86,45 Km., 832,65 hm., 6:22:06 bike-time
Please forgive me for writing time on saddle uo to now- this is not strictly true as it includes pushing time, which hasn’t been much, but excludes the time the bike is standing, whether to rest, adjust luggage, consult map, ask for directions, shop etc.
Am posting this as an email blog as I have to pay for internet here so photos later. Yesterday I had thought about taking a half day off and staying at a B&B run by an American couple in the Champagne Valley, but that didn’t work out. I found somewhwe to buy extra water (to be on the safe side as it was Sunday) and check my tyres and set off to see my first vines! I had wondered where they all were. This was marvellous, the route meandered way above the Marne still undulating but the views made every climb worthwhile!
I then went up a steep hill out of the Champagne valley and as I got off to push a lady walking the other way said something about “morte”, presumably going up here is murder!
The rest of the day was very pleasant cross crountry stuff through quaint little well-cared for villages – this was more how I had imagines rural France. The journey got easier as I went along and the last part was very English.
Unfortunately after always finding a room easily apart from yesterday I again made the mistake of not phoning ahead. All that time I had spent preparing lists of hotels and ensuring I had phone numbers!!! If I had have done, i could have taken a slightly different route towads the end to another one I had noted. Anyway I arived at this pleasant little town of Villiers-Cotteret to find “my” hotel was full, the next rather shabby looking one seemed to be closed and I ended up staying in a rather expensive one. Here there was also noone in reception but a French family was waiting and the lady told me she had phoned for someome to come. I probably could have done this at the other place, but decided not to go back.
The receptionist, when he came, was a very charming elderly gentleman (well, he looked a bit older than me) who spoke PERFECT English and German. He explained to me that on Sundays all the restaurants are closed except a pizzeria and a Chinese. I chose the latter, which was good and reasonable. but there were only 2 other tables occupied. Hopefully more later.
Despite planning this for months I hadn’t seen that the white road carried on alomg the north side of the River Marne this was the D1 I’d been using most of the day.I fought my way out of Chalons de Champagne (which I didn’t find anywhere near as nice as it sounds),that I’d hoped to avoid by switching the sat nav on early enough, but it wanted to send me on the main road. I’d put in the name of a place on the yellow road south of the Marne and eventually got there to find the traffic quite heavy even after paasing the motorway junction, where I had expected most of the vehicles to leave.I cycled along the gravel farmers’ track which ran parallel but was quite slow going, then this finished and it was then that I saw that I could get over the Marne and continue on the white road there. This meant another 3 miles or so on grsvel first, but eventually I got back on the D1 which I thought had ended at Challons.
Anyway back to the beginning:I had got out of Bar-le-Duc easily thanks to the GPS on my Nokia N97 mini and cycled on a very pleasant yellow road with very little traffic- I left this as planned to use a white road and had expected to find navigating quite complicated. Soon however I found out that the road I was on went all the way to Challons the D1 which seemed vvery strange here in the middle od nowhere.. It was very pleasant at first: vast open spaces which looked flat but these gently rolling hills which it took ages to get up but what seemed like secomds to get down. But after a while this did start to get boring. The sun was blazing down – the thermometer showing 38 degrees at times (30 when the bike had stood in the shade for a while) and there was what felt like a head on wind (it was probably a cross wind) making progress slow although it did stop me feeling the heat so much. It was during this time that I saw another heavily packed cyclist coming the other way (a very unusual sight in this area). He was just as surprised as I was and we both stopped and he asked me “Do you speak English”. He turned out to be an American cyclimg from England to Italy! We stood by the side of the road for about a quarter of an hour comparing notes. It was not long after this that I started to flag, I had hoped to make it to Challons en Champagne in time for lunch, but I realised I needed a break so just stopped at the side of the road and put my little aluminium mat under a tree.. i was enjoying my cheese and tomatoes when I started to feel a bit of irritation on the top inside of my leg, exactly where my cycle pants had been rubbing earlier. I didn’t think too much at first, but as it got worse I made sure no car was coming (they were very few and far between anyway) and pulled my pants down. To cut a long story short, I had put my mat down right on an ant’s nest!
Some time later I reached a town called St. Memmie which is almost a suburb of Chalons.There were big electrical and sports stores almost like an industrial estate,but I didn’t see a food store for ages. Then finally an Aldi (yesterday I was in Lidl). I bought some water. you are supposed to be able to drink the water from the French fountains, but you hardly see any.
when I finally got back on the D1 it turned out to be the Champagne Route and there were lots of pretty villages, so I decided to stop before my planned destination of Epernay. However everywhwere was either fukk or much too expensive, so the town it is. There the rooms are full during the week and empty at the weekend, or so I thought…
I finally found a room at 8 p.m. and after a beer, a shower, and a meal (in that order) I collapsed into bed too tired to blog…
Tour stats for the day .127,42 Km. 595 hm. 8:49:29 on the saddle.
