Another lovely day of riding today; barely a car about!
The day started slow with no need to rush as I want to buy a
new bike lock and the first bike shop to open is at 9. So I lolled and watched
the BBC/DW/Music Videos until quarter to nine. Then I got stuff together and
headed down, packed the bike and then used Google Maps to get to the store. No
problem there of course, other than having to get a lock with a key rather than
a combination L
While I was there I asked them to loosen my peddles as I was flying soon, done!
Next was breakfast. I had considered getting the hotel
breakfast as it was only 6.50 but preferred to get something at a Boulangerie.
I ended up with a leek quiche, a petite pain and a Flan; really delicious. I
sat in the sun to eat the quiche and bread and as so stuffed I had to save the
Flan for later.
I finally rolled out just after 9:30! Dijon is really
well set up for bicycles with lots of bike lanes and contraflow lanes. It was
easy to get out of town and onto a quiet white D road. The first town out of
Dijon even had a separate bike path for the last few Ks.
The ride revealed itself to be up for a few Ks, down for a
few Ks, village, repeat. Sigh. On the plus side I’ve now done over 20,000m of
climbing! Today’s climbs were all fairly easy middle chain ring climbs and the
sun was out most of the day. I’ve noticed that often the mornings are muggy but
not that hot and then the afternoons can be quite baking. The wind today was
quite cool as well; I was tempted to put a thermal on but it wasn’t quite cool
enough.
The first climb of the day was long and was followed by a ripper of a descent into Moloy. The descent just kept on going
down and down, aside from a couple of switchbacks it was mainly no brakes
required sweeping corners and long straights!
Coming out of the town of Moloy was a rather steep section
which took me to over 500m. From there the rest of the day, while lumpy, was
mainly downhill; especially from after the first hill out of Echalot.
I was running low on water by 2pm and all of the towns
for the last few hours had been so small that they had no shops. I was pinning
my hopes on the town of Aignay-la-Duc which was the largest one I’d been to
since Dijon. Fortunately it had a bar/pizza so I stopped there. I asked about
lunch and they said not open for lunch. So I ordered a coke and then they talked
among themselves and offered to make me a ham sandwich, yes! Of course a ham
sandwich in France is a half baguette filled with ham and gherkin; delicious. I
ate the whole thing and while I was doing that they tried to work out what to
charge me. They even tried ringing the owner but no answer so in the end
settled on 4.80; fine with me. As I was finishing they settled down to their own
lunch; just salad and wine but I suspect that was a first course. As I left
they locked up!
From there it was very easy riding and in no time I was
coming into the destination town of Aisey-sur-Seine, and yes it is that Seine.
It’s funny the last 3 Ks into town (about 10 min) just dragged and dragged,
which is funny because on a long alpine climb the 3 Ks seems to fly by (about 30 min)!
The hotel is closed until 5pm and it was only 3, so I rode
around town but there really isn’t anything here. It’s quite a nice town with
what looks like a large 19th century church, there’s an old water
wheel by a mill next to the river, the river itself. But everything is closed.
So after a ride around I sat down in some grass for a rest. I think I may have
dozed off because the church bells woke me at 4pm. It was kind of hot so I
moved to the nearby bus shelter and had a read. (Good thing I bought some new
books last night.)
Then it was 5pm so I checked in. No problems with the bike,
large room out back, and then did all of the usual things before working on the
diary while ‘watching’ TV until dinner time at 7pm.
There was a bit of a storm brewing when I went down for dinner, but that just cooled things down a bit. I resisted the urge to get a Kir as I thought I'd probably get a bottle of wine, which I did. The win was a Premier Cru 2014 Burgundy half bottle which went well with the entrée and main.
The entrée was a delicious Foie Gras with some sort of chutney/jam and had been slightly salted which was a nice touch. For the main I had the amazing lamb shank and potato, possibly the best main of the trip! Then there was a cheese course where they just leave the selection there for you and finally a dessert.
So many desserts to choose from:
But of course how could it be anything other than Pear in Wine? The wine was quite sweet, delicious!
After that back to the room for some reading, TV and I rang mum and dad before bed.
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