couple of plastic chairs into the shade. After a few minutes, our hostess arrived and let us in to the lovely accommodations.

We’re the only guests tonight, so we ate in the dining room downstairs and conversed with our hostess, an American married to a French guy. She’s been here for 18 years. A great dinner, after which we only needed to stumble back up the stairs to our room. We’ll sleep well tonight!

Today's ride: 56 km (35 miles)
Total: 490 km (304 miles)

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