Wednesday 1st June Sens to St Florentine
40.7 miles 09:00 -14:30 3:45hrs riding time Avge 10.74mph Total 270.2mls
I'm settling into a routine now, the first couple of days saw me angrily emptying my panniers out all over the road looking for things because I couldn't remember what was in which bag. I now religiously pack my things in exactly the same place each morning, anal I know, but at least I can find my stuff easily. Talking of anal. Some of the best advice I received was from a mate at the gym who told me to liberally coat my bum and. er .'other things' in a layer of Savlon each morning before putting my cycling shorts on. The idea is that should one get any blisters or skin chafing on pressure points the antiseptic effect of the Savlon will stop any infection from setting in. Joking aside, in practical terms an infected blister could put an end to the whole trip.
Not the best of starts this morning, as I nonchalantly tried to stretch out a leg to rest on the kerb at the traffic lights in the middle of Sens' rush hour I forgot that I was cleated into my pedals. I panicked and pulled my foot frantically at the pedal instead of merely twisting my foot which would have instantly released my shoe. I overbalanced; and in what felt like slow motion (but most certainly wasn't!) crashed sideways between 2 horrified motorists into the carriageway. I didn't even have time to flail my arms about on the way down.
My knee crunching into the tarmac ironically produced the necessary turning moment required to release my cleated shoe from the pedal. I picked myself up as quickly as I could, hopping around dragging the bike - still encumbered by my other foot which was still cleated in. I was too embarrassed even to glance around to see how many people were laughing. I slowly pedalled away with gritted teeth until I found a place private enough to rub Ibuprofen gel into my incredibly painfully throbbing knee and elbow. I must make sure I back off the spring tension in the cleats a couple of clicks and I'll definitely un-cleat on entering even the smallest village in future.
In dire need of some light relief, along one particularly lonely stretch of road this morning I took to shouting at and insulting farm animals as I passed by. Sensibly, most of them ignored me. Having a whale of a time I shouted at a crow to "eff off" it looked up at me in startled terror and flew off.
I was nearly crying with laughter at the crow and the absurdity of it all.
While on the subject of impending insanity, I'm starting to talk to myself out loud, referring to myself and the bike as "we". Is this serious? We shall see.
"So, we meet again" said a voice from over my shoulder, It was my new friend the Canadian lady again. We pulled over to the side of the road and she introduced herself as Jean as we discussed our respective plans for the day. I was pre-occupied with wondering how long she'd been behind me and more importantly if she'd been within earshot. Jean left me trailing in her wake and soon became a dot on the horizon of the D72.
My bike is now making a clicking noise from the bottom bracket (crank) which disappoints a bit because it had a full service only 280miles ago.
Joigny, from the map at least, looked like it would be a nice place to buy and eat lunch on the banks of the river Yonne. Unfortunately the old town is in the process of having all its streets re-paved and ALL the shops were boarded up and closed, it was like a ghost town.
I crossed the river at Migennes and took the tranquil D43 towards my destination for today St Florentin. I arrived nice and early at 14.30.
I felt I deserved a bit of luxury today and the Hotel Les Tilleuls tucked away in a walled garden just off the village centre provided just that, with a nice big bedroom and the best gourmet food so far.
Tomorrow I get to the part of the route I anticipated the most when poring over my maps through the winter - the towpath alongside the Burgundy Canal. The Canal is 245 kilometres long and was built between 1765 and 1832 to link the Atlantic with the Mediterranean via the rivers Seine, Yonne, Sâone and Rhône . It will provide the central link in my trip too.
The guidebook says the towpath has been restored and improved in places for use as a cycling route but it's actually a bit vague as to which parts are passable on a bike - I'll have to find out the hard way.
Montbard is tomorrow's destination and I've booked ahead for the hotel so there's no rush. The guide book makes mention of a bike repair shop in Montbard too so I'm hoping to get the clicking crank fixed.
Thursday 2 nd June St Florentin to Montbard
56 miles 08:45 - 16:00 5:30hrs riding time Avge 10.13mph.
Total 362.2 miles
Once again that inch or so that looked so small on the map turned out to be a different proposition once in the saddle and my backside is really sore. Worryingly, my bike has been getting noisier too. Luckily I found the bike repair shop easily when looking for my hotel. After an animated discussion with the mechanic I managed to explain to him that the clicking noise was only audible when climbing gradients or when pressing hard on the pedals.
He told me to leave the bike with him for the night and he would do his best. My hotel was only a few hundred metres away so it wasn't a problem.
But I digress.
Today was my first day 'on' the Burgundy Canal - a way of covering distance with the absolute minimum of gradient changes, and effort if possible.
I joined the towpath at Tonnerre where a very friendly lock-keeper took a photograph for me in front of his flower decked cottage, he also gave me a little booklet showing the numbered locks with village names and the distances between them - I found it absolutely invaluable as it was the only way of knowing exactly where I was on the canal without help from road signs. Each lock ( ecluse) has a keeper's cottage, although most of them are now uninhabited with many of the keepers being students working seasonally. Their job seems to be to sit around in the sunshine reading until needed. Some of the locks that are very close together have only one keeper who travels back and forth between them on an old moped or scooter.
