August 23, 2017
Farting Around: Day 16 - Baume les Dames to Montbeliard
We had everything set for an early start today, even though we were planning on a relatively modest day. We'd procured our own breakfast (bananas, yogurt, milk & granola) the night before. We got up before everyone else in the campground (once again) and we were fed and starting to breaking camp at about 8.
That's when one of our neighbors ripped off a couple of good farts.
The tone for the rest of the day was set.
After K stopped giggling (quite a while), we decided that we'd dry the tent and fly now (there was a heavy dew last night). Normally we just pack it away wet and then set it up later in the morning to dry when we have a break.
So we putzed around for a while, waiting for the tent to dry, finally got everything packed and ready to go at around 9:30 and then noticed that K's front tire was nearly flat. We had a choice of pumping it up and heading down the road and fixing it later if required, or having a look at it right now. Given that we had sinks and water and picnic tables at our disposal right here, we decided to have a look at it now.
Turns out the tube was fine, no puncture. We might not have had the valve fully closed, a kid may have snuck into our campsite last night and let the air out of it, it could have been a late night sacrifice to the cycling gods,... who knows.
What this meant was that it was 11 before we left the campground. This set us up for perfect asynchrony with all of France's commercial activities. Just as we pulled up in front of the only Boulangerie / Patisserie in one of the few towns we came to, the proprietor turned the key and locked up the shop for 'lunch'. She would be back at 3. We wouldn't.
The day seemed to go on like this as the sun continued to rise in the sky and intensify. It was stinkin hot. We finally found a Bar / Tabac open in l'Isle-sur-le-Doubs and pulled in to get a cold drink and some shade.
We really didn't have a destination in mind today, other than to get more than halfway to Mulhouse (i.e more thatn 60 km but ideally around 80 km). We had found a Warm Showers host right at that distance and they looked like an ideal fit. Before we left the campsite we'd sent them a hosting request and when we pulled into the Tabac we had a reply, yeah! Getting any sort of a reply elicits a yeah. However unfortunately they couldn't host us tonight due to a 95th birthday party for one of their parents, but they did recommend a campground that was a little further past their place. When we looked into this it turns out the campsite would leave us with only about a 15 km ride to the very nice Auberge we've booked for tomorrow, and quite a bit of riding left to do today. Oh, and the temperature was in the 30's, in the shade.
We made the executive decision to call on Ibis in the next large town, Montbeliard, about 20 km further.
Good thing we did this, as the heat and sun was verging on brutal.
So a short day, generally nice biking along canals (again) but some pretty nasty heat in the afternoon. Would have been a different story if we had not been delayed by the flatulence.
The forecast for the next few days is for even hotter temps. We need to get most of our biking done by 11, not using that as a start time!
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Song of the day:
Pools by Glass Animals,
A cool song and the You Tube video looks like a cool forest floor and tide pool ... all the things today wasn't but we wished it could have been!
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Today's ride: 64 km (40 miles)
Total: 1,219 km (757 miles)
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