September 24, 2019
Day 1 - Montauban to St-Antonin-Noble-Val
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
We woke to grey skies and drizzle. And a not-so-great weather forecast. But we persevered.
After a lovely breakfast, we packed up and drove back into town. Unfortunately it had begun to rain - rather heavily, actually. We parked the car in the underground parking lot and reassembled the bike. More cursing as the brakes needed to be readjusted. But eventually everything was together, the bags were on the bike, and we were ready to go!
Doing our last-minute check before departing, we discovered that yours truly had left his phone at the B&B. Ugh. So our first kilometers would be in the exact wrong direction.
Fortunately, as we wheeled the bike up to the street, the rain had lightened to a fine mist. We set off nervously, but managed to navigate back to the B&B where our charming host was waiting with my phone. All fixed.
Now the ride began. We skirted around the north side of Montauban and hooked up with our originally-planned route. We rode out of town through flat farming country where most of the land was planted to feed corn. We picked up signs for the Aveyron Cycle Route almost immediately.
Our first stop was in Negrepelisse for a snack break.
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
After Negrepelisse, the landscape got a bit more interesting, although there seemed to be an incredible number of cornfields.
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
After Montricoux, we started climbing alongside the Aveyron river. The scenery got interesting very quickly as we approached Bruniquel.
Bruniquel castle looked interesting but the climb seemed a bit much. So we just took pictures and promised that we'd come back another time - in the car or without baggage!
At this point, the bike route dumped us onto a more major road. Traffic seemed really light, but I knew there was a tunnel coming up. I figured it was safer to fire up our strobe taillight. So off we went, flashing down the road. In the end, we didn't need it. Only 4 or 5 vehicles passed us on the 7k stretch of road that lead to Penne.
Penne, like Bruniquel, sits up above the river. We thought we'd eat lunch there, so decided to climb up this time. We got quite a ways up the hill before we had to start walking.
Penne turned out to be worth the effort, though. It's beautiful in kind of a run-down way.
After an alfresco lunch (nuts and apples while sitting on a stone wall), we descended back down to the valley floor and headed off for St Antonin-Noble-Val. I had routed us away from the main road, which took us up 3 monster hills - sustained grades of more than 9%. If I had it to do again, I would have stayed on the main road - the D115. The views were nice, though...
| Heart | 2 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Finally, we rolled into St Antonin-Noble-Val. It had been a much longer and more difficult day than I had thought it would be. We were pretty cooked, but the village and our B&B "Auberge Lion d'Or" revived our spirits.
The owner of the B&B stowed our tandem in a locked room under the building and we got into our room as the skies opened up. Good timing! We had dodged everything but a light mist all day.
We cleaned up and set out to investigate the town. We love old buildings, so we were enchanted.
We indulged in pizzas once the restaurants opened and then crawled back to our B&B for a well-deserved rest.
Today's ride: 66 km (41 miles)
Total: 66 km (41 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 6 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |