Day 66 :Beziers to Port Leucate

October 14, 2024

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We had followed the GPS a little blindly to our hotel yesterday, and then though we went out, we focussed on the park full of ducks. So we had no idea what lay around us in terms of stores. That had us taking breakfast in the hotel, rather than searching outside. It turned out to be the bog standard French effort - basically bread and jam, orange juice, and yogurt. I am finding this increasingly disappointing, much as I like French breads.

We were out one the street loading the bikes reasonably early, and ran into our first challenge: the street cleaner people with their powerful water spray.

I went and had a chat with the man, keeping us from getting blasted.

The system works very well - leaves and debris are water blasted out to where the sweeper truck can get at them.

A block from the hotel we began to see bakeries and especially fruit and veggie stores. Oh well. One thing about the fruit in the stores - there was as strong representation of figs and also various melons. This is helping to create the impression that we are getting significantly south.

Bezier is built on a hill, and though our hotel was on a quite high plateau, the photo shows stairs up to yet higher levels.

Also at this early hour, men could be seen hanging out in the Bar-Tabacs and Cafés. Maybe these three are workers in for a quick coffee, but I don't think so.

We descended all the way to the river Orb, and the bridges we had crossed/photographed yesterday.

A glance back at the town. We rather liked it - perhaps mostly because of the nice people running the hotel.

I didn't form a strong impression of the ride between Beziers and Narbonne, and because of misty rain, did not come out with photographs either. But as the sign shows, there were bike paths, and we did not feel stressed doing this part of the ride.

The way we entered Narbonne, it gave the impression of being very tight and medieval, with extremely narrow one way streets. In the few cases when a car approached, it was quite a thing to make room for it and to make sure not to get clipped by a mirror.

At last we entered a square that afforded a little room, being the site of the cathedral. The cathedral itself, however, was a giant, hulking and rather dark building. It did little to contribute to any feeling of space about the town.

The cathedral interior also did not give a feeling of space. Rather than having a large and long open hall (nave) it seemed to be sort of octagonal, and with the centre occupied by altars, choirs, and the like, but never giving the impression of light and space.

I went in to the building first, and finding it not so inspiring, just snapped a couple of shots and reappeared outside. Dodie then went in, and later came out bearing the church pamphlet describing all the stuff to be seen. Dodie quickly verified that I had seen nothing. So we sent her back in, this time with the camera. Below are my shots and her shots. Generally we did not do a good job of this - both with the images and with knowing what we were shooting. But this was really not a big thing. Our day was about to go seriously sour. But have a look at the church before that happens...

Back outside - another impression of the bulky mass of it.

Some of Dodie's shots:

Now walk around the exterior, there are signs of bits that have crumbled.

And there are even more buildings and sections to the site.

Now looking at a map of the inner city, we see the cathedral, and also that the town is bisected by the Canal de la Robine. The red markers indicate all the stuff we are not going to get to in terms of visiting.

The harsh story of the rest of the day has its origins from months to a year ago. The months ago part is when we planned the ride to be from Beziers to Port Leucate. That was too far, by about double. And the year ago part is the sad fact that we did this ride (but prudently just Narbonne to Port Leucate) almost exactly one year ago, and we forgot that fact, and with it almost all of what happened on that ride. That included that we forgot that the track along the Canal de la Robine totally sucked, that it was worse than even the Canal du Midi when it was totally bad.

The next origin for today's traumas was at Beaune, two weeks ago. That's when I managed to throw myself off my bike, injuring my shoulder and putting the trip in question. This morning Dodie asked about the shoulder, and I declared it pretty good, just that the range of motion was limited in one direction, but no ongoing pain or disability other than the range of motion.

That's where things were at when we left the cathedral area and swung into the vicinity of sights 1 and 3 on the map. Sight 3 is a rather attractive building at the far side of the city square. This caught my attention, and rather uncharacteristically I was looking up at it, rather than down. That's when my bike rolled over the emplacement of one of those bollards that in Europe block car access to streets, except for authorized users, who have a control transceiver. According to Dodie, who was up ahead, a driver lowered the bollard, drove through, and rather than raise it again immediately, drove off some distance. And that's when he hit the switch. When my front wheel went over the spot, the bollard was fully down, but when the rear wheel arrived, it was up, perhaps two inches, and rising.

This gave the bike a good throw. But I controlled it, and did not go down. Only thing, that control action re-wrenched my shoulder. The arm was now hanging limply, much as two weeks ago.

