Today was destined to be cold, and it disappointed – it was really cold.
Last night’s Airbnb was great and we headed out after some breakfast and goodbyes from Natalie and her son. What absolutely lovely people.
We had a coffee and the day’s first pastry in town after a very chilly and short downhill. Once again, nice people enquired what we were doing and wished us luck. Now that we’re well out of Paris the friendliness is off the charts.
We left town, crossed the bridge and went onto a dirt path beside the river. We stayed on a river / canal / lake side path for the rest of the day.
We rode through Sens where we had planned on second breakfast. On the way in, we rode past the largest fair I’ve ever seen – it went for ever. Sens also had a great market where we got a 🥖 and 🧀 for later.
At lunchtime we found a restaurant and had the Plat du jour. Thoroughly loved the meal and then the sun came out and promised to warm us up for the rest of the day. It was welcome, but the air was still very cold. It wouldn’t warm up until closer to 5pm.
I was quite tired and struggled a bit all day. Last night, I did some yoga and stretching for the first time this trip. I’ll definitely stick at it – not that it seemed to help me today. I realise that I’ve ridden for only one month (NZ) since mid December, so I should be realistic about my fitness and strength.
I have to say that riding with Dennis has been great, as expected and it’s a pleasant change to have someone to talk to, and beat at scissors paper rock.
About 15kms from the end today, a French guy, Daniel caught us and started chatting. He’s even older than us, and is a great guy. He looked a little weird though – a red tracksuit and a completely white eMTB. It even had white tyres. He rode with us and gave Dennis the opportunity to show off his French vocabulary which is a million times better than mine.
It was great talking to him and it took our minds off the last 10 kms of today’s 80 ride.
Tonight’s Airbnb is another great one. Lovely people – there’s a pattern here. They tried to find a restaurant for us but couldn’t and brought us two beers to relax with after our ride. Very hospitable.
We did scissors paper rock for the best bottle of beer and despite all his rules and pontificating, Dennis was almost completely psyched out and demoralised by the result. Some things don’t change 😁
We rode to Aldi for some breakfast things then got pizzas which was all that was available, before settling in for some serious blogging.