Back to Eurovelo

July 19, 2023

Savigny-lès-Beaune to Palinges

The day began like the last one ended, with vineyards.

Above-average cycleway marker. All of The vineyards have these carved stone markers of what apellation they are; they made one of these for the veloroute.

I came through recognize that it's not just that they are a monocrop crop, because of course there's also large fields of sunflowers and wheat and other things; but that they are a relentless and totalizing monocrop. To be fair, this is what the United States does with every kind of crop. But when the French grow non-grape crops they break up the landscape. The fields alternate. Sometimes the wheat fields are surrounded with trees, or after if you fields of cereal crops, there will be a parcel of forest.

I took a course in international trade in law school, the professor at one point made an offhand comment that the French often sought special exemptions (in free trade agreements) for protection of agriculture on basically aesthetic grounds. They wanted to have specific crops because they are beautiful or part of their national identity. Sunflowers. Lavender. Even beyond the context of treaties, there seems to be a sense of land aesthetic that is important, of which forests are a part. I don't know exactly how it gets executed, but in most places one of their great things about bike touring in France is if you don't like the landscape it's probably going to be different in the next kilometer. But that's not true in the vineyards, where presumably the value of the name (and perhaps, microclimate) of each particular domain is it sufficient economic importance that they just all gets planted as grapes.

The other thing that gets to be kind of a bummer is that most of the routes that you're put on in wine country are paved for these spindly tractors that look like a device from a mashup of Frank Herbert's Dune and Pee-Wee's playhouse. Sometimes they drive between the rows of grapes, sometimes they drive it over the rows of grapes, presumably doing different things depending on where they are.

On the plus side, the vineyards roads are very narrow so there's rarely any other cars on them (except I guess a whole fleet of Renault white vans that seem to be transporting workers to and from job sites in the vineyards, but there's not that many of them and they drive carefully; especially considering that it's not harvest season, the French seem to be doing a lot more monitoring and maintaining of their vines than anyone seems to be doing in California).

On the downside, the tractors are insensitive to how smooth the pavement is. So the narrow roads tend to be not very smooth.

All this is to say that I wasn't really particularly enjoying the V51 tour of Bourgogne. Around 10:00 a.m. I passed the Santenay train station, and had a pretty serious thought of getting on a train. A lot of you people out there, and particularly my wife, are probably thinking "why are you complaining about wine country so much? If you don't like it why don't you go somewhere else". But a train to where? I had a track I had planned out. Yesterday I set a goal of going to the literally highest point on that track. Part of bike touring for me is to go through the hard parts so as to emphasize the good parts. It's about seeing a whole distance, a whome place, with all the good and bad parts together. I kept going.

Not too long after this an interesting sign popped up:

Now this was not a total surprise, because I had after all pasted together this route from a bunch of different things including Eurovelo 6. But it was all one GPX file and I didn't really know when any specific thing ended or began. I kinda thought EV6 was later.

Ordinarily this wouldn't seem like it would change much, but it did. Partly it gave a psychological boost that I had ended a particular phase which was the tour of Bourgogne. It also corresponded to a change in the general ecology: the vines ended and there was a bunch of shady trails. And it also seemed to correspond with a lot of public spending on bicycle infrastructure. All of the shady trails were smoothly paved.

A shady lane, everybody wants one /A shady lane, everybody needs one/...The worlds collide, but all that I want is a shady lane

Towns started to have infrastructure just for bicyclist, like this very nice public bathroom with a welcome bicyclist sign. So civilized.

Shortly afterward an entire road, like just a normal road constructed for cars, was closed and just made part of the Eurovelo route. Now of course a bunch of French drivers just ignored that and drove on it anyway - dudes fishing, a dude with a remote control speedboat, a bunch of dudettes driving on the bike road for no discernible purpose. And eventually the prohibition on cars seem to just stop without any notification or signage. Nevertheless, I appreciated the thought and it was a nice good stretch where it was just a giant wide road just for bicycles.

Giant wide road, just for bicycles. Note family of five on bikes in the distance

I was now also in a different department, which also is a pleasant feeling of progress. Done with Bourgogne, on to Saone et Loire. I had actually already seen the Saone; the Loire was yet to make an appearance on this trip.

I have to admit that I did not feel super good today. I had a headache for a lot of the day, my legs were definitely not in their smoking-ears Sammy Hagar persona at all. Resting somewhere probably would have been a rational decision. But, I had set a goal, and I just felt like continuing to go. So I went.

In the town of Montceau-les-Mines, which is and looks like the mining town its name suggests, it became apparent that there was a choice between two different variants of eurovalo. There is the main one which I had planned around, but also the possibility (marked as "Alt6" on my map) of just continuing on a canal trail. I was tired, but I had a goal, and also usually the trail designers pick something for a reason. Even though it involved some more climbing, presumably it was going to be more scenic than just going along a canal trail. And it was. It was a very beautiful forested area with a couple of small villages and the middle of a stretch of road in between those villages, next to a private forest road, I came to the literal high point of the trip. My goal.

Me, looking wiped out, at the literal high point of the trip.

True to its promise, the topography shifted downhill from there on out. Eventually I came back down to the canal (the Canal du Centre); there is another choice of continuing along it, or going up into forested hills again. This time I stayed with the canal and just pounded out the remaining kilometers to the next campsite. Which, it being along the Eurovelo, has a whole dedicated cyclist section, with picnic tables to organize your stuff and electrical sockets so that I don't have to stress out about whether someone's going to steal my external phone battery charging in the bathroom, which is what I have to do it most campgrounds. There's also just lots of bicycle tourists here, I talked to Michelle from the Netherlands who wants to show me some cool paper maps of voies vertes she has, and Bob from the UK (I guessed from his Thorn bike, which was also the chosen vehicle of Irishman Julian Bloomer, who I met in Ecuador in 2009) who seems to have been everywhere in Europe (he particularly recommends climbing up the Rhone from Lake Geneva).

The barbed wire puts a dent in the atmosphere, but otherwise a very lovely campsite

Bonne nuit.

Today's ride: 98 km (61 miles)
Total: 1,099 km (682 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	3
Comment on this entry	Comment	0