Burgundy Canal Tonnerre
On leaving Tonnerre I found the canal was wonderfully peaceful and quite beautiful with plane trees providing me with dappled shade as it meandered through the Burgundian countryside. The path is used throughout its length by maintenance vehicles and lock keepers' cars and has a surface that seems to be mostly hard-packed gravel - really easy to cycle on and I was managing a surprisingly good average of 10mph or so.
I bought my lunch from the pretty little village of Tanlay and re-joined the canal, as I was settling down to eat I saw a barge approaching. I realised I had travelled about 15 miles without seeing any boats but I suppose it's still early in the holiday season. This barge was converted into a large floating luxury hotel and was crewed by a couple of English chaps who told me that they were living in France and were both semi-retired just working the holiday season crewing the barge for an entirely American clientele - there are far worse ways to earn a living! I saw very few people the for whole day, in fact I probably saw more herons - at least one per mile - but I never managed to get nearer than about 50 metres before they spread their huge wings and flew away.
Towpath near Tonnerre Hotel Barge
I'm actually writing this in my hotel room on Friday morning as I spent last night in the company of a genial Geordie called Tony. We both got wrecked drinking far too many 9% Belgian beers from strange tulip-shaped glasses held in wooden holders and then wining and dining in the Hotel de la Gare.
Last night's meal was both the most expensive and mediocre of the trip.
Bizarrely, the small town of Montbard is apparently one of only two places in Europe where a special steel alloy pipe is made and Tony was consulting at the factory that makes it for an oil and gas company. I was glad of the lie in this morning; luckily the bike shop doesn't open until 09.30 so there's no rush. I hope it's fixed? Tony seemed to have first hand knowledge of the average French artisan because he advised against optimism.
Friday 3 rd June Montbard to Veuvey sur Ouche.
48.2 miles. 10:00 - 16:00 4:41hrs riding time. Ave 10.31 Total 374.4 mls
" Je suis desolé " ("I'm very sorry") he said, he couldn't find any wear in the crank and even if he had he didn't have the parts in stock to fix it. I'll just have to see if it gets worse and if it does I'll need to detour into a larger town and find a larger dealer.
I was late in setting off this morning and today was very hot. I'm not sure if the heat was to blame or the cumulative effects of 7 days and 375 miles on the road but I really struggled by this afternoon. Fifty-odd miles a day may not seem a lot, but fifty miles every day with full luggage is a different matter.
I think I'm probably about half way now. My original guess-timate of distances has proved to be a bit optimistic, the tiny roads and paths I've ridden along are much longer than the distances that the computer-routing tools at home gave me. My plan today was to reach Pont d'Ouche by this evening but by the time I reached Pouilly en Auxois I'd had enough.
The towpath's surface had been too rough even for my gel seat for the last 5 miles, and the buttock-pummelling discomfort has made me really sore.
I think I've begun to realise too that 50 miles a day on dirt is far harder in all ways than the same distance on tarmac. I stopped at a bar for a coke while checking my guide books for a suitable hotel. I was about 10 miles short of Pont d'Ouche but when I looked at my map more closely I saw that Pouilly was actually at the canal's highest point* and it was downhill in every direction from here. Having rested for half an hour and now realising the next 10 miles could be on the gently descending D18 I decided to press on to Pont d'Ouche. The hotels in Pouilly were quite expensive anyway.
Pont d'Ouche is where the Burgundy canal turns 120 degrees and heads north and around to Dijon to avoid a mountain. I planned to save 50 miles by not following the canal on its loop but riding over the hill on the D18 to Beaune instead. I'm not really looking forward to the climb, but at least it will be cooler first thing in the morning.
For a small village in the middle of nowhere I had a nightmare finding the hotel and when I did I found a sign on the door saying 'Open at 17.30'.
It was 16.00 and I knew there wasn't another hotel for miles so I sat at an outside table and wrote out the route for tomorrow.
Within a few minutes of settling down to wait the patron appeared in his car and told me his wife would be here in 30 minutes; "they'd surely have a room" he said. Then promptly drove away.
She was, and they did: a basic double room with a wash basin.
The bathroom is down the landing but it doesn't matter as I seem to be the only guest and it is an incredibly cheap 20 euro - about £15 for bed and breakfast! I settled my bike into a downstairs room and did my usual kit washing routine, phoned home and then went downstairs for dinner.
As the only guest I dined alone, I don't think Madame was expecting guests because I could hear a microwave whirring away as she served my basic but adequate meal. In all fairness to her she told me the tourists don't arrive until July - I suppose that's when the Canal comes alive with hire craft.
It's now 20.30 and the tractor-driving clientele in the bar seem to be drifting away home - it is Friday night after all. As the Patron was locking the place up for the night he handed me a Calvados, punched his fist to his heart and wished me " Bon Courage " for the rest of my trip to the sea - the French really do hold cyclists in high esteem unlike the British who just want to run you off the road.
* Several nearby reservoirs serve the Burgundy Canal with water supplies at Pouilly. The directions of flow are marked on the map on the previous page with red arrows.