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April 22 Saturday Bicycle touring France from a vineyard near Orange France to free bike camping along the Rhone River Last night it poured and now mud is everywhere -- including on our little bicycle touring tent. It is still sprinkling periodically. I look out our bicycle touring tent's screen door and boldly predict sun this afternoon. A shy sunbeam peeks from the cloud cover. We pack up our cycle touring gear and elect to cut through a path along a vineyard, rather than push our bikes back on the now muddy dirt track we came in on last night. A bird with a machine gun-like voice had been scolding our tent for encroaching on its territory. I saw a magpie with glistening white wing tips, that made it look as if it had an affair with a paint can. Yesterday, cycling on the way to Chateauneuf, the rear tire on my touring bike felt wobbly. I stopped to check it and found it had 40 pounds pressure -- down from my normal 75. I was going to put more air in it with my bicycle pump, when I noticed a bulge in the tire's sidewall. My bike rim is out of true and the rim-rakes on my brakes must rub a bit as the wheel goes around. All that braking in the Gorge du Verdon probably didn't help. I cut off the rim-rakes and put on my last new spare tire. Sharon adjusted my spokes to true the rim. I notice that the old bicycle touring tire still had plenty of tread left, but I threw it in a poubelle trash can before realized that maybe I could save the tire by putting a boot on the sidewall. Like they say, the lesson will be repeated until it is learned. This morning my bicycle tire was flat. Not a good way to start off the day. Just got cycling along the road when we were passed by two guys and a girl cycle tourer pedalling in the opposite direction. We are seeing bicycle tourers just about daily now in this part of France. Just up the road from where we had cycle camped in the thorns were a couple of dandy free camping spots along the river We are cycling along the river. Traffic is light. We cross a hydroelectric plant. These areas are strikingly manicured -- to appease the environmentalists, no doubt. Traffic along N86 was still light. Great for bicycle touring. Spent our last few remaining francs on groceries. We are down to a bit of change ... and the beggars we see want that. We bought chicken, mushrooms, beans with a picture of wieners on the label -- and, sure enough, there were little funny-tasting wieners inside. They made me laugh. Strawberries from Spain. Pasta and tuna for tomorrow. Cheese and bread. A bottle of red Cote du Rhone wine complemented the meal. (That is, if you consider drinking wine through a hole in the cork left by the corkscrew and unable to pull the cork out, complementary.) This is sipping wine. The cork is about a quarter-inch out of the bottle, so it acts as a tooth guard. On our next bicycle touring trip we're going to have to get a real corkscrew ... or at least one on a combination knife that works. The Rhone River is flowing fast -- very high and muddy from all the rain. It looks scary to bicycle camp beside. The surrounding land is soggy. Cycling beside the river, on a gravel road, there were mud puddles. I cut across some grass to avoid the mud puddle on my touring bike and soon found myself in six inches of water. I prayed I wouldn't come to a mucky stop as the water was well over my cycling booties. Saw a great looking free bicycle camp spot in some ivy, but I didn't know if it was poison ivy or not, so we decided to cycle farther. We cycled across a little clear tributary and set up our little bicycle touring tent on the opposite bank, away from the masses of townsfolk. A church with pillars and surrounding wall on a hill was classic in Mon Viviers. Bought cinnamon today to go on our bread when we make French toast. Hopefully we'll find some chocolate ice cream to go with it. When the sun was out today it was pretty hot. |
