August 18, 2017
I Can See Clearly Now ...: Day 11 - Nevers to Bourbon-Lacy
... 'the rain is gone'... Well, not really. We had steady rain for the last hour of our ride. Today's title isn't referring the classic Johnny Nash song but rather to Kirsten's rear cog situation.
Although our bikes have a (for now) very specialized drive systems with limited service providers, the folks who make the systems have done their best to provide for us. First, Vincent at Rohloff (rear hub), who was my initial point of contact put me in direct contact with the European folks at Gates (drive belt and cogs) and even sent an explanatory e-mail. Next, the folks at Gates stepped right up. Chris in Gates Germany sent the tools we (or a bike shop) need to change Kirsten's cog, and we picked them up in Nevers.
Next, Jean-Marc with Gates France has been in contact with us to find a shop along the way who will be able to do the work. This afternoon it all came together. Jean-Marc put us in contact with Olivier who owns Curve Bikes (hand built titanium bikes), who is both an authorized Gates and Rohloff manufacturer. We spoke directly with Olivier this aft and have arranged to have him change the cog next Thursday.
That's why we can see clearly now!
Olivier's business is close to Dijon, so it will require us to make a diversion north through a few obscure villages, Chassange-Montrachet, Puligny-Montrachet, Meursault, Volnay, Pommard. We will probably have to rest in Beaune before the final push to his shop, with additional rest stops at Aloxe-Corton and possibly Vosne-Romanee. I hope this diversion is worth it!
But back to today... same same but different. Although we were still more or less following the Loire drainage basin, the topography is changing to rolling hills and more mixed farms with a lot more livestock involved. Given the rolling terrain, we are following canals, as the river is probably not navigable for larger boats.
There's quite a bit of 'tourist boat traffic' along the canals and it's something that we think might be good for a week or so (not longer as we'd probably go crazy!). Just about every boat we see has bikes stashed on deck so it could be a nice way of moving around from place to place. We noted however that that we were passing all the boats at a pretty good clip so canal boating may be even too slow paced for us!
So today was just another great day of biking. It was unfortunate that it started to rain when it did, as that's when we started to get some really nice rolling and winding roads through farms and pastures. As we've said before with bike touring, you get all your senses stimulated and we were getting the full on cow farm smell today ... in a good way.
When we pulled into Bourbon-Lacy it was raining pretty hard so we tried to wimp out and book a hotel. Turns out the two hotels in town were full so we went to the campsite instead. Great call, it's one of the nicest we've been at. It even has a sheltered, heated lounge area for bikers! With beer. That's where I'm sitting right now, the rain has stopped and it's clearing up. We really can see clearly now.
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Song of the day:
Staying with the Afro-French theme ...
Subway by Asa .. another 'just because I like it' pick
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Today's ride: 85 km (53 miles)
Total: 816 km (507 miles)
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