Today was the only day of the entire ride when we were going to be staying with a friend of our first hosts in Montauroux, Don and Bob. Little did we know when the day started how important and extremely lucky that would be.
All we knew was that we had to get up early (for us), as the hotel would only serve breakfast at 7:00 – and, it was going to be our first day riding in the rain. What a test it was of our new equipment. We rode in a heavy downpour for the first 3 hours of the day. Everything stayed dry … except us!
We still have never found a solution of rain gear for cyclists that you don’t end up sweating inside of. Only Jon’s new booties worked, so he still had dry feet. Our experience continues to be that the only thing cycling rain gear is good for – is keeping us warm.
Needless to say, we pretty much had the whole canal to ourselves all morning. We saw only one other couple traveling like us, and a jogger.
We are traveling a section of the canal where it does not go the same route as the roads and cities. Hence there are few facilities, restaurants, groceries, or places to stay which are on, or even near, the bike path. In our preparation research, MC often added points on our maps where we could find things like food.
We were going to arrive at a food location around 1:00 pm, so it seemed perfect for lunch, and only 26km from our friend’s house. Even the rain had almost stopped.
It seems, however, that our now 10,000+km bicycle had other ideas for us. It started 1.5km from the lunch stop. Jon noticed an odd wobble in the back of the bike. We had a flat tire – and as usual, it was in the rear tire – much harder to take off and fix.
Since many places will stop serving by 1:30, and it appeared to be a slow leak – we refilled the tire and continued into town. Jon fixed the tire while MC got us some sandwiches at the grocery.
As we finished up, Jon put the tire back on, and MC actually took this photo as he turned back to tell her, for only the second time in all our travels – that we were seriously hosed!
Not since we were hit by a car in Amsterdam, in 2005, has anything happened that has completely brought us to a standstill. Apparently our 4.5 days of rocky, muddy trails has taken it’s toll, and our rear wheel rim has begun to split!
We might have been able to limp into Bordeaux, but our new friend Lieven was able to come and rescue us. We even got to do a little site-seeing on the way back to his place.
Including things we would have missed just riding along the canal – like this Rembrandt, hanging in a local church.
Anyway, back to our ailing bicycle, we spent the next several hours visiting local bike shops, even calling back to the company in Eugene Oregon, who then contacted it’s European distributors. We finally located a possible rim in Bordeaux and will be heading there in the morning.
We finished the day as we often do after difficult times in Europe, with a fantastic gourmet meal …