As I rejoined Dodie, two people who turned out to be from New Jersey stopped to ask me how I was enjoying cycling in France. Ha! A nice chat ensued, and I liked having it, because my arm was desperately trying to recover and maybe be able to cycle, as we stood there.

Dodie weighed in with not one but two extra strength Tylenols, and we went for it.

We didn't get far, as the track by the canal was ripped up.

We did find our way around the construction, but now a set of factors came into play, that really amounted to something of a perfect storm. The track was a total mess, as shown by the rather obsessive set of shots of it we made (below). These shots were done by Dodie, because I could not lift my arm enough to hold the camera.

With the track like that, we had to at times push the bikes, and at times bounce and jockey them through while riding. I am not sure which made the shoulder hurt more, but probably the walking, because for this you need to raise your hand up to the bar and hold it up at a distance.

Next, the rough track reduced our speed by 2/3. This for the folks that had set a trip for the day, 2x as long as we normally do on decent roads.

We checked the GPS, and found (as had Grampies 2023) that there is no way off this canal and anyway no alternative to it as a route. So there we were. I could also mention that it started to rain, but to be fair, it was just a drizzle!

See the stumps of the Plane trees - sad. We were thinking the path quality might improve after this stretch, but no.

It took us two hours to cover this distance!

Mercifully, the canal does come to an end, after 24 gruelling kms, at Port la Nouvelle. During our transit of this distance, we had been plotting how to get to our destination of Port Leucate as quickly as possible. We knew that out hotel reception closed at 7 p.m., for example, not to mention that darkness could also foreclose on our adventure.

It was here that Dodie remembered at least one valuable snippet from our ride here last year. That was that the next stage was a slog though what we had then deemed the "trackless waste". This was in fact a bit beside a railway track, through sand and seashells, and with little or no signage. Our description of that last year had drawn a comment from the Classens, we seemed to recall. They said that when they had done it it was also flooded, I think.

The surrounding salt ponds would have been pleasant in other circumstances.

Instead of the "trackless waste" and other EV 8 routings, we were forced to take to the big roads. This was nerve wracking, though there was generally a shoulder. Cars and trucks whizzing by, on somewhat wet road, are noisy. Plus the road climbed to some extent, including a moderate rise at the 75 km mark. The distance, the climbs, and the rough surfaces had taken their toll on our batteries. This was enough that we felt we could not run our built in bike lights. But we did set our auxiliary flashers on.

So that's how we finally limped in to Port Leucate, in the falling dark, hurting, and low on power. Now we have read Grampies 2023 on the whole thing. They were chipper and finished the ride in good order. We are used to being outdone by youngsters like Grampies of much earlier years, but these one year ago guys are a tough act to follow!

Today's ride: 90 km (56 miles)
Total: 3,446 km (2,140 miles)

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Karen PoretHoping for the best for you, Grampies! Your tour, minds, and selves have been through too much.. :(
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2 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Karen PoretIt has certainly been an excessive amount of type 2 fun, mixed with unecessary stress. We hope it will get "dull and boring" soon.
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2 months ago

Keith ClassenThat’s a long draining tough day. Last year we did that one section twice. Going north we were able to get through along the rough waterfront. Going south tide was up and it was impossible so we detoured onto the highway as did you. I looked back to Rick Frasier’s journal and he wisely did the same. Hope things improve for you. You might consider taking some time off to recoup or possibly some train travel.
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2 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Keith ClassenWell hmm, next we get to do that pass and down to Figures. But there is a train in the plan, Girona to Barcelona, and then a spare day in Barcelona!
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2 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Steve Miller/GrampiesJust so you know in case you were aware of it, I think you can take the train the entire way and skip the pass. That’s our plan when we get there, since we aren’t certain we’re up for the climb ourselves.

You can either bike to the Catalonian border at Portbou, or take the French regional. You have to change at the border (the rail widths don’t align for thru trains) but I’m pretty sure you can transfer to the Rodalies (the Catalonian Regional system) and ride all the way to Barcelona if you want, or even further southwest to at least Salou. According to the Rodiales website, ‘normal’ bicycles (e-bikes are OK but not tandems, etc) are allowed on all Rodiales lines as long as there’s room. In Portbou you’d want either the R11 or RG1 line, both of which go to Barcelona.
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2 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Scott AndersonWe will watch you closely on this. It would be great if a train way could be pioneered across the border and the mountains.

I must say, with the beautiful rooms and great, affordable food, here in Spain, crossing back to France at any time does not seems all that attractive. On the other hand, beyond France does lie Germany, Austria, Italy!
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2 months ago