Day 29 : Running out of water

A good night’s sleep, but a clear night, so a tent wet with condensation. Made a coffee, packed up and hit the road.

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Bad choice for a place to sleep, snail

I stopped at a boulangerie and picked up a couple of pain au chocolats, here labelled ‘croissants chocolat’, and stuck them in my bag. The woman being served ahead of me ordered 30 baguettes!

Shortly after finding the boulangerie I found a cafe and had un petit café crème, then rejoined the canal path.

There’s a strange ticking noise coming from the bike and I can’t figure out what’s causing it. Approx one tick per wheel revolution but only when I’m riding so difficult to troubleshoot. The bike needs a good clean, but I think the issue might be from inside the rear hub as I can’t see anything causing any fouling.

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Two rivers become one

I ate my croissants at 12pm only to then 10 minutes later pass through a village with lots of open restaurants which I skipped as I was no longer hungry.

It wasn’t long until I realised I’d left the campsite having filled just one water bottle, having used the other for dinner the previous evening.

On a non-sunny day this wouldn’t have been a problem, but today the sun was out in full effect, and with no shops open I ran out of water an hour before reaching my ‘lunch’ town.

When I arrived at Chalon-sur-Saône, all I could find were diy superstores. It hadn’t yet got to the stage of knocking on someone’s door, but I did have that as an option. I headed for the town centre in search of somewhere that sold water. As I headed into town, so did a convoy of about 25 cars celebrating a wedding, beeping their horns. I had a splitting headache!

I came across a vending machine and got a large cold coke which went down very nicely. I then found a place to get lunch, but the kitchens were closed. I got a beer instead. I found somewhere that sold sandwiches and stuck it in my bag for later use and headed off. Feeling better I also picked up another coke and a large bottle of water.

I’m not interested in coming back to this town! I couldn’t see any campsites nearby and my attempt at a warm showers night drew no response, so I booked a discounted hotel at Montceau-les-Mines and set off for that.

It took a while to find a suitable route to get out of the town as my original route suggested by google and garmin tried to take me down a busy road which I don’t think was suitable for a bike.

All morning the landscape had been flat, but in the afternoon this changed to hills. This is the Bourgogne region and the land I cycled through was filled with 3 feet high vineyards.

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Vines to the horizon

The hills were hard work!

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The long and winding road

No time to check out the town, I headed straight for the hotel.

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Had to stop to take a picture of these yellows at sunset! Moon is in the pic too..

Once I’d checked in and had a shower I went back down to the restaurant. It was a tough day so I had starter, main and cheese courses 🙂

Too tired to explore the town on foot I headed back to my room to discover a Stones documentary I hadn’t seen was being shown in English with French subtitles, so that was a good end to the day.

Saint-Usage to Montceau-les-Mines, 141 km. Total so far = 2,618 km.

7 thoughts on “Day 29 : Running out of water”

    • I did check that yesterday, but I’ll double check again now. If that’s not it I’ll add a drop of oil into the hub via the adjuster rod hole.

      Reply
  1. Ive got half a bottle of Evian rolling round the motor somewhere if it’s any use to you..
    It’s a couple of weeks old but i’m sure it would quench a thirsty traveller’s thirst a treat.
    Surely i could fax it to you what with all this modern gagetry around these days…..
    Or maybe some kind of system of levers and pulleys?? Let me know,i’m only too pleased to run it down to the post office if need be.
    (I will need the bottle back though)
    love John x

    Reply

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