Look ma, no sunscreen!

August 10, 2019

As you might know from the title, today’s ride was under cloudy skies. What a change from yesterday. I even wore a light jacket as I set out.

One last look at the chateau of Pompadour. The restauration looks very good.

The race course across the road from the castle.

While looking back at the castle, I missed the road I wanted to take, so I ended up backtracking about a kilometer to get on track. It’s funny, but when I was showing tourists around in France I used to warn them about this very phenomenon. There’s simply too many interesting things to see.

Back on the right path, I was passing through Vigeois when I was joined by two cyclists on fancy road bikes. They said ‘bonjour’ of course, and hearing my accented reply one of them switched immediately to English. We rode along chatting in a mixture of English and French (the other guy spoke no English and I didn’t want to be rude). The usual questions, where are you from, where are you going, etc. A guy leaned out of a passing car shouting for us to get out of the way, which is not the usual thing here in bicycle-mad France, so we were rather nonplussed. When a passing Gendarme told us to keep more to the right, we were baffled and a little indignant. Riding two abreast is perfectly legal, if not very nice on twisty roads with a lot of traffic. Anyway, we soldiered on, splitting up just outside Uzerche, they going right and I left.

Riding down into Uzerche you pass just below the old castle, now broken up into separate residences.

In Uzerche, I stopped to eat a fruit bar and drink some water, and to have a look at my map. Lucky for me they village I was heading for was named on the signposts, so finding the route was easy. The climb out of the old city was not easy, by i kept at it and was up on the crest of the hills again soon enough. A few kilometers down the road and my route turned to go through a forest and wound up and down until I got to Treignac, my destination for the day. It was about half past twelve when I arrived, and the hotel naturally did not have my room made up, but no problem, I sat down to an enormous hamburger in the restaurant.

After lunch, my room was ready, and I got in and showered before going for a walk in the village. I am finding that after all the climbing on the bike, I am not too inclined to climb on foot, so my look around was very superficial. Lovely village, though.

The lower, medieval part of Treignac. Beautifully kept.

Dinner consisted of a melon and cured ham salad served in a half melon “bowl”, a cuisse de pintade (guinea fowl leg), and brioche facon pain perdue.

Today's ride: 60 km (37 miles)
Total: 683 km (424 miles)

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