Greetings from Les Riceys

The Hostellerie Blanche De Castille in Dourdan was a perfectly acceptable, I’d even say a comfortable place to stay. They were happy to attend to the important business of looking after our bikes but seemed less keen to accommodate our requirements for a 06:30 breakfast, not unreasonable for a Sunday morning I guess. We bought breakfast at a local supermarket the previous evening and bolted it down in our rooms before engaging with Dourdan’s slightly frustrating one-way system by 07:00.

We made good time to Etampes and went onto Nemours for coffee after about 45 miles. The forecast was for rain and this part of our journey through the open expanses of Seine-et-Marne was completed under threatening skies and those short sharp showers that finish just as you’ve stopped to put on your waterproofs.

As we set off from Nemours after coffee, the rain started to come down in earnest. Another 40 rather miserable miles got us through Sens and onto the village of Cerisiers for lunch. This is the beginning of the fabled Department of Burgundy and sure enough, there was a small, wet village market selling food and wonderful wine to the pitifully few, bedraggled passers by. Being Sunday the place was basically closed and we could only find one rather greasy pizza joint which had to suffice.

Thankfully after lunch the rain cleared, we left the planned ‘D roads’ and took to small country lanes through the heart of rural France. Well I guess it had all gone too smoothly, so just to add a little excitement, somewhere near the tiny village of Praslin, late on a Sunday afternoon Jeremy’s chain broke. There was a sort of stunned silence as we all remembered with a slightly queasy feeling, a similar event which required the services of the British Army (or Major Plewes at least) to sort us out.

Some problem with the gears had resulted in one twisted and one broken chain link and unbelievably in spite of all our planning; we didn’t have any Campagnolo 11 speed chain links. We set to work and rebuilt the chain from a variety of 10 speed links and managed to get back on the road after half an hour with Jeremy getting ‘feedback’ from the rest of us every time we felt he was putting the mechanism under too much stress.

As it turned out, the rest of the ride was completed without a hitch and we got to the rather wonderful Hotel Le Magny in the heart of Champagne at about 20:00. Over a wonderful dinner of Salmon, Crème Brulee and some fascinating local wines, Jeremy reflected ruefully that “The bloke in the shop said that when you spend this much money on a bike, you’ve got to really love it, all I can feel is apprehensive!”

Tomorrow Belfort and a bike shop

Today’s stats

Total ride so far 350 miles

Total ride today 138 miles

Average speed today 15.5 mph