Loire a Velo with Friends
| Category |
Type |
Name |
Description |
Service Provider |
Cost |
Kms |
To Date |
Total |
| Activity |
Cycle |
Ride to Les Acacias at la Ville aux Dames
|
|
|
$0.00 |
39.00 |
39.00 |
|
My favorite moment today was when we had to climb a relatively steep hill. We started behind a group that we’d seen before who were not friendly. The two women were on ebikes and I think the men were on regular mountain bikes. Shortly after starting, one of the men had to stop and get off. I thought, ‘oh, he’s not going to be happy about the four of us, heavily-laden, passing him by on this hill’ and oh, he was not. Especially when Laura started from a full stop on the hill and passed him.
The route back from the Cher river to the Loire was supposed to be very hilly and poor surface. The surface was completely fine and there was one big climb up followed by a long false flat, followed by a down. No biggie. We had more hills in between Amboise and Tours.
Amboise was a town that Brent and I had visited in 2015. It’s where Brent got his Loire a Velo skull cap. We went back to that store and got him a new one, got me some gloves and a replacement for my sunglasses that broke yesterday.
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| Category |
Type |
Name |
Description |
Service Provider |
Cost |
Kms |
To Date |
Total |
| Activity |
Cycle |
Ride to Bréhémont
|
|
|
$0.00 |
45.00 |
84.00 |
|
I had FOUR flat tires today. Hopefully no one will beat that record. I got what appeared to be a pinch flat. Brent patched it. It went flat again immediately. Brent checked the patch and it was peeling off. We put on a new patch. It went flat again immediately. So, he changed out the tube entirely and that seemed to fix that one. A little later my other tire was soft from a slow leak on the valve. We didn’t get to the campsite til 6:30pm even though we only rode 45km.
After my first three flats we debated about how we’d find lunch. We talked about having lunch off the bikes but we really wanted a restaurant. We decided to ride one hour and hope to find a restaurant. At Savonnières, we found a FOOD TRUCK at a park that has the best savory crepes and ice cream I’ve ever had. Yay for waiting!! |
| Category |
Type |
Name |
Description |
Service Provider |
Cost |
Kms |
To Date |
Total |
| Activity |
Cycle |
Ride to Saumur
|
|
|
$0.00 |
54.00 |
138.00 |
|
The tour of flats continues. Brent had a flat first thing before we left. My front tire was soft in the middle of the day but we pumped it up and so far it is holding.
We promised Ann two easy days of riding then a rest day at Saumur. She says ‘why take two days - can’t we get to Saumur today?’ Be careful what you wish for, my friend... be careful what you wish for. We had an easy pleasant ride to Montsoreau, including the best Second Coffee break ever in Avoine, and a great lunch at Montsoreau, and there was no question that we would continue on to Saumur. The second part of the day was incredible climbs on incredible grades through cave towns and vineyards, and scorching scorching sun. I think in the last two hours we may have broken Ann. At least we can tell she’s still alive from the groaning.
We are planning to all take a rest day tomorrow and probably do the side trip to Doué-la-Fontaine to see the troglodytes the next day. That would mean spending three nights in Saumur. |
First rest day since the 5th. Ann has been a rock star about riding every day but we all needed a rest day, especially after yesterday, which was tougher than anticipated.
We spent the day exploring Saumur and its château, and doing errands. We’ve been talking about making adjustments to our plan for the remainder of the trip and still haven’t made a decision about where we’ll go next.
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| Category |
Type |
Name |
Description |
Service Provider |
Cost |
Kms |
To Date |
Total |
| Activity |
Cycle |
Ride to St Mathurin
|
|
|
$0.00 |
35.00 |
173.00 |
|
I consider it a tremendous success that Ann got back on the bike today. She is such a rock star. We finished the hilliest part of the Loire (either side of Saumur) and are now in the home stretch. The plan is to press on to Nantes, then train to Rennes, a day trip (without bikes) to Mont St. Michel, day rides from Rennes (time permitting) then train back to Paris on the 27th.
I’ve already gone through Veloria’s first chain. We bought a new one today and Brent is installing it. Laura was having some brake issues so Laura and Brent have fixed that as well. |
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Enroute to St. Mathurin sur Loire
| Category |
Type |
Name |
Description |
Service Provider |
Cost |
Kms |
To Date |
Total |
| Activity |
Cycle |
Ride to la Possonnière
|
|
|
$0.00 |
46.00 |
219.00 |
|
This has been one of the best days of this trip for riding weather. It was quite ideal. What was less ideal was the potato chip flu that I had for several hours. I had bought some potato chips that we ate for a snack before dinner (I really pigged out on them). I felt a little off at dinner and could hardly eat any of my delicious galette. In the middle of the night I woke up feeling food-poison-ey and tried to hurl but couldn’t. I felt queasy for half the day today.
We took the side trip into Angers today, adding about 10km to the ride and getting lunch in town and a good look at the Chateau, which is quite an impressive structure. Brent and I didn’t recognize the way in or out of town, so we’ll have to look through our notes from 2015 to see what we did.
One of the things we certainly did not recognize was the self-ferry. Ann and I wouldn’t have had a hope of getting across without Brent and Laura who provided all the brains, skill and brawn to get us all across safely.
