The Big Bike Year

Our special guest and Mike at lunch today at our friends' restaurant in Lyon.  Yum Yum Right Sportsfans, IT'S BEEN A HUGE WEEK.   1. Rain We left our gorgeous little cottage a day late because of RAIN!  We had 6 days of glorious weather and 28/29 degree days and blue skies.  We woke up on the Sunday to get rolling and the rain and cold had set in - we waited a few hours to see if it would clear and it didn't.  So we sat back down, turned on the telly, and chilled out for another day in our cottage.  We got up the next day and it was lightly raining but decided to head off anyway (back up that bloody mountain) so we could at least get a little distance done - we wanted to be at our friends' place in Lyon at least one day before our guest rider arrived from Australia.  So, we hit the road - got 12km down the path (the continuation of the old railway bike path called the Greenway or Voie Verte in French) then had to call it because it was just too awful a...

 Mike again... I'm trying to go back and remember all that's happened since the last post... it's been an amazing and unique week. Sooo great! We left you last time in the fairytale land of the Doubs river, in the magical kingdom of Besançon. The following day we headed out early and immediately found ourselves back on the Doubs river path amidst breathtaking scenery. After 15k we came to a tunnel for the canal (mostly the river and some locks around the occasional weir). The tunnel also had an ancient cycle/walking path next to it. Not keen to ride through (it was crazy and we would have had to carry or bikes and panniers separately over the slippery muddy stairs), we went over the hill. It's amazing the engineering they used to build these waterways. Later after finding a boulangerie and grabbing some bread for lunch we booked ourselves a cute little house about 20k down the path, and headed via a "petit casino" (mini supermarket) to our stop... and wow, it ...