Two very different days. Left Troyes (which is a very pretty town) yesterday in heavy rain, which got us nicely soaked to start with, and after 100km cycling in overcast conditions, went through a thunderstorm which got us horribly soaked to finish with. Strangely, possibly on the ice-bath principle, it seemed to do my tired, aching legs a lot of good. All in all, it was still a better day for me than the previous one. Still had the headwind though which was getting seriously tiresome.
Semur-en-Auxois is a very pretty town with cobbled squares, medieval churches and fortified chateau (with very impressive huge crack in one tower). It also had a wonderful rainbow over it which I will try to post some photographs of tomorrow.
Today was totally different. Sunny with fluffy white clouds, which fortunately kept their rain to themselves. And at last the wind swung round behind us so we could finally make some rapid progress. On the strength of that we did 100km in 5hrs across the Cote d’Or and the heartland of the Burgundy wine region. We passed through or near Pommard, Nuit-St. Georges, Meursault, Beaune and others. Wonderful French countryside, beautiful, obviously affluent villages and towns just how you’d imagined it. We all agreed that this was much our best day so far. I would like to stress though, in case you think that this is sounding a bit soft, my legs ache, I was knackered when I got here, and the hard bit is yet to come.
Two constant themes of the ride so far – road works, which are often a pain for the support crew, as while we can usually get through on the bikes, they often have to find their way round – and raptors. There are groups of Buzzards everywhere, less commonly Kestrels, and today a flock of about 10 Kites. Your correspondent came very close to riding off the side of the road at this point, which, as they are carrion eaters, may be a technique they’ve developed for augmenting their diet.
Since I am rambling I will head for bed, and try to think of some reflections on week 1 to write tomorrow on our rest day.
Day 6 and 7 Troyes – Semur-en-Auxois – Chalons-sur-Saone
Posted July 24th 2010 at 5:44 pm by joe
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Reading your blog every day,hope you got some rest,you’ll surely need it. Welldone so far. Lots of luv, Mum and Dad.