Day 246: Épernay to Rozoy-sur-Serre

Head for the border

Riding through the vineyards of Champagne

We’ve headed out off Champagne-Ardennes now and we’re perilously close to being in Belgium. We were able to ride through some more Champagne vineyards as we left Épernay, over the chalky hills that form the coveted slopes favoured by the vines.

Champagne money will buy you a nice town, with a balloon in the middle of i

Close planting, short posts, it’s very different to an Australian vineyard

Then it was on to the other city of Champagne — Reims, notable for its enormous cathedral. It’s so large it was easy to see as we approached Reims from the south, towering over the rest of the city.

We had a nice lunch sat in the square and then headed off north again, into the land of small French villages with nothing open.

Reims Cathedral, it’s impressively large

Back into more normal agriculture

“I don’t like the look of those clouds,” says Tiger…

Next thing, the rain starts — only a light smattering though

Not sure if we’ll hit Belgium tomorrow or the day after, but we’re not far off.

Video: Italy, Venice to the Alps

Heading straight across the top of Italy, from Trieste to Venice and then the Po valley to Turin and the Alps. Starting to feel like we’re nearly home now - 13,000km down, just over a thousand to go.

Day 245: Rest day in Épernay

The Champagne capital

It' seemed a sensible place to have a rest day, so we’ve spent the day exploring a part of the vineyards in Champagne. We went on a trip to Beaunay with vigneron and winemaker Margot to see her vineyards and hear more about how they grow their grapes here. It was fascinatingly detailed and we learned a lot of new facts about how Champagne is produced. Most amazing was the amount of control Le Comité Champagne have, from decreeing what can and can’t be done in the vineyards to when the harvest should start in each area.

We have plenty to celebrate with our champagne. Sarina has a job with a winery in the south of England to work on their harvest, plus I have a job with Oracle confirmed, starting as soon as I’m back in the UK. Tiger is of course off to Huddersfield University, so we all have lives to go on with when we get back now — and it won’t be long before we’re there.

Margot showing us the grapes that have been damaged by the extreme heat of the last few weeks

Amongst Margot’s chardonnay vines

…plus a very French pique-nique

Les Frères Montgolfièr seem to be at it again

Day 244: Troyes to Épernay

Champagne cycling

A very pleasant day riding through rolling hills with a roaring tailwind. Any slight deviation in course reminded us just how strong the wind was, battling a crosswind on occasions, but it was generally favourable, and very welcome for a pretty long day.

The scenery was beautiful, especially as we climbed through the vineyard clad hills

Early on we had the Canal de Haute Seine to follow, with at least 10km of towpath, traffic free and pan flat

Morning snack was provided by the blackberry bushes

Lunch on the steps of the Hotel de Ville of the deserted town of Fère-Champenoise. Luckily the boulangère and supermarché were open or we’d have been hungry.

Long, straight roads and a howling tailwind

The vines on the chalky hillsides of Champagne

Épernay is very grand — the capital of the Champagne region (but don’t tell Reims)

So, of course, a little local fizz with supper

Day 243: Chatillon-sur-Seine to Troyes

Trois deviennent fous à Troyes

(Three go mad in Troyes)

Our first glimpse of the vineyards of Champagne today, as we went through the Côte de Bar region. Theres a notable improvement in the landscape and agricultural buildings when they are dedicated to the worlds favourite fizz.

This is the source of La Seine, but there’s not much water at this point

Again, most of rural France seems to be fermé — everyone’s off on their summer hols. We managed to find an Aldi to provide our picnic for lunch and we sat in a park few picnic tables down from the local men’s outdoor drinking club who, thankfully, desired only minimal chats with us.

Morning break by La Seine — a trickling river by this point

Evening in Troyes, a medieval town centre

Day 242: Dijon to Châtillon-sur-Seine

Sweeping through Burgundy 

We had an appointment at the Apple Store today to sort out Tiger’s iPhone screen. He’d very bravely survived a whole day without his phone, with only a little help by borrowing Sarina’s, mine and the laptop. 

By the time we headed away from the mall where we’d spent the morning it was 2pm. Luckily it doesn’t get dark until 9pm, so we thought we’d push on until we had to stop. 

In the end we discovered there wasn’t really anywhere to stop. We’re heading through, what I believe the French would call, “La France Profonde”. It’s sparse agricultural and forestry land where the population has dwindled to a minimum. 

We stopped in a small village and asked some passing cyclists if there was a shop. “No, but there’s a tap you can fill bidons with up there.” Ok, so lunch was off, until we spotted a van nearby selling food. We managed a croque monsieur and some biccies from him. 

When we found the tap it turned out to be dry, but a local spotted us and let us use his garden tap. He turned out to be a fellow tandem rider and gave us some tips on which way to go next. 

We ended up having a beautiful ride through the rolling hills. Forest, wheat and corn fields lined the sides of the road as we whipped past, spending a fair bit of time in our big ring, so the wind must have been fair. 

We ended up clocking up over 90km in an afternoon, rolling into a French equivalent of Fawlty Towers for a fantastic meal cooked by a pickled chef and a very busy maître d’. A very fun day. 

