July 25-27, 2018
We continued along the euro velo 6 near the rivers for our last few days in France before we hit new countries.
What happened…
Amanda writes: When we first set out on this trip we had planned to just cycle the Eurovelo 6 route starting in France and heading to Black Sea near Instanbul. Then our long time friends from France expressed interest in seeing us and cycling with us for a week we changed things a bit. So we basically tacked on about 10 days at the beginning to cycle with them on the shores of the Normandy Coast and introduce Stephanie to the fun of cycling with others. As that set our schedule back quite a bit we had to have a discussion about our original plans. So on July 25 we had good chats with Stephanie about the plans going forward. We made some decisions and modified our route to try and facilitate some challenging yet attainable goals.
Then next couple of days were more of what we had expected in terms of route on this trip. Easy meandering trails along rivers and canals through France. There were so many other cyclists it was almost like a community and it was great for Stephanie to see how popular the sport is. We were lucky enough to see a red moon in Retzswiller with our hosts were absolutely wonderful. Such compassionate and caring hosts Henri and Claudia which is just what we needed. Claudia personalized names on our doors which may seem so small, but meant so much to us. Steph translated French for us while we chatted with them and it was so great to see her excel at socializing and basically carrying the entire conversation for everyone.
Stephanie writes:
We woke up after a pretty sleepness night. We stayed at a big campground and there was a couple that had a huge fight from 12 midnight until 5am.
There was lots of yelling, screaming and hitting. I think someone called the Police. It seemed like maybe drugs or alcohol were a factor. There was a large kids groups at the campground and the kids were pretty scared which wasn’t cool.
We started riding and the route was along the river pretty much the whole way. Only one part was uphill. Some guy let us eat lunch in his year and Andrew met an Asian biker and he gave Andrew a Pepsi Max. We also ran into some bikers who we had met earlier. Simon and Beatrice are from France and super friendly. They just bought a house and Simon is a safety officer although he doesn’t wear a helmet. We rode the rest of the way to a campsite with them. Andrew, Simon and Beatrice went into the river for a swim. Then we ate dinner with some other cyclists, a German couple who smoked Jerry & Bridget. We played music with about 10 people and hung out with both couples and the German ladies what we kept running into. There were lots of kids on their bikes riding around and they would take turns pulling the younger ones in a trailer. And just for fun there was some guy yelling in the bathroom for some drama. We also finally found out the German ladies names who we had been running into for 3 days; Coralina and Annetta.
We left early the next morning and said bye to everyone. As we left there was a funny goat just standing on a tree stump what was hilarious. We rode to our warm showers host through the Black Forest which most of us know because a cake is named after it. It really was dark. Our hosts names are Henri and Claudia. I got my own bedroom and we shared a bathroom. The property is super cool and has a barn and a warmshowers host sign. We had a super awesome dinner and did I mention the property is gorgeous. It’s a huge house and barn with two garages attached to either side of the barn. It’s five stories high with a huge yard. Henri and Claudia were so kind we decided to stay another day and take a rest. Well sort of a rest because we had to get groceries and dessert by bike. In the afternoon we hung out in the hammock and watched the blood moon which is apparently really rare. You could also see Mars beside it which was cool being red and all. We talked about our next phase of travel and booked my return trip to Canada August 29.
The aerial view of our ride – WITH PICTURES: (Click on view on Relive for detailed map)
Today’s Flickr Photographs
[flickr_tags user_id=”17145280@N00″ tags=”072518,072618,072718″]Cycling Stats
July 25, 2018
Start Point: Chalezeule, France
Destination: L’Isle Sur le Doubs, France
64.91km trip, 17.11 km/h average speed, 35.2 km/h maximum speed, 3:48 time on the bike
July 26, 2018
Start Point: L’Isle Sur le Doubs, France
Destination: Retzwiller, France
56.35 km trip, 16.4 km/h average speed, 40.4 km/h maximum speed, 3:26 time on the bike
Route Description:
July 25, 2018 We were on the ev6 all day. There were a bit more hills than before but still small.
July 26, 2018 The day again was mostly along the river. We passed many cyclists and went through one town where we bought a drink. We changed our route away from the river to get to our warm showers host. The route went through the Black Forest.
Accommodations:
July 25, 2018 We stayed at a campground right by the river. It cost $15.70 euros and had showers and toilets.
July 26, 2018 We stayed at a warm showers host in a beautiful home. We had a wonderful dinner. We ended up staying for two nights.