After spending four days in the Grenoble area to watch the Tour de France, we hit the road again headed to Paris. We had a lot of distance to cover, roughly 600km, but since we were leaving the high mountains behind us estimated that it would only take us five days to make the trip.
The first night we rode to Lyon, where a couple from couchsurfing had agreed to host us. The day’s riding was uneventful, as we followed river valleys out of the mountains to avoid the big climbs. Not long after leaving Grenoble, we found ourselves in the flat farmland that occupies almost all of the area between Grenoble and Paris. Once we met our host in Lyon, Laurent, we cleaned up and they took us on a tour of the town.
The best thing about couchsurfing is that you get to meet locals who can show you the things that you would otherwise miss out on. In this case, we were shown a tunnel network in downtown that was originally used to move tapestries in order to keep them from the rain, and later as a hidden passageway during World War II. We also got a chance to try some authentic Lyonnais food, and see other tourists sights, such as the Opera House and a red cobblestone on a sidewalk to mark the spot where a former French president was assassinated. These are all things we would have missed out on if we had camped outside of the city instead of couchsurfing.
The next day, we left Lyon for the famous wine town of Chalon-sur-Saone. We originally hoped to make it further, but we were slowed down by rainy weather and stopped in Chalon for the night. This left us with 145 km to cover the following day to make it to Ancy-le-Franc, a small village where another couple from couchsurfing would host us. Along the way to Ancy-le-Franc we found a cycling path that followed a canal, which gave us a scenic car free route to follow for parts of the day. While riding the canal, the sidewall of Matt’s rear tire tore, requiring a new tire. We made our way to the next small town and stopped to ask some locals if there was a bike shop in town. There was, and one of the locals rode down on his bike to show us the way. When we arrived, we realized that it was not just a bike shop but a bike, scooter, dirt bike, and lawn care store all in one.
Matt getting a new tire at a bike shop/lawn care store.
Fortunately, they had a new tire in stock and were able to solve our problem to get us rolling again. Despite more rain showers and the flat tire stop, we were able to cover the full 145km in one day, our longest ride of the tour so far. That night, we got to know our hosts better over pizzas before going to bed for some much needed rest.
The next day we set out with tired legs, but we were lucky enough to be able to follow the same canal trail from the previous day for the majority of the mornings riding.
Nice quiet riding
We noticed along the way that many people enjoy boating along the canal and stopping occasional to get off of the boat and ride their bikes along the path that we were on. It was not uncommon to see boats pass by with bike racks on deck. We followed the canal as long as we could before moving back onto quiet roads that took us past small farms and closer to the city. We stopped for the night at a campground in Sens, another small French city.
The next day, we started to ride with Paris in our sights. We followed the small farm roads as long as we could, but before long we were in the suburbs of Paris. Fortunately, we found a couchsurfing host that lives in the suburbs southeast of the city, which is the direction that we were coming in from. This eliminated some of the trouble of city riding, but we still had to deal with a few busy roads on the way in. After checking the map a few times, we found our way to his house, where we met up with Sylvain, who would be hosting us and showing us the city.
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