Day 11 - Wednesday 22nd September, 2010
Dompierre-san-Besbre > Charlieu
42.9 miles
4:30 moving time, 9.5 mph moving average
Quite a few more people around this morning. John's already had breakfast as I woke up a bit late (clearly needed the sleep), so I head to his recommendation from this morning. A nice croissant and some bread in a bakers/patisserie. He joins me and we watch the world go by through the window. I can't quite tell how I feel physically.
We checkout of the hotel. We ask the miseryguts of a lady from last night - since she's standing beside her bar - if we can fill up our water bottles. She tells us there's a supermarket next door. Charming. And thank you Logis hotels chain for maintaining such exceptional standards.
So, we go to the shop. I also stock up on vitamins and some kind of sore muscle tablets that neither of us can really be sure what they are exactly.
John prepares for some picture taking of the rolling hills.
The sun's out already thanks to my making us have a very late start, and soon we're back into beautiful rolling countryside. I feel sooooo much better today as it turns out. In fact I feel so good I can hardly believe yesterday happened. Yeah, the legs are tired and a bit sore, but that's just normal. They're nothing like yesterday. I feel a sense of hope, but I ask to set a slightly more modest pace anyway.
It looks flat. But it isn't. Honest.
We cross the Loire again, unexpectedly, and it's a bit narrower here.
Our favourite river. Again
Thank goodness I'm feeling better now because we're into some proper hills. Not necessary all big, but constantly up and down, and some of it steep. But at this pace, things still seem OK. In fact I've got a slight feeling of euphoria knowing that I'm out of the stupor of yesterday.
As it turns out we're in for a bit of a climb. But it's never just up, we're straight back down and then climbing again. While the downs are exhilarating, they're not that enjoyable as we know all we're going to do is climb back up.
Is that the Massif Centrale?
We pass some big white cows. No idea what breed or anything but they're really beautiful. We see a bull, and neither of us can help talking about the size of his balls - which are absolutely enormous! We feel sorry for him having to carry them around.
See what we mean?
Lunch at a bizarre village cafe that's super-busy and doesn't seem to fit with the size of the tiny village. Maybe it's a hotel? As we tuck into omelettes and salad, we hear people talking. They're all keen on the subject of World War II fighter pilots, and some are pilots themselves, and they're English. We leave them to it, but am curious as to what they're here for. The owner fills up our water and when we tell him what we're up to we don't get the usual look of surprise. He says his friend has just cycled to China!
Rolling hillside expands and we're on a few more slightly steep climbs. And again and again, and again. Oh, and again. We knew we were skirting along the edge of what we think is the Massif Centrale (we're not entirely sure but we can see huge hills off to our side, just slightly on the egde of track), but we didn't know exactly what we'd be in for on our route.
Passing a pretty little village at the 'top' of a hill later on, we pull into a cute little bakers. No one's here, so I press the bell. After a while a man appears and I order some bread and water in my basic French. He asks in perfect English if I'm English. It turns out he moved out here years ago and is the only person specialising in rye breads rather than more traditional French breads. He then fills up our bottles where the water we bought wasn't quite enough. He talks us into a buying a brownie, but to be fair he didn't have to try too hard. What a place to move to, the views are superb. When we ask about the lack of shops he says the French have all switched to going to supermarkets in the car so mostly all you see now is slightly worse for wear local supermarkets if you're lucky. That's definitely our experience.
Moving on we climb again, and before 'long' we see 1,652 feet on the GPS, which we think's the highest we've gone yet.
And we keep going up.
And down.
And it's hot again.
And up.
We stay around this altitude for a while, up and down. You can't beat the views that's for sure.
Those same hills in the distance
After a stop for a few pics of the views we glide down a very long descent. I'm out front, and I keep it sensible-ish and keep the speed under control while enjoying the free ride. But I do get a decent pace on. I really wouldn't want to come off at high speed and you need quite a bit of extra brake with all the weight giving huge momentum. The wind's in my ears and it's amazing - after so many exhausting slogs its nice to get a really good long descent.
At the bottom I stop and drink and am surprised not to see John. He's very rarely far behind. But we were going quite fast so maybe he dropped back a bit to space us out.
I hang out a bit longer, and there's a tinge of concern now. Still no sign. I wait even longer and now my heart's racing a bit and I'm worried. What if he's come off? There were a few nasty bumps and holes that I went over. I decide something's happened, get back on my bike and start slamming it back up the hill. I don't even think about how steep it is. After quite some minutes powering up, I see John coming round the corner - walking.
He calls out. He's OK. He's got a puncture!
Thank god for that. That he's OK I mean.
It's that back wheel again, and this time there's a big thorn sticking out of it - so much for the shortcut to get a good photo. The repair gear comes out, and the wheel comes off. Still, it's nice and warm and a good spot to fix it.
Nice spot for it
Final inner tube though!
We're right, we get a very slight descent all the way to the town of Charlieu. As we get into the centre, we're amazed. We just can't believe it. Can it be true after all these miles/days/weeks? Is this the best timing or what?
Right next to us is a bike shop.
A proper local bike shop, with a workshop and a range of bikes from new road bikes to tourers, mountain bikes and kids bikes. It's early evening and a man comes over from the bar next door. It's his shop and he says he's got everything we need, he can do it now or in the morning. As we're camping tonight we opt for the morning since he's there from 8am.
We ride to the campsite, which is walking distance to town, and setup. Its a big municipal and a few people are cooking evening meals outside their campers. Not many tents, but nice pitches.
The shower story I'll leave out today. Suffice to say, another ingenious design - but at least hot.
We're a bit more worried about the bikes and gear here, as it's a bigger town, and we're right next to the stadium, reasonably in sight and a football practice is in progress. We lay them down and put them near a bush and lock them together.
The town's really pretty and lively as well. Just the right size. The first restaurant we see we ask what time they close and the waiter looks at us like we're mad. "What time do you want to eat?" he says, confused as to why we asked! So not everywhere closes early. There's hope. There are loads more places, some open some not, but in the end we go back where we started and have a great meal. And wine. There's some funky music playing (in a good way). This town's a bit more fashionable, or maybe it's just how far south we are now. Whatever it is, we're happy.
Legs are sore, but I hope that yesterdays event was an isolated incident, and having scoffed down a huge amount of fish and other protein and carbs, plus more protein at lunch, I feel like I've had two good meals in a row.
We take advantage of the campsite's wifi to do a bit of Skype, then hit the sack.
I wake up during the night with sore legs, but soon get back to sleep. Even the over-bright lighting of the campsite can't keep me awake tonight.
Day 11 takes us to 483 miles.
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