Saint- Afrique to Lacaune

May 6, 2024

A cold but good day touring

Now that I am more or less recovered, we were trying to figure out how to get back on schedule. In two nights we had a paid-for reservation in Mazamet and I reworked our schedule last night on the fly. Rather than ride west along the Tarn Gorge all the way to Albi (which was not realistic because we didn’t cover enough ground yesterday) I worked out a route cross country- so to speak -which covered around 100 km in two days, which is about our speed these days! We would have to plan to see Albi another time, along with the Tarn Gorge. Fortunately there appeared to be one town, Lacaune, at the mid mark of my modified route, and it showed as having several small hotels with availability. The route to Lacaune had about twice the elevation gain as yesterday’s ride and some limited (about 10 km) of busier roads, but I hoped it would be okay. And it was.

We awoke to rainy skies, projected to clear by noon (sort of), and our nice host let us sit in the hotel restaurant until noon. It didn’t really clear but stopped raining hard so we bundled up and had a very nice but chilly ride, in the middle of nowhere. We never went through a town, although we did stop at a small rest area (well, a widening in the road) about two thirds of the way there which was located at the top of a climb. We stopped outside a farm and we split a baguette sandwich purchased from the bakery in Saint-Afrique. Our presence disturbed a couple of farm dogs who encouraged us to hurry with their incessant barking and feint charges at us.

The landscape was lush from the unseasonably rainy weather.

The busy roads were no problem and the last 15 k was a lovely varied rural climb on a small road and then a descent into Lacaune, which Dave liked more than Jill. The town is pitched on the side of the mountain and those 8 or 10 percent downhill pitches ending at a stop sign are nerve-wracking.

We showed up at Logis Relais Fusies with no reservation which proved to be no problem as it was nearly empty of guests. The hotel was great for touring cyclists. Described as a “quaint hotel in a former stable”, it desperately needed a major refurbishment but was charming, warm and we could recharge our bike batteries in their garage. And it had a tub to boot. This was all for the princely sum of 84 euros. We warmed up and dined in the hotel dining room that night. France really has wonderful accommodations.

Today's ride: 46 km (29 miles)
Total: 274 km (170 miles)

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