St. Quentin Sur Isère to St. Marie d’Alloix

June 3, 2019

Golf Resort to an Ancient and Grand Old House

It was much quieter in the golf resort breakfast room this morning and there were fewer golfers as the weekend is over. Keith tried to find Vincent, his French golf pro before we left but he was off giving another lesson. Keith was really disappointed. Vincent was such a nice guy and so helpful.

Croaky, and his multiple friends, reside in the water hazard at the 18th green. He and his buddies chorused until 4 AM each night, when they finally shut it down. Our room overlooked the 18th green and even Keith resorted to earplugs on the second night. They were loud!!

We started off today on the safe route to Grenoble. It was flat, car free and beautiful. We choose this route because of questions about Keith’s bike of course, but by the time we were in Grenoble he was feeling so confident about his do it yourself repairs we just sailed right through and didn’t stop at a bike shop. Almost all the bike shops I had researched were closed on a Monday anyway, and the two we did randomly go by were also fermé until tomorrow.

We rolled out of Grenoble without any problems on a great bike route. Part of it was a shared bike and bus lane. We have encountered this a number of times in Europe and really like it. Lots of room and when you encounter a bus there is a professional driver at the wheel. It really works well.

Pretty nice bike route through town. Grenoble still wasn’t winning me over though...

And then this. We don’t know what this was about.

We were on the V63 and rolling through beautiful countryside but thought we would try a different route. We wound up in strip development and it continued for about fifteen km before we gave up and swung back to the V63. It was amazing, and not in a good way. As Keith put it, it wasn’t recent strip development either. Of course it was midday so everything was closed with graffitied roller shutters on all the businesses to add to the ambience. The entire time, yours truly, who should not have had so much coffee this morning, was getting increasingly desperate. It was an absolutely hilarious situation. Every time we thought we must be at the end it continued as far as we could see. We spotted a sports field and found washrooms. Locked. A sympathetic coach unlocked them for me. I was so grateful. As soon as we could we bailed back to the bucolic wonder that is V63. There are no pictures of the urban section...we were too busy!

The rest of the ride was straightforward, beautiful and hot. It was over 30 degrees C today and the shade in the forested areas was appreciated. It was a great ride.

Well that’s more like it. Not as entertaining as the strip development I suppose. However, funny as we found our predicament we can do without that kind of entertainment. When you choose a route, you just can’t know. It looked great on open cycle maps, and was safe, just not very appealing. A commuter route.

Clouds building over the mountains. We were hot in the valley.

But we didn’t worry about water thanks to the Grampies.

We arrived at our Chambre d’hôte and it is wonderful. We were hot so the first thing we did was jump in the pool. The house was built in the 15th century and Nicole, our host, says they have been renovating it for thirty years. It is an amazing spot.

Sitting area...all ours since we are the only guests tonight.

The exterior. It is such a cool spot. The pool was a real bonus today.

We ate dinner on a beautiful teak table overlooking the pool. We knew this tiny village didn’t have a restaurant so we picked up wine, cheeses, a baguette and charcuterie on our ride. It was a super meal. It is so nice to be able to sit outside late into the evening.

It was another great day. Tomorrow we head to Albertville to check out stage 20 of this year’s Tour de France. We are hoping to do part of it the next day so we can see if we recognize any of it when we watch from home in July. Then it is up to Annecy and point the bikes towards Switzerland. We have to be in Zurich on the 17th. We have a short side trip planned from Zurich. We fly home the 21st. It is going by too fast.

Today's ride: 76 km (47 miles)
Total: 1,740 km (1,081 miles)

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