As I told you yesterday I am half way – in Bar-le-Duc as planned. According to my original calculations (using both Michelin and Google maps) this should have been 604 kms.= 380 miles. i did know from past experience that this was likely to be 10-20% more due to looking for hotels, searching for the way etc. But in actual fact it has turned out to be 25% more – 754 kms=470 miles. As I said, it seems easier to follow the correct route on French roads so maybe it will be less now. More figues: total elevation to date 5174 m.= 16975 feet,total time in saddle 50 hours 19 minutes and 30 seconds.
I am up so early again because they have one of those plastic matress protectors that makes you perspire – such a shame as it is a very comfy bed. Now I realise that I forgot to ask what time breakfast is served – at 7 or at 8. Most places it is 8 especially at weekends. The french breakfast is very poor anyway – only once did I see any fruit and usually it is as I used to remember a continental breakfast – 1 piece of bagutte, one croissant, butter and jam (those little packets), if you are lucky there is sometimes a hard boiled egg or a LITTLE bit of ham and/or cheese and/or one of thos small joghurts. it costs about € 7. Because of my gluten-free diet I am glad I broght so much stuff with me – my luggage is getting lighter every day.
The evening meal however is excellent – last night I had soup, steak & chips, cheese and sweet all for €10,50
Es tut mir wirklich leid, aber ich schaffe es nich alles 2-sprachig zu schreiben, besonders weil es in den letzten 2 Hotels Probleme mit dem Wireless LAN gegeben hat. Danke füe eure Interesse, eure Kommentare und Support. In aller Kürze (ich brauche mienen Schönheitsschlaf, damit ich den morgigen Tag schaffe): ich habe die Hälfte der Entfernung geschafft und zwar waren es statt den geplante 600 Km. 750 Dank Umwege, Sucherei usw.
Ab jetzt soll es von der Landschaft her leichter sein. Ja, es macht mir sehr viel Spass – die Leute sind so nett, das Essen ist so gut und mein Französisch wird immer besser!
White roads are the ones they use for bike-routes in Germany, the main difference being that you have to look for the cycle route signs there and if you don’t have a route description you may easily miss them. Here in France you just follow the signs for the next village.
Admittedly they usually have racing bikes here. Amazing to me is how friendly the people are and how despite what everyone says, about them not speaking foreign languages – many try to speak English or German! Back to yellow roads – the ones I travelled on today had very little traffic but one of them was marked as an N-road and I was glad to get off it. Yellow roads have numbers on the maps so maybe they are not so bad after all!
I have reached Bar-le-Duc on shedule and certainly hope the going will be easier from now on (that is what I think every day). This means by next weekend I should make it. Trip stats for today 86,12 Km,, 432 hm., only 5:11:57 on the saddle.
This was because I am planning a bit more rural stuff again in the morning and may not find anywhere for a while. Don’t tell Mum, as I don’t want to worry her, but some of the places are extremely rural – (I mean nearly dead) terraced houses, boarded-up shops, bars , resaurants, hotels. strangely enough many small villages do still have a boulangerie, but often nothing else. Bigger places (SMALL towns) all seem to have a driving school.
“White roads” (that’s the colour on the map) are D-roads, so are “yellow roads”, but I like white roads better because there is less traffic. Somtimes this means more distance but that’s OK.
There are so few bends in this part of France that every one is signposted – that would cost a fortune in Austria. There are plenty of vertical bends – that of course means uphills and downhills. You can see a long way and know that after the exhilerating downhill ride you must keep enough momentum and change gear in time to get up the other side! it’s like the wine quarter of lower Austria – all the villages are at the bottom of the hill and you have to go up afterwards!
I sat eating my picnic lunch on the banks of the Moselle Canal (right next to the river Moselle) in Charmes and did a quick route calculation – I was exactly half way to Dieppe. Since then I have done another 40 kilometres and am now in Colombey des Belles. Trip stats for today 99,66 Kms, 821 hm., 6:36:21 on the saddle.
The WIFI is not very good here – probably because it’s free. I gave up trying to publish my last post last night managed it this morning and wanted to add photos but to no avail.
I found a bike shop in Obernai and Pascal Minni of the Cycl’ Hop was able to sort my gear-change which had been a problem since the first day. He even went for a ride to test it and didn’t want to charge anything!
Sue4Don 