I’m very pleased to be having completely conversations with people in French, including giving other people directions. So glad I did all the French study over the last year.
We stopped to check out one of the Catholic Churches in Angers and were treated to an organist practicing on the enormous church organ.
I had ANOTHER flat today, bringing me up to four for the trip. I sort of had six, but three of them were all the same flat (two of them were patches that didn’t hold). |
| Category |
Type |
Name |
Description |
Service Provider |
Cost |
Kms |
To Date |
Total |
| Activity |
Cycle |
Ride to Ancenis
|
|
|
$0.00 |
51.00 |
270.00 |
|
We started today with ‘Hurty, Didn’t Sleep Ann’ so I thought we’d have to shorten up the plan for the day. She started doing better once we started, though, and 20km in I thought she’d do fine for our planned 39km. Then I saw a 30km to Andenis sign. My info from the Bikeline map gave me the wrong distance to Ancenis! It would be 50+km, not 39. Yikes! So, over lunch we discussed adjusting the plan and staying instead at St-Florent-le-Vieil. We thought perhaps the 30km sign was wrong and we still might make it to Ancenis and we would just see how things went. Not long after we came to a branch which offered an alternate, more direct route, which we decided to take, keeping St-Florent in our back pockets if necessary. At the turn off for St-Florent, we decided that we could press on to Ancenis, so we did, for a total distance of 51km (on the SHORTER route).
We met lots of folks today, including Denis at the campground who was patiently waiting for his wife to get up before beginning his day, Matt and Harry from London, Ontario (father and son- Harry being 8 years old), and Steve from Nelson.
Laura had her feet flat today, bringing the total up between the four of us to TEN. A crazy amount of flats. |
| Category |
Type |
Name |
Description |
Service Provider |
Cost |
Kms |
To Date |
Total |
| Activity |
Cycle |
Ride to Thouaré-sur-Loire
|
|
|
$0.00 |
32.00 |
302.00 |
|
|
We started off the day with the best breakfast ever - coffee shop across from the Ancenis Chateau across from a farmers market. We had an easy 32km ride to our campground and decided to spend only one night here and take a hotel tomorrow near the Nantes Gare for tomorrow. |
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It was a rerun day in reverse from May 23 2015: http://www.damdetails.com/calendar/day/23 |
| Category |
Type |
Name |
Description |
Service Provider |
Cost |
Kms |
To Date |
Total |
| Activity |
Cycle |
Ride into, and around, Nantes
|
|
|
$0.00 |
13.00 |
315.00 |
|
We cycled into Nantes from the campground today, sorted out train tickets from Nantes to Rennes and from Rennes to Paris, established that our accommodation will work ok for bike storage, and then went out to see Les Machines de L’Isle. It’s a stinkin’ hot day - I’m glad we’re not riding in the afternoon sun.
Just as we returned to the hotel in the afternoon to check in, Brent got another flat, bringing us up to 11 between the four of us (eight just for Brent and me). Yeesh.
Today I say hooray for the Montagues. We’re staying in a hotel in Nantes that hasn’t got much storage for bikes but I told the skeptical young woman that Brent and I could fold our bikes and put them in our room. She was quite pleased and astonished.
I’m more than a little impressed that Brent’s McGyver pannier rack lasted the whole trip. We didn’t even know if it would last out the day when it broke and he had to figure out how to hold it together. Old bicycle chain and hose clamps for the win! |
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This evening we walked around and saw the Chateau, and the Catholic Church and ate some galetes (savory crepes). Mmmmmmm galettes... |
| Category |
Type |
Name |
Description |
Service Provider |
Cost |
Kms |
To Date |
Total |
| Activity |
Cycle |
Transit
|
|
|
$0.00 |
7.00 |
322.00 |
|
|
We took the train today from Nantes to Rennes, connecting in Redon. When we got to the Nantes train station there were bunches of weekend Hellfest revelers waiting for their trains. It was super crowded. We were early so we went next door for second coffee. When we got back, most of the Hellfesters were gone but we had to walk down the ramp through Child City. Again, very crowded. Our first train was jam-packed with bikes. It was quite amazing to see and we barely fit on. Brent got cussed out by a guy for being near his bike and all of us got cussed out by a grumpy old lady who was very annoyed at having to squeeze past our bikes. Our second train was also jammed but the doorway that we were crowded into allowed just enough space for people to squeeze past to get to the WC and there was no out-cussing (although some stink eyes, and I’m sure some in-cussing). Moving through the train stations was relatively easy with most of our ups and downs being on ramps instead of stairs. |
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I had plotted out a route from the Rennes Gare to Camping Gayeulles that looked promising with lots of separated bike paths. I had it on the iPhone but that is of limited use when we’re on the move so I wrote three cheat sheets (Laura, Brent, Rhonda) and asked Brent and Laura to familiarize themselves with the toute (approx 6km through the city of Rennes). We made it to the park nearly directly with only one mistake (my fault, naturally). The campground is nice, the park is beautiful, and the cost is considerably lower than the $2500 it would cost the four of us to stay in a hotel here for three nights. |
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