June 9, 2025
Day 8 - Montélimar to Les Ollières-sur-Eyrieux
A day on the Via Rhona and the Dolce Via
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Today was a day of wind, bike paths and bridges.
We started out with the decent-but-not-fantastic breakfast at the Cit’Hotel Sphinx. There were at least some protein options offered, and a coffee machine that made reasonable espressos. We were on the road by about 1030h.
It was windy today! And the wind was coming from the north, aka upstream, aka the direction we were going in. As we worked our way toward the Rhône from Montélimar, we were getting blown around a bit. Especially as we made our way over the first Rhône bridge. The wind was literally whistling through the bridge railings!
This section of the Via Rhona was new to us. We had skipped it during our “Roaming the Via Rhona” tour a few years ago, so we were anxious to see what we had missed. We turned onto the Via Rhona and made for the second Rhône bridge - the well-known and beautiful Rochemaure suspension bridge. On this Pentecost Monday holiday, there were quite a few people walking and walking bikes on the bridge. What a great feature for the Via Rhona!
As we turned north into the wind, the cooling towers of the big nuclear plant in Meysse/Cruas loomed up. The headwind was very strong when we had to ride on top of the river dikes, and required extra energy to sustain our speed. Luckily, there were some sections where the Via Rhona descended into the forest and we were protected. Our progress varied with the amount of shelter we had.
| Heart | 1 | Comment | 0 | Link |
A constant source of irritation on the Via Rhona is the proliferation of bike path furniture - gates, poles, and miscellaneous objects placed in the path to either deter cars or trap unwary cyclists. We successfully navigated almost all of them, but occasionally the long tandem with wide panniers on it was just a bit too difficult to get through the obstacle course. We grumble, but in the end it’s safer to walk a bit than risk hitting the pavement. We’ve seen worse stuff further north.
Our second interesting Via Rhona bridge popped up after the town of Baix - another suspension bridge remarkably similar to the one at Rochemaure, but much reduced in size.
| Heart | 3 | Comment | 0 | Link |
We looked around for a cafe in the town of Pouzin, but didn’t see anything that looked appetizing and so headed across the river on the narrow sidewalk of our 4th bridge of the day. Robin closed her eyes. Rich reminded her to keep pedaling…
| Heart | 5 | Comment | 1 | Link |
6 days ago
A few more sheltered kilometers and we were at a familiar place - La Voulte-sur-Rhône. We passed through here on our Via Rhona tour a few years ago. Not much traffic today, so we popped across the bridge and looked around to see whether we could find some food in town. Unfortunately all we could find was the Cafe du Sport, which was serving only one thing - ground beef patties with frites. Since we don’t eat beef, we made do with a plate of frites. Lunch of champions!!
| Heart | 1 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Back on the road, we navigated through an industrial estate, climbed a steep bridge to get over the railroad tracks, and found ourselves on the beginning of the Dolce Via. With this, we turned west into the canyon of the river Eyrieux. The wind disappeared, and the bike path was covered in shade. What a relief!
The Dolce Via is a converted railroad right-of-way that starts at the Rhône and ends high up in the Ardèche in Saint-Agrève. Today we were riding the first 1/3 of the trail. Tomorrow (hopefully) we’ll finish it.
| Heart | 1 | Comment | 0 | Link |
The trail alternates between tarmac, crushed limestone, and gravelly dirt. It’s easily wide enough for bike traffic to pass in both directions, and it was busy on this holiday Monday. Most people were descending back down to their cars this afternoon, so we passed lots of families with trailers, little kids on their own bikes, older couples out for day rides, people walking with and without dogs, and also several touring cyclists loaded up with panniers. It was great to see that when an investment is made in quality cycling infrastructure, people will use it.
The Dolce Via never got too steep today. I didn’t see a grade of more than 2% go by on my Wahoo. The path gradually rose up over the level of ]the road and without too much effort on our part, we were soon enjoying views out over the Eyrieux and the hills beyond. We even got to go over an old railroad bridge! That was maybe bridge #8?
17km of great riding later, we pulled up in front of Les Lodges de Praly, our accommodation for the night. Laurine, the charming hostess, helped install Schnooks in a locked bike garage and showed us to our very large apartment, complete with kitchen!
| Heart | 2 | Comment | 0 | Link |
We both were surprisingly tired after today’s ride. Maybe it was the headwind, maybe the frites for lunch…but we both felt it. After cleaning up, it was all we could do to walk 10 minutes over to Le Mas de Champel for dinner. Since it was Monday night of a 3-day weekend, we had reserved in advance.
We really didn’t need to. There was only one table occupied when we got there, although it got busier as we ate. We had a great dinner. As we walked back to our accommodation, we talked about how amazing the cooking can be in a campground restaurant.
Off to sleep…
Today's ride: 58 km (36 miles)
Total: 380 km (236 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 10 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 2 |
3 days ago
One thing I liked about campground restaurants in Spain was that you could get food much earlier than a regular restaurant. They catered to their clientele.
2 days ago