Day 27: Valence to Donzere (beyond Montelimar)

April 22, 2018

We are now three days into the sixth stage of this ride, that is - the Via Rhona. At the beginning of each stage I have been putting up an entry with a brief description of what is coming. But this time I forgot, and tomorrow we will reach Avignon, which we are calling the end of the stage. So this is your chance to go back and read the description of Stage Six. Click here. Don't worry, the rest of today's story will patiently wait here for you!

With it being a quiet Sunday morning we had a chance for another, calm, look at Valence. That started with our hotel and the street in front of it. Nope, still just ok - no big deal. But we still say inside it was pretty good.

How about other part of Valence - the middle of the old town, elegant buildings - sure, it was nice.

We made our way to the edge of town - back to the river - and gazed across at the hills of the Ardeche. These hills would be on our right side all day as we descended the river. They have some pretty steep cliffs as a source of interest, but with a few exceptions that bank did not offer much in the way of castles, hill towns, or vines. You would have to say it was pretty wild and natural.

We got onto the veloroute and began pedaling along. The surface was good and it was usually by the river, but otherwise there was no excitement. After about 20 km I declared it was time for a coffee break, which means finding a bakery. So we kept our eyes open as we came to La Voulte. Actually what we really had to do was to stick to what we were trying to do. That's because as we entered town a cyclist came behind and noticing my Canadian flag quickly told about his son that is living in Quebec. Then he insisted on guiding us to the bridge out of town. But no, we wanted to be in town. After we shook the well meaning cyclist, Dodie quickly spotted a bakery. In my traditional position, parked outside with the bikes, I was free to look around. On one side was a huge Sunday flea market. The French just love these, and it's amazing how much junk they have to exchange. Straight down the street was a scene of small shops, and a roadway lined with Plane trees. It was all just so "French".

Adjacent to me were three bikes, leaned against a tree and held by one chain. I sized them up - instantly, as befits my expert status! Clearly these were the unladen bikes of serious cycle travelers: German brands - Kalkhoff and Farradmanufaktur, low rider front racks, hydraulic disk brakes, suspension seat posts, low gearing, Schwalbe tires, etc. etc. One of the bikes was also electric assist - Impulse drive unit, 623 wH battery. (Afficionados will instantly know that that was the Kalkhoff). Not that I touched or even walked around the bikes, these basic facts are obvious with one quick glance.

Dodie came out with an apricot tarte and the best brownie it is possible to imagine. Hooray! She was followed in short order by a man who turned out to be Jacques, and then his wife Christine, and their friend, Christine. These were the owners of the three stashed bikes.

What ensued was a classic session of the Usual Questions. In this case, a two way exchange. We found that they live here but will shortly take a train to Nevers and then cycle the Loire to the Atlantic, then down to Bordeaux, and across the Canal du Midi, and back here. In short, several major pieces of our own ride, except in the reverse direction.

With these preliminaries out of the way (took about 1/2 hour!), we moved over to disk vs rim brakes, the range offered by Impulse vs Bosch drives on an e-assist, and other technical details. Maybe another 1/2 hour. We finally said goodbye, though we have now received an email from Jacques, with an invitation to stay with them next time around. So great.

We then began to thread our way through the large flea market. Mostly it seemed like uninteresting junk, but some things - guitars, balalaika, old record players, maybe.

Now it was time to finally cross that bridge, but before that could happen we ran into two more touring cyclists. This was an old couple from Sweden who had started in Marseilles and were returning to Sweden. We took it upon ourselves to warn them about the 40 km of hills and no signs around Lyon. They had the Bikeline book, with the German text, and since they understood German they already had read Bikeline's recommendation to take a train around Lyon. The lady seemed ready to take this advice, but the man had a lot of faith in his orienteering skills, and and felt that with the Bikeline map and a compass they would be alright. We hope so too, but we are pretty sure it will end in tears. Unless they put a comment into this blog, we will unfortunately never know how it went. It was fun talking to them too. Sweden seems exotic to us. For example none of their equipment was of a brand that we recognized.

The Swedish couple. Dodie knows that Bikeline book well!

Looking back at La Voulte. Who would have guessed a brownie stop would take so long!

The route continued uneventful until we neared our next major objective - Montelimar. To go into the town was going to mean a 10 km (minimum) detour, in which we would go in and literally back out on the same path before continuing to our B&B, 20 km downriver. Dodie clearly outlined the cost in km of going into Montelimar, the distance remaining after that, the headwind, and the time used up in La Voulte. But she was not actively recommending we give Montelimar a miss. So that meant we were going for it. Weighing 250 g. of artisanal nougat in the balance of my head against distance, time, wind, etc. is no contest. I once ran us 20 miles on 3 speed bikes in the Rockies for a muffin! (True story).

Dodie did a great job guiding us into town and to the greatest nougat factory in the world - G. Savin Suprem'Nougat. The business actually started in 1900, but it was bought in 1957 by Georges Savin. His son Jacques took over in 1989. Last year we had a tour of the production and were really impressed by the time the staff took in explaining things to us, and by how close we were allowed to get to everything. When they say artisanal production they mean it - the whole thing is not much bigger than a large bakery shop.

Real nougat is by no means cheap, with a price depending in what is mixed in with it (fruit, nuts) of about 40 euros per kilo. That's about 25 US dollars per pound. The lady in the shop, no doubt understanding cyclists, directed us to some half price off cuts. Still totally yummy but with irregular shape, these were half price!

Nougat! (This is the good stuff, ours is the same but it is cubes in a baggie.)

Aside from the quality of the nougat, something we like about Savin is the series of graphics they have, depicting their hayday when the National 7 passed by their door, and tourists from Paris on their way to the Med would stop in. Here is some of that art:

Since we were in Montelimar for the nougat anyway, we had a peek at the downtown. While the streets were atmospherically narrow and crumbly, we felt the spirit of the place was depressed.

Rather than go entirely back onto the Via Rhona, which at this stage was a head-windy dike by the river, Dodie found us a route on road. This started off on the actual current N7, but we soon cut out to some quieter streets. In several cases cars coming from behind us in narrow situations failed to wait but rather pulled out and around, risking head on collisions with oncoming traffic. I couldn't help but think how fast these drivers would fail the drivers' test back home, and I wondered what they actually teach in driving school, if anything, over here.

The roads overall were not too bad, except for one other feature - hills. We climbed and climbed at one point and our bikes were not at all happy about it. It's a cooperative effort between them and us, and we both finished quite exhausted.

The B&B in Donzere was lovely, and after 94 km most welcome. It had a locked courtyard with our place being on its own - like a garden cottage. Our bikes are just parked, unlocked, outside the door.

Looking out the window of our garden cottage.

Bonus: Here are some topics that did not quite make it into the story of the day as told above. These bits are explained in the captions.

The walls of a bike tunnel were decorated with some bike and other graphics. Like this one.

The caption for this graphic was to the effect that to be born is full of promise but to grow old is an achievement.

This long suspension bridge was very wobbly, raising Dodie's heart rate.

Fear on the bridge resonated with this graphic from the tunnel: "In case of danger assume fetal position!"

We passed one of those French nuclear stations. They seemed to be trying to dress it up with a friendly painting on a cooling tower and what must be a token wind turbine.

The Drome is a major river that enters the Rhone from the East. It gives its name to the Department of the Drome. Here you see the Drome in lighter blue joining the Rhone.

Ibis has two brands- Budget and Styles, that often share the same building (which you can see in the distance in this photo). Can anyone give a clear statement on how these differ?

Today's ride: 94 km (58 miles)
Total: 1,735 km (1,077 miles)

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