I decided to go north, then east, so I rode D 908 to Carroughes
It was a beautiful, and peaceful, ride. just the kind of riding I needed this morning
My mother died while I rode from La Lentilliene to Sees this morning. She was 93 and had remained in pretty good health till two weeks ago, so her death was really a decent ending to a good, if sometimes quite hard, life. I was mourning her death as I rode, even though I did not know that she had died until late this evening.
My night at La Lentilliene wasn't great, but that was not the fault of the hotel. After a good breakfast, I decided it made sense to ride. Because of the 6 hour time difference, I wouldn't be able to find out much till afternoon, so I thought I might stop early and call to leave my number so my family could call if they needed to talk to me. As it turned out, I stopped late. It is hard to stop early at a hotel in France: Most of them close after lunch at about 2 PM and don't reopen till 5 or 6 PM. That was the case with the one I planned to stop at in Mortagne-au-Perche. Then I met a fellow from Paris who wanted to visit about touring - that was a pleasant hour Then I discovered that there was no hotel where I wanted to stop and that many hotels were full because it was Saturday night. I tried several before I got the last room in this one at about 7:30 PM.
I spent six hours and 45 minutes riding 71 miles today with 2500 feet of
climbing. It was hilly, some times quite hilly - but, as has been the case
for almost all the days of this tour, the most important factor was the
wind. Except for the first 10 km, when I was riding north, and the last 20
km, when I was riding south, I had a headwind. This headwind didn't ruin my
day, but it slowed me down by several miles an hour. Instead of an average
speed of 13 mph, I worked hard and averaged 10 mph. Over seven hours, that
makes the difference between a 90 mile day and a 70 mile day.
Entering the forest When I asked the fellow who runs the hotel at La Lentilliene about
routing north, them east, he said it was a very nice route going though 'The
Forest.' Forests are a bigger thing in Europe than in most parts of the US,
simply because they are much rarer here.
Climbing in the forest He didn't mention climbing in the forest. This particular forest covers
two ridges, each about 400 feet higher than the land on either side. It was
a beautiful ride, but almost all of it was either climbing in the wind at 5
mph or descending at 25 (it would have been 35 without the headwind) mph. I
measured about 700 feet of climbing in four miles. That is almost twice the
average climbing - about 400 feet in four miles - on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Looking into the forest After the forest, the riding was flatter, but just as windy. The
highlight of this part of the ride was seeing, and hearing, a group of three
high performance cars going in the other direction. The last two were
Ferraris - the sound is very distinctive, but the first one sounded like a
big V8 rather than a V12, and I'm not sure what it was. I was passed by
another Ferrari in Spain. That one was being driven very aggressively.
Lovely sounds!
A flatter section on my way to Sees But it wasn't all flat before Sees Sees has a spectacular cathedral - Cathedral is Se, in Pourtugese - which
which dominates the town, coming and going.
The Cathedral, coming into Sees And looking back toward Sees The long range views later in the day were colored by smog. I'm getting
into the industrial area of northern France. The road quality was also quite
variable. Some of the roods were bad enough to cause my problems with my bad
knee, other sections of the same road were smooth. My LZ-2 gave me problems
later in the day as well, so I don't have many images after Sees.
The water tower that wasn't at the top of the
hill Buillion, a French Farm near that water
tower One of the characteristics of the route after Sees was that I could tell
where the next ridge - high point - was by the placement of each water
tower. That worked between Sees and Mortagne-au-Perche. Half a dozen km
before Mortagne-au-Perche, I saw the last water tower ahead and the road
leading up to it. I climbed, expecting the road to go over the ridge at the
tower. Instead it turned at the base of the tower and climbed a much higher
ridge ;-{!
I stopped for lunch at a Donner Kebab place in Sees and for cafe at a
restaurant in Mortagne-au-Perche. Unfortunately, it was after lunch time, so
the restaurant, although its door was open, wasn't open. The owner told me
that, so I thanked him I went back to my bike, and he came out after me and
asked if I needed some water. I did, and he filled one of my water bottles
with ice water and wished me a good ride. Snce I couldn't have coffee, I
stopped at the next Intermarche and go some cola, YOP, and fruit. That,
along with some bread I got in a town on the way to Sees, ended up being my
supper.
About five km before Remalard, where I hoped to stop for the day, a man
on a bicycle pulled out from a side road, looked at my bike and said 'Cool!'
That was at the beginning of the only really flat stretch - the road follows
a river valley from there almost to Nogent-le-Rotrou - and this young man
rode behind me to Remalard. When I pulled off the road to look at my map in
Remalard, he pulled off beside me and wanted to talk. We ended up talking
for about an hour while drinking beer in Remalard. He is a blacksmith who
was raised in Paris, but has lived, and worked in quite a few parts of
France and, last summer, in New Jersey. He is going to Paris the day after
tomorrow, so he gave me his phone number to call when I got there. He wrote
it on my map. I lost the map on the way to Nogent-le-Rotrou ;-{. I gave him
my email address, so I hope to hear from him again, but I won't be seeing
him in Paris.
Notice the poor road surface