Click here for Day 7.
Another transition day which started out with some showers. Transition because there wasn’t anything specific I was looking forward to apart from the nice French countryside. I was also transitioning from the River Meuse to the River Moselle. I got sight of the Meuse for the first time at the end of Day 5 and now at the start of day 8 I’d leave the river Meuse behind. It also felt that busier roads words and bigger towns were getting a bit more frequent with Epinal my finish town for the day being the biggest town that I’d come through since I started the ride. It was also the first day that I had more of an experience of French cycling infrastructure which is a bit hit and miss at times. Out in the country there are so many quiet roads that there is no need for cycling infrastructure but in the towns they have put some in but can be more frustrating then a joy to ride on. A redesigned Paris the smaller towns aren’t.
The hotel I was staying at did serve breakfast at an extra cost but with the lack of staff I felt I’d check out the local boulangerie instead which was definitely the way to get my breakfast.
The route today seemed to punctuated by a number of long straight roads. Wind direction was often a cross tail wind and I was on and off with the rain jacket due to showers during the morning. After coming through the town of Toul and my first view of the Moselle, I got diverted off the route I’d planned and ended up on a very busy road which unusually didn’t have a cycling hard shoulder. I thankfully managed to get off it earlier than the marked diversion signs were taking me to get back onto some quiet country lanes. I skirted round the fence line of the Nancy Airbase with lots of warning signs along it advising ‘no stopping, no pictures’. I heard some fighter jets taking off. Later I did see a couple flying overhead too. One of the downsides of riding through the French countryside and small villages is that there is pretty much nowhere to get food and drink, no shops, bars or cafes, so whenever I came to anything resembling a town, I see if there was something to be found. Also, in France eateries mostly will only serve lunch from 12-2pm.
I rode into the town Vezelise which looked a decent size, headed for the town centre which was a bit of a building site. It was just after midday and there was absolutely nothing open. At that point I felt that lunch for me had been cancelled for the day as looking at the map I wasn’t coming through anything with any size until I got to Epinal. I munched a cereal bar and headed on. The weather improved significantly in the afternoon so things were pretty good. I rode uphill and downhill, through villages, fields and forest on my way to the Moselle valley. Coming downhill into the village of Xirocourt I was met with a surprise: A restaurant that was open and serving food. The last bit was less of a surprise as it hadn’t turned 2pm yet. So I had an excellent 2 course meal for 17 Euros. Hurray. More French villages need restaurants in them.
I was in a good mood for the rest the day after that, I dropped down to the Moselle (well the Moselle canal actually as that had the tow path – theme here) and I followed the Moselle (canal) all the way into Epinal. As I approached Epinal I realised that I hadn’t actually mapped to route to my day’s final destination but instead into the town centre. Bonus accommodation is closer than the town centre. Problem with that it is that it would add an extra 2km to the following day which would be my biggest distance day. Oh well.
I switched to phone navigation and had google shouting at me from my back pocket to tell me where to go. And Google maps got that one wrong by trying to take me over a bridge that was impassable. Anyway, I got to my accommodation, an Airbnb – room in a house. It was fine but I hadn’t thought this one through when booking because it was in the suburbs and so neither a chance of checking out the town centre nor a good option to find a place to eat. I mostly conversed with people in France with a mixture of broken French on my part and broken English on their part. Here there was no broken English on their part but we chatted via a translation app. It worked.
Back to the food, when I asked for suggestions for dinner, he asked if I would be going on foot or by bike. I said ‘on foot’ and the options suggest were Burger King or an American Diner. If it hadn’t been raining I may have jumped on the bike after all. The American Diner it was then. It served a purpose but in future I’ll be researching the location of my accommodation better but then maybe there wasn’t anything reasonably priced to be found.
Anyway a decent transition day and all set up for a big mountainous day the following day.
Planned Distance: 126 km
Actual Distance: 129.81 km
Trip Distance: 1011.70 km
Ascent for the day: 1259 m
Ascent for the trip: 8230 m
Riding time: 6:53:58 hrs
Riding time for the trip: 50:58 hrs
