June 28, 2024
Obernai to Ribeauvillé
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Unfortunately Dave had a bad night with some gastrointestinal distress and not much sleep and woke up still suffering with low-level fatigue and cramping. We discussed whether to see if we could stay another night but he claimed he was okay to ride since it was a short ride (41 km to Ribeauvillé) with only 330 meters in cumulative elevation gain.
While we were retrieving our bikes from the garage around the corner, he struck up a conversation with the two women (wo)manning the front desk at the Hotel La Diligence. He had a fun conversation of which I caught the tail end. Pascaline and Oceane were interested in our trip and tried to teach us the proper pronunciation of Ribeauvillé. We learned the proper pronunciation but I am still not sure we can pronounce it! Their hotel is part of a small chain and they were very good ambassadors for their hotels.
The ride went okay but it was a struggle for Dave and it was a warm, muggy day which made it even harder. We had one “eat an apple” stop simply because he was flagging. Fortunately we found a nice outdoor terrace restaurant in the town of Châtenois and splitting a plate of salad fixings and a carpaccio which revived him so we could make our way the final 10 km into Ribeauvillé.
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In Ribeauvillé we checked into our hotel with fortunately excellent a/c and Dave pretty much collapsed and slept until dinner time. That evening we walked through Ribeauvillé. It has a long main street and, again, is charming. The tourists were out; it was more crowded and there were many more people speaking English and languages other than French. It is also more expensive, and our hotel bills in particular have been 40 - 50 euros more per night for the last few nights than in previous regions. And there were a ton of cyclists and cycle tourers. We also have seen more organized bike groups (Backroads and VBT for example).
After we left I read that Ribeauvillé has the largest giant sequoia outside of California. We’re sorry we didn’t know that before as we would have searched for it and recorded some photo evidence.
At dinner that night we visited with a foursome at the next table that were from the Netherlands: Harley, Lisette, Arno and Aajge. They had driven out from the Netherlands with mountain bikes for a holiday and were very interested in the American west as a mountain bike destination. We felt bad for them because they were leaving the following day and had a 600 km drive ahead of them. This sounded terrible to me especially, but they were young and I guess I did serious drives like that when I was young too!
Today's ride: 42 km (26 miles)
Total: 2,096 km (1,302 miles)
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