October 3, 2024
Day 55: Beaune to Tournus
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It was a close thing, as to whether this trip would be over. Last night I could not raise my arm enough to scratch my head, though I could thoughtfully stroke my beard. That's right on the borderline, because to ride the bike the hand has to rest on the bar, comfortably for a long time. It could not practically just hang down. Pushing to the hotel over the cobbles, the hand was not usable, but later in the evening - maybe.
By morning, I still didn't know. We went down to the room where the bikes were. There we found some temporary distraction from a Danish cycling couple. They had gotten a flat and fixed it temporarily with Slime. They decided to use the nice room to make a permanent repair, but seemingly had broken the derailleur hanger while pulling the wheel. It seemed like the hanger fixing bolt had snapped, and the man was trying to substitute a zip strap. I was sure he had no hope. My thoughts were just toward how to get the wheel back on somehow, to then roll the bike to a shop. I'm not sure what the man's thoughts were, because he kept trying, and of course our Danish is rather weak!
Turning to our own problem, I was really buoyed to see that I could press downward with a goodly amount of force. That's needed to get up on the bike. And it seemed like I could hold the bar too. So assuming I could demonstrate mounting the bike and riding off, we had a chance of reaching Tournus, admittedly 76 km distant. We took the bikes out to the (smooth tile) courtyard in front of the church, and I rode 30 feet, declaring victory! We were confident enough from this amazing demo, that we started to push the bikes in the old town, for a quick look before setting off.
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At this point Dodie took the camera from me, since I could not really raise it, and she went for three interior shots of the church. Church interiors are kind of boring to us these days (after doing dozens of churches), unless we can find some special feature. So if you actually read the info panel above, you'll know they have a "Black Virgin". We both went back in, but could not find it!
We had decided that the magic of the Grand Cru region basically ended at Nuits St Georges, but this turned out to be completely wrong. Beaune is actually the capital of the whole thing, and it is stuffed with wine producers, caves, tasting, and restaurants. It also carries on the varnished tile roofs, which had become popular in 13th century churches and which became most popular in rich private houses in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Below is an example of one of the tasting and restaurant domaines, of which there were scads. If you are interested, the menus are legible idf blown up a bit. But here is one takeaway, 10€ can buy a bottle of local wine. That could be competitive with local Coca Cola prices!
After circling town for about an hour we came back upon our hotel. It's the one that used to be an abbey. Directly adjacent is the Maison Colombier, most likely the former home of a wine merchant.
Dodie nipped back in to the hotel, and reported that the Danish couple were still there. They had flipped the bike to work on it, one of my few suggestions, but that was about it.
One more quick look at the streets of town, and we realized that we really needed to get on with getting to Tournus!
Getting to Tournus began with a 16 km veloroute of the vines. I was pedalling along, though only slowly, but this did not spoil the wonder of where we were. The path was well paved and frequented only by cyclists and white trucks used by the farmers. Vines stretched in straight lines into the far distance, and the land was dotted with both stone wine villages and isolated chateaux or clusters of buildings: hameaux. Have a look:
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We passed places like Meursault and Puligny-Montrachet, which seemed to ring a bell with us as pretty famous in wine circles. Finally we came to Remigny. Here they had a Route Barrée, which we of course laughed at. Well we were right, we could get around it, but our success only put us onto the next phase of the ride. That took us along a canal (Canal du Centre) past Chagny and to Chalon. The canal part was ok, but just the usual canal riding. The vines and the magic villages had disappeared. To make matters worse, our track left the canal before Chalon and we invested an hour pushing our way through town traffic.
We crossed this bridge at Chalon amid lots of traffic and no magic.
Ultimately, near Le Port we joined the famous Voie Bleu that runs along the Saone. This was a nice path, but without a lot of points of interest. Temperature had been changing up and down during the ride, causing us to put different pieces of clothing on and off. This was a bit of a trial, because I could not generally do it on my own. Dodie would help, but she also tried to guide me on how to get the most done alone. For example, with a jacket, you have to face it towards you and then put your bad arm (in my case the right) into the armhole on the left facing you, and so forth. I am not so great at this even when uninjured!
To temperature change we also added rain, so we had to get on our waterproof pants, hide the camera, and so forth. Unfortunately through this Dodie got chilled. The cold that I started with before getting distracted by the shoulder now grabbed Dodie with running nose, weakness, and chills.
We must have been a pretty sorry sight when we rolled in to Tournus, after 6. The hotel (St Philibert), the same name as the nearby large church, is antique and very elegant, I'm sure. But it almost totally lacks outlets and light in the room. We had a fun time optimizing the room layout, moving furniture and beds to give the best access to what plugs and lights there were. I doubt that we or the cleaning staff will remember how the room was when we got here!
Dodie did a bit of reading about shoulder separation. The article she found mentioned falling off a bike as a typical cause. There are different degrees of severity, and though the separation is clearly my problem, I am not the worst case. I will admit that as I type here at a normal height table, I can not easily reach up to grab my thermos, also on the table. But I proved I can cycle, and time and stretching will get that thermos eventually!
Meanwhile, we have given Dodie the "blue" pill. As we will recall from "The Matrix" red and blue pills represent a choice between remaining in a state of blissful ignorance (blue) or accepting a painful reality (red). Blue also happens to be Tylenol Cold Nighttime!
Today's ride: 76 km (47 miles)
Total: 2,816 km (1,749 miles)
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Hope Dodie gets past her illness quickly too!
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Of course that is my favourite type of fun in any case.
Keep feeding mom the blue pills! Is there anything to be done for shoulder separation other than rest and then rehab? Presumably riding your bike for another month+ would not be on the approved PT list. Hah.
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