Palingues to Chalon sur Soane - 73mile/112km
We seem to honing this Navigation thingee to a fine Art now!! As mentioned before the EV6 route does a consider amount of, shall we say, meandering at times! This is for obvious reasons, the primary is that it is all such very beautiful country and indeed for safety to keep large numbers of people off the busier roads. These meanderings are all fine&well for the shorter distance tourist folk, but us 'through riders' need to be a tad more pragmatic as following the entire route's every twist&turn may well cost a 'thru rider' an additional week to complete the journey, and also accomodation could never be counted on without considerably more jiggery pokery!! So by zooming in/out on 'my route' on my Garmin, and comparing to EV6 'official route', and trying to understand why this particular divergence is happening as a function of our day length, strength, time of day....day of week.... trail conditions..... and so on.... complicated??..... A little, but you learn new skills all the time, and fortunately Paul&I are now thinking much the same..... when the EV6 route went north, and our campsite was south, after a Googled bike route to our camp had already increased from 25km to over 40 we realised something was at play here!! So, we are 'on it'!! And making good decisions to squeeze joy out of the route at some times😍, and avoiding unnecessary pain at others!!🤦♂️
Paul&I parted company twice yesterday, once by 'accident' when I got carried away on our 18mi descent after we reached the summit of the Canal du Centre, where I ended 4 km past the agreed lunch spot in Sauntenay, that I'd missed.... so I cycled back for lunch then forward again with Paul! The second occasion was intentional because I'd routed off EV6, so as to experience the local viniculture and the most beautiful vineyards of Bourgogne's Côte de Chalonaise appellations of Rully, Mercurey, and Givry. It was like cycling through the vineyards of the Gods! One could smell the grapes already getting started making 'Wine on the Vine'! Boy it was great!! And exceedingly hot, hilly and very steep in places easily hitting 12% incline at 3mph!!
So the vines were either groaning with fruit or already picked by mechanical assist, and as I summit one of the many ups&downs thru Rully and Mercurey quite honestly I could smell the fermentation already underway in thevfruit on the vine!! I know the smell as Chateau de Ramsay (Maison Fondée 1962) had such beautifully heady smell permuating thru the house every autumn from Age 3 to 21!! That smell shall return to Domaine Ramsay this November after the trek as Alessandro (Alex)&I rediscover the dormant art of wine making at home......subject of a subsequent blog!!😎🤙
I must have climbed at least 500m through true God's country, not a soul around bar the wine growers monitoring the picking tractor, I had this terrior to myself! Sublime joy!! Eventually I hit my last hill in Mercurey and began my descent to Chalon s/Soane a 9mile dustance away.
I wended my down into the valleyand onto a most pleasant disused rail line Voie Verte! This led me to Intermarche for mushrooms and potatoes to supplement the Charolais steak, with leeks, green beans, sweet corn that Paul&I were slowly compiling for our dinner....
When I arrived, exhausted after 70+miles I promised Paul that would get no such protrstions over the preparation of the dinner from me that he got over last night's Bangers&Mash!! I reclined with 3 beers, a shower, a constructed campsite, and a shared bottle of Bourgogne Gamay with probably the best meal on the trip so far..... after arguably the best cycling day on the entire trip to date!!
Slept like the dead!!🛏🤲⚰
A bientôt,
Doug&Paul
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