MooN
Tour Pro
rode down to the outlaws last week as the girls team were down there for a fortnights hols. (I'm struggling to turn this into & ride report cos i've already done it so many times & photographed the sights before.) I left after work on the monday night & rushed a bit to get there before the kids were asleep but it's not really a road that lends itself to really "making progress" ( well actually it is, so much so that the probability of coming across a pair of smurfs with a radar gun is fairly high... especially around the few towns on the route) & as I rather value my licence, it still took me over 2 hours.
I rode home thursday lunchtime, planning to ride a different route, via Autun, chateau chinon & the morvan but the best laid plans of mice & men...
I left the inlaws at 3 ish & rode one of my favorite roads, through to chalon sur Saone.
I wasn't particularly heavily loaded, only having kit for a couple of days, but the bike was behaving bizarrely in the corners. by the time I got to Ouroux sur Saone I was sure I had a flat, or at least very soft back tyre.
trying to find a garage with a compressor these days is a nightmare, but in rural france, on a bank holiday thursday.... "cat's in hell" doesn't even come close!
I spotted an automated car wash place & swung buy on the off chance, knowing that none of the garages would be open except the 24h card operated pumps.
Oh Joy! an air line!
I then discovered the catch. it will only work with a 50cent peice... obviously I have every bloody coin in the euro range, except the 50 cent piece! I asked the guy vacuuming his car... nope, sorry... I asked the people washing their cars, they looked but no one had a 50cent coin.
An hour I waited, in 30° heat, untill eventually a bloke came to wash his car who could give me a 50c coin
bloody stupid machine! you'd have thought they'd design it to take either small change (to make up the 50c) or the same tokens as the car wash rollers & the vacuum cleaner thing!
So, by the time I eventually got rolling again I just decided to ride straight back up The N6, or what used to be the N6 & is now the D906 & then the D606 depending on where you are on it.
As you ride from the Saone west, you see Les Cotes Chalonnaise in the distance
quick pic as I started up into the vinyards of the "Cotes de Beaune". for those who like a tipple, when i stopped here I was just outside Chagny, and within 5 km of Santenay, Puligny Montrachet, Meursault, Pommard & Beaune.
The vines I am amongst belong to the domain Chassagne-Montrachet.
only a few kms further along higher up the hillside I passed the Chateau du Rochepot
see it? ok, a zoom
Beyond that, having climbed up onto the cote D'or Plateau, I stopped for a look back across the Saone vally. On a clear day you can see the Jura mountains from here & on an exceptionally clear day (with binoculars) you can just make out Mont Blanc. Unfortunately it wasn't a clear day, the heat haze reduced visibility to about 15km so I could just make out the town of Chalon.
all this stopping for pics is very well but I really wasn't getting anywhere, so I put the camera away for a while & pushed on.
I did stop at this memorial (as I often do with these things) for a break & a pic.
this memorial stone is, as so many others are, in the middle of nowhere, at a junction with the N6 & the D977b, on the eastern border of the morvan national parc. it is impeccably maintained!
Translation;
" In memory of Antoine Barbiery
1913 - 1944
aspirant to the FFI (Forces Françaises de l'Interieur)
Resisant from the first hour
Volonteer for dangerous missions
met a glorious end
leading his section
5th september 1944"
I stopped for a coffee in Saulieu & watched the world go by for a while & then decided to get home, so no more pics I'm afraid.
The bike handled fine all the way home but the tyre has lost around 300g pressure over 48 hrs so the tube obvously needs replacing, as the tyre is pretty heavily worn there's no point removing it to put it back on again...
I rode home thursday lunchtime, planning to ride a different route, via Autun, chateau chinon & the morvan but the best laid plans of mice & men...
I left the inlaws at 3 ish & rode one of my favorite roads, through to chalon sur Saone.
I wasn't particularly heavily loaded, only having kit for a couple of days, but the bike was behaving bizarrely in the corners. by the time I got to Ouroux sur Saone I was sure I had a flat, or at least very soft back tyre.
trying to find a garage with a compressor these days is a nightmare, but in rural france, on a bank holiday thursday.... "cat's in hell" doesn't even come close!
I spotted an automated car wash place & swung buy on the off chance, knowing that none of the garages would be open except the 24h card operated pumps.
Oh Joy! an air line!
I then discovered the catch. it will only work with a 50cent peice... obviously I have every bloody coin in the euro range, except the 50 cent piece! I asked the guy vacuuming his car... nope, sorry... I asked the people washing their cars, they looked but no one had a 50cent coin.
An hour I waited, in 30° heat, untill eventually a bloke came to wash his car who could give me a 50c coin
bloody stupid machine! you'd have thought they'd design it to take either small change (to make up the 50c) or the same tokens as the car wash rollers & the vacuum cleaner thing!
So, by the time I eventually got rolling again I just decided to ride straight back up The N6, or what used to be the N6 & is now the D906 & then the D606 depending on where you are on it.
As you ride from the Saone west, you see Les Cotes Chalonnaise in the distance
quick pic as I started up into the vinyards of the "Cotes de Beaune". for those who like a tipple, when i stopped here I was just outside Chagny, and within 5 km of Santenay, Puligny Montrachet, Meursault, Pommard & Beaune.
The vines I am amongst belong to the domain Chassagne-Montrachet.
only a few kms further along higher up the hillside I passed the Chateau du Rochepot
see it? ok, a zoom
Beyond that, having climbed up onto the cote D'or Plateau, I stopped for a look back across the Saone vally. On a clear day you can see the Jura mountains from here & on an exceptionally clear day (with binoculars) you can just make out Mont Blanc. Unfortunately it wasn't a clear day, the heat haze reduced visibility to about 15km so I could just make out the town of Chalon.
all this stopping for pics is very well but I really wasn't getting anywhere, so I put the camera away for a while & pushed on.
I did stop at this memorial (as I often do with these things) for a break & a pic.
this memorial stone is, as so many others are, in the middle of nowhere, at a junction with the N6 & the D977b, on the eastern border of the morvan national parc. it is impeccably maintained!
Translation;
" In memory of Antoine Barbiery
1913 - 1944
aspirant to the FFI (Forces Françaises de l'Interieur)
Resisant from the first hour
Volonteer for dangerous missions
met a glorious end
leading his section
5th september 1944"
I stopped for a coffee in Saulieu & watched the world go by for a while & then decided to get home, so no more pics I'm afraid.
The bike handled fine all the way home but the tyre has lost around 300g pressure over 48 hrs so the tube obvously needs replacing, as the tyre is pretty heavily worn there's no point removing it to put it back on again...
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