Saturday July 16, 2011
Bouronne-les-Bains to Dijon
103 km
6:26 time in the saddle
Amanda writes:
Big headwind on this day. The value of drafting was terrific for me, but not for Andrew. I tried to lead and let Andrew draft but the head wind was too strong and our speed slowed to ten km/h. So Andrew lead most of the way.
Very large fields of sun flowers go on forever.
A very interesting sign on the side of the road telling you that water on the left flows into the Nordic Sea and water on the right of the line flows into the Mediterranean Sea.
The wind was so fierce we could hear branches breaking by groves of trees as we rode by. At one time a gust almost knocked Andrew right off. He had to unclip and try and rebalance using some of the same moves he would use on a skinny while mountain biking. We made out okay with the exception of my kickstand that snapped as a wind gust blew my bike over. We are lucky it didn’t snap the brake line when it broke.
Andrew illustrating the head wind with a flag. Notice the fallen bike beside him that was blown over by the wind.
Some beautiful homes along the way.
I practiced my French while riding. I have mastered how to say I don’t speak French very well. I am looking very forward to seeing our friends Emmanuel and Newel.
Andrew playing with some run down gates.
We came cross a wedding in a small town. Andrew was quick to get some of our rice and throw it at the bride and groom. He fits in really well!
Andrew writes:
Ugh. Today sucked balls. The head wind was quite fierce and made the ride drag on forever. To make matters worse, we left the campsite this morning without filling up our water bottles and camelbacks. We rode 40km each on 1 water bottle (700ml) before I begged for a refill from a woman. We split that until we got to lunch an hour later where I again begged for both bottles to get refilled, and finally at the 70km mark I was able to get full camelbacks and bottles but we were both quite thirsty by this point.
Enough about the bad things though; we saw a wedding while riding through one town,I got to throw rice at the newlyweds. Also, at one point a group of road cyclists passed us, going double our speed. We summoned the stngth to catch up and used them as a windbreak for about 5km. It was quite fun racing at that speed after being battered by the wind all day. Even when I was completely knackered, Amanda surged ahead and kept pace with them for another few hinder meters. The rest of the ride to Dijon seemed to fly by after that.
When we reached Dijon, Nawal had cooked us a wonderful dinner and they we such wonderful hosts. I remember how when they showed up on our doorstep at 10pm all we had for them was some spaghetti. Catching up with them all night is definately the high point of the trip!
Emmanuel & Nawal
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Location:Bourbonne-les-Bains to Dijon