September 25, 2017
Belley to Belleguarde: The guide said this section is challenging,
Last night in Belley Keith and I had the best pizza we have ever had, in one of only two restaurants open on a Sunday evening. The woman at reception told us it would be good, and was it ever. I could see medals hanging on the walls of the restaurant and pictures of the chef at various competitions. What a great surprise.
Our table mates were two couples from Holland touring in their vintage sports cars. Just imagine how much fun that would be. We had a great conversation and were delighted to meet up with them again in the hotel over breakfast. We were staying in the same spot. The Sweet Home Hotel was perfect. They tucked our bikes away securely, the room was great and the bed comfortable. We really recommend it as a place to stay.
The ride for the first part of the day was exactly what I had anticipated. The bike path followed the river to the cute little town of Chanaz. Those km went by in a blink. The weather wasn't as good today as yesterday...the sky was overcast but we were dry and it was warm.
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After Chanaz the riding continued to be easy until another cute village, Seyssel. It was a combination of bike path and shared road riding, but the road was very quiet and the day was still unfolding as it should. We were getting hungry. Me in particular, because unlike the CN I did not have a big lemon tart at the bakery in Chanaz. We jointly rejected a picnic area just outside of Seyssel, deeming it not scenic enough. We like to have a view with our lunch and decided we could do better.
Oh my goodness. The Via Rhona signs routed us onto another D road and the climbing began. The brochure had something to say about this section, and I quote "Quite a challenging bike ride. The route is only suitable for experienced cyclists". Why didn't they just say there was a huge #€%^* mountain in the middle of it? We went up and up and up, with me searching for a bench for lunch the whole climb. When we finally found one I was close to bonking, but the upside (very punny) was that we did have one heck of a view. We were pretty sure we were close to the top...we were on one side of a switchback, but couldn't have been more wrong. So after lunch I was climbing on a very full stomach. Honestly I thought it was the stairway to heaven because I felt like that was where we were going to end up. Spectacular views though!
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Once at the top the riding was relatively sane until the approach to Bellegarde. We went down and down to the river valley, and not without a little bit of drama where there was construction. The road was one lane controlled by a red light. The trucks piled up at the light so we decided to let them all go and then follow, except that by the time the last one was through the light was red again. Hmmmmm. Next green we followed the last truck through regardless and it worked out well because we were able to nip over earlier than the cars and trucks could and we had a long cruise down to the river traffic free.
As we crossed the bridge into town there was an explosion. They were blasting. I have a very well developed startle reflex and nearly jumped off my bike into the river. Sheesh. Then to polish the day off nicely, we discovered that the hotel we had booked was all the way back up the hill on the other side of the valley. We should sleep well tonight!
Today's ride: 64 km (40 miles)
Total: 1,446 km (898 miles)
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