Friday June 28 - Day 2 - 40miles (Total 81miles)
A few kinks to work out this morning both in the body and on the computer. We are a bit sore from yesterday's 40 miles... steel bikes bite when they tip over on your ankle... just so you know... Also, we had some issues downloading the GPS points from SPOT, until we figured out that all we needed to do was download Dropbox... that took a good hour to sort out... but once we were stretched and downloaded the rain had stopped and were were on our way.
Most of the day was filled with the ups and downs of the rolling hills of the French countryside. We got to try out all of the gears on our new touring bikes since going up hill with 50 lbs of gear makes for interesting work, but the lower range of the gears made it totally doable. When we reached a town called Rebais we were getting hungry so we stopped at a little bar (which we now know also means pub) with a plat du jour. We were treated to charcuterie (appetizer of cold cuts, pate, and pickles) and then a seafood and rice dish with a cream sauce and Coca Cola. We finished up with an espresso and single chocolate almond. The Lavassa sugar cube came individually wrapped which was so cute! (Oh so good...) The waitress was incredibly nice and tried to speak English as much as we tried to speak French. But even with that, we ate very well and made it out of there without any problems.
After lunch, we hit more of the rolling hills of the French countryside... after much toil going up and up and up we hit the jackpot around 1pm... a 2 mile long down hill into the village of Bellot, with graceful (gradual) twists and turn and barely any traffic. We hit our top speeds today of about 26 mph. Awesome!
After cycling through Verdelot, Mecringes, Montmirail and Boissy le Repos (amongst others) we reached the village of Corfelix. It was getting later and we were thinking about camping or finding a place to stay, when we passes the Mairie of the town (town office?) There were two ladies watching us out the window so we decided to go in and ask for their assistance. With twittering French, then called several places around including a tourist office (somewhere) that had someone who spoke English. The ladies were incredibly nice and so helpful. We laughed at our language difficulties while looking at maps of the area. After about a half an hour of phone calls they found us a jete in Bannay, a village about 5km (3miles) away. We are now staying in the eaves of a farmhouse built before the United States was a country. The owners are sweet elderly couple who obviously take pride in their flower gardens. The room is quaint with french fabrics and old pictures on the walls. The beams in the ceiling come down in all sorts of interesting angles and you can see the wooden dowels that hold them together. It looks like this place was build before nails and screws. Off to take a bubble bath and then off to bed. Breakfast at 8am tomorrow. Hopefully the rain holds off, but if not... c'est la vie!
The World is Ours!
A few kinks to work out this morning both in the body and on the computer. We are a bit sore from yesterday's 40 miles... steel bikes bite when they tip over on your ankle... just so you know... Also, we had some issues downloading the GPS points from SPOT, until we figured out that all we needed to do was download Dropbox... that took a good hour to sort out... but once we were stretched and downloaded the rain had stopped and were were on our way.
Most of the day was filled with the ups and downs of the rolling hills of the French countryside. We got to try out all of the gears on our new touring bikes since going up hill with 50 lbs of gear makes for interesting work, but the lower range of the gears made it totally doable. When we reached a town called Rebais we were getting hungry so we stopped at a little bar (which we now know also means pub) with a plat du jour. We were treated to charcuterie (appetizer of cold cuts, pate, and pickles) and then a seafood and rice dish with a cream sauce and Coca Cola. We finished up with an espresso and single chocolate almond. The Lavassa sugar cube came individually wrapped which was so cute! (Oh so good...) The waitress was incredibly nice and tried to speak English as much as we tried to speak French. But even with that, we ate very well and made it out of there without any problems.
After lunch, we hit more of the rolling hills of the French countryside... after much toil going up and up and up we hit the jackpot around 1pm... a 2 mile long down hill into the village of Bellot, with graceful (gradual) twists and turn and barely any traffic. We hit our top speeds today of about 26 mph. Awesome!
After cycling through Verdelot, Mecringes, Montmirail and Boissy le Repos (amongst others) we reached the village of Corfelix. It was getting later and we were thinking about camping or finding a place to stay, when we passes the Mairie of the town (town office?) There were two ladies watching us out the window so we decided to go in and ask for their assistance. With twittering French, then called several places around including a tourist office (somewhere) that had someone who spoke English. The ladies were incredibly nice and so helpful. We laughed at our language difficulties while looking at maps of the area. After about a half an hour of phone calls they found us a jete in Bannay, a village about 5km (3miles) away. We are now staying in the eaves of a farmhouse built before the United States was a country. The owners are sweet elderly couple who obviously take pride in their flower gardens. The room is quaint with french fabrics and old pictures on the walls. The beams in the ceiling come down in all sorts of interesting angles and you can see the wooden dowels that hold them together. It looks like this place was build before nails and screws. Off to take a bubble bath and then off to bed. Breakfast at 8am tomorrow. Hopefully the rain holds off, but if not... c'est la vie!
The World is Ours!
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