Proposed Route: Pouilly sur Loire-Nevers-Decize-Digoin
Estimated Mileage: 90 miles/145 km
Actual Route: La Charite sous Loire-Decize-Digoin-Paray Le Monial
Mileage Covered: 92.44 miles/152.5 km
Average cycling speed: 17.07 mph
Maximum speed: 34.8 mph
Cycling time: 5 hours 25 minutes.
Terrain: Undulating but not overly testing.
Weather: Cloudy with showers, some very heavy. Wind light variable.
Degree of Difficulty:
Narrative: Last
night's torrential rain (see Day 6 for a picture of
Nello cooking outside during a thunderstorm) had relented by this morning, so
we are able to set out from La Charite under cool, grey skies, our destination
to cut across country, over the Nievre and Allier departements of the
Massif Central into Burgundy. The terrain was more testing than previous rides,
but still not overly demanding: those considerable challenges still lie before
us, and indeed the fun starts tomorrow with the prospect of a really interesting
and testing ride.
Today's challenge was to put in another long
ride in order to gain miles once more, to get across central France and closer
to our destination. As we cycled on quiet, sometimes nearly empty D roads between
Nevers and Digoin, we found ourselves in isolated, often thickly wooded country,
no where near as intensively cultivated as other areas we have gone through,
the farms smaller, with mixed agriculture: perhaps a meadow with some white
Charolais cattle, a plot of vegetables, a field or two of grain, some woodland.
The villages were almost deserted, and we saw very few people as we wheeled
our way through them. The main activity seemed to be taking place not in the
hamlets and villages, but along the stretches of canals that interconnect one
with another, between the rivers that flow into the great waterway of the Loire,
which we were still mainly following. Indeed, we passed magnificent canal bridges,
with complex systems of locks which actually span other rivers, and barges and
pleasure boats lined up to enter them. Otherwise this was lonely, high country,
seemingly as far from Paris and the rest of France as can be imagined.
The main problem today was not the terrain
but the unpredictable weather: we escaped a drenching when we stopped for lunch
the other side of Nevers, but were caught out in torrential downpours in the
afternoon. Between times, it was either chilly when it was overcast, or surprisingly
hot in the fleeting flashes of sunshine. It was impossible to know what to wear,
and at times we suffered from the cold, at other times were bakingly overheated.
Still, the support van stayed close to us today, and at difficult moments were
never far away. So a big thanks today to Hugh and Harry.
And so we arrived at the end of the day at
Paray Le Monial, site of the great Romanesque basilica, once part of the Cistercian
religious order that was so powerful in Burgundy.This order, at its sprawling
and beautiful monasteries at Citeaux, Cluny and elsewhere, grew to incredible
importance and wealth, based in part on its considerable landholdings, not least
some of the most famous and prestigious vineyards in the Cote d'Or. The monasteries
of course were dissolved in the French Revolution, but that at Citeaux, east
of Beaune, is populated with monks once more, who no longer make wines but instead
an exquisite cheese that is a fitting partner to them. We visited Citeaux some
years ago, and I remember being impressed at the time by the monks' disciplined
lifestyle: they awake each day at 4 am, pray, begin work, eat, pray some more,
work, study, eat, pray and go to bed quite early. I always envied their productivity,
their simplicity, their sureness and focus, their lack of distractions.
It occurs to me that our present existence
is not entirely unlike that of the monks of Citeaux: we wake early, we eat,
we ride our bikes a very long way all day long, we arrive in the afternoon and
shower, we work (Nello cooking, me writing, Brother Hugh and Brother Harry with
chores around camp), we eat, then we go to sleep early (the four of us) in a
space that is considerably smaller than a monk's cell. The next morning is the
same. There is very little time for anything else at all. All that is missing
is the copious amounts of praying. But we may even well find ourselves doing
that come the Alps.
Tonight's menu: salade de crottin chaude
de Chavignol, followed by chicken breasts braised with fennel. (As I say,
like those monks of old at Cluny and Citeaux, the simple life has its compensations.)
Previous day |
Next day |
Please
send any comments about this web site or Ride for Life to:
marc@quaypress.com
 |
Our Sponsors |