April 29, 2023 to May 1, 2023
Perpignan - St Jean de Fos
Stage 11
In Perpignan I finally bought the glasses I'd been promising myself every time a bug flew into my eyes and drowned, slowly. There was no mechanic at the bike shop so Wally didn't get his 2nd from lowest gear tweaked.
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The long flat stretch after Perpignan was not memorable, but the hot hiking path climb up to the wind turbines before Port la Nouvelle was, and not for positive reasons. I may have been a bit light on the food intake for the day, and humour went awol. This was quickly resolved after I checked into the hostel in Port la Nouvelle and staggered the 50m to a Carrefour for dinner and snacks.
What I didn't do was stock up for the next evening. Alignan du Vent, the location of my gite, is a tiny town, were no restaurants and no grocery stores open over the rest of the weekend, but of course I didn't know that. More on that issue soon.
My lovely hosts in Port la Nouvelle provided an excellent breakfast and a suitably appreciative audience when I showed them the map of the EDT. I stepped out into the damp with my host's advice that the sun would be out in 2 hours. He was right, but possibly because by then I'd ridden 30km north, and into another weather zone.
The first 30km was along canal paths and cycle trails, sometimes into a 30kmph head wind, and sometimes with a 30kmph tail wind. Gruissan was busy with tourists and at Narbonne Beach there was a triathlon just wrapping up - OMG some beautiful bikes!
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Then it was inland toward Beziers and some time on the Canal du Midi. My first view of working locks: how exciting for me to see genius engineering in action, and how time consuming, waiting for water to transfer!
The Trail took us up to the Beziers bull fighting arena, an impressive building from the outside, and through a series of streets named after famous artists, on to a cycle trail and out into vineyards. Nice!
As I mentioned, my gite for the night was not near a food supply, so I ate my "emergency" rice and sardines meal, and all the corn crackers and cheese remaining from "lunch". This left a packet of almonds for breakfast and to fuel a 65km ride to Saint Jean de Fos. With the working expectation that no shops would be open (certainly all the big supermarkets indicated closed until Tuesday am) I was a bit anxious about how this would feel.
So I rode to the next town with no real plan, and found a fruit shop that also stocked ham and cheese - of course it did, this is France! Crisis mostly averted, I just need to replace my emergency meal, and that should be possible tomorrow. Seems that Labour Day holiday does not apply to restaurants in tourist areas, and I've appreciated that for lunch (in Salasc) and dinner (in Saint Jean de Fos).
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Arriving in Saint Jean de Fos has stage 11 wrapped up. 206km of distance and just 2150m of climbing, a flat, easy stage through lush and pretty countryside - with just a couple of edits to give me 203km and 1980m elevation gain
Today's ride: 203 km (126 miles)
Total: 2,380 km (1,478 miles)
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