Day 241: Chalon sur Saône to Dijon

We finally found the vines!

It took us a day in Burgundy, but we’ve finally ridden through a huge number of vines. The list of places read like a wines list - Côté de Beaune, Nuits St.Georges, Vosne Romanée…

Nice riding too. Some bike paths, reasonably flat and lovely views. There was some persistent drizzle and a massive downpour that sent us scurrying into a relais routier for a three course lunch. Still, it can’t all be glorious sunshine.

Now the conumdrum is, how come we’ve been in Dijon for hours and not seen any mustard.

Day 240: Bourg-en-Bresse to Chalon sur Saône

Pastoral France

What a gentle day in rural France. The road was rolling but such a smooth surface it feels like you could roll forever.

We’re now in Burgundy and we haven’t seen a single vine. Maybe tomorrow.

Leaving picturesque Bourg-en-Bresse

We’ve found a French tricolore to fly

This bike path on an old rail trail was great and we saw quite a few locals getting their exercise — on roller blades, cycles and on foot

Lunch at a patisserie was fantastic, quiche a l’oignan that was perfect and beautiful palmiers for afters — the best food

We just caught the patisserie before it closed

The harvest is in full swing

Could this be a more typical French road…

…oh, maybe add some trees lining it

The little town of Tournus

Very cute village Saint-Cyr

…and finally, into Chalon-sur-Saône

Day 239: Frangy to Bourg-en-Bresse

All was quiet from our fellow campers as we packed our tents after their big night

Nice roads, great Views

We finally found somewhere for lunch when every restaurant and supermarket was closed. We ended up With a three course meal with wine, but it was fuel.

Plenty of gorges today

The building of Bourg-en-Bresse

Day 238 - Albertville to Frangy

From the Alps to Babylon

We woke to a fantastic breakfast of gorgeous local cheeses, managed to find a decent coffee in a local bar and then we were off, leaving the Alps behind us. 

First coffee

The cycle paths in this area are legendary and we sat on a wide, flat path that whisked us to Lac d’Annecy, a beautiful lake full of boats, bathers and crowned by parapunters soaring above the high peaks around it. 

We were heading along the banks of the lake in a Sunday, with the temperature around 30°C, so, as you can imagine, the bike path was pretty crowded. There were families on mountain bikes, small pelotons of road bikes and triathletes on tri-bikes. Even a rider in the Transcontinental Race heading for Le Galibier and checkpoint 4 in his race. 

The bike path sees some use!

Beautiful views of the lake

We made our way onwards with ease despite the traffic, had a dip in the lake at lunchtime and then headed to the town of Annecy. 

Lunch spot with a view

After lunch swim

It’s a beautiful town with grand classical French buildings around the top of the lake. 

Annecy is a very sweet town

Quick rest in the shade under a Ginkgo tree

Then we were off the bicycle path at last and riding on a French D road. There’s still not much hard shoulder for us, but French drivers give us a lot of respect and they feel very safe. 

We’d decided to go to Frangy, which for 361 days a year is a quiet village that used to have a thriving agricultural community.  But for four days it turns into the Nomade Reggae Festival, filling  with thousands of tie dye wearing, weed smoking reggae fans. Guess what, we arrived on the last night of the festival and the village was heaving. 

We managed to get a pizza in the end,  but there were queues for everything and most places were shut. However it was a lovely relaxed atmosphere and another unexpected experience on our trip. 

Tiger not too impre by his glimpse of the reggaE Festival

Tiger shows he can do both Mum and Dad’s jobs

Day 237: St. Michel de Maurienne to Albertville

Down and out of the mountains

Well, we’re still in amongst some pretty big hills, but we’ve finished the big climbs for now.

We had a very pleasant ride after a late start. Tiger and I were recovering from our fun day yesterday and we were trying to get some washing dry, but we were in no hurry.

The road was generally downhill, but a generous headwind stopped us getting any great benefit from that. However, it wasn’t too hot, the cycling wasn’t too hard, so a very pleasant day.

We’re now in Albertville, home of the Winter Olympics in 1992, and still boasting an ice rink and other facilities that came as part of that event. It’s a very tidy town though with architecture that mixes the alpine with more typical French.

To start the day, find the public water fountain in the town and fill your bidons with fresh, cool, alpine water

We’re going steadily downhill, but there are huge peaks around us still

The quant village of La Chambre — gateway to the famous Col de la Madeleine climb

Cycle paths you can actually cycle on!

Approaching Albertville after around 15km on cycle paths

Day 236: Grand Circuit de les Alpes

Tiger’s birthday treat — 5,500m of climbing

We don’t want to be carrying presents around on our bikes, so we’ve been having birthday treats instead, and Tiger chose to spend a day on a lightweight road bike with no luggage and cycle a tour of the Alps. I got to go too but, for some reason, Sarina thought sitting in the valley for a day resting would be more fun. She might have had a point in retrospect.

We planned a trip round “Le Grand Circuit”, similar to the course of the Marmotte sportive. It ticks off Le Col du Télégraphe, Le Col du Galibier, Col du Lauteret (on the way down), Alpe d’Huez and Le Col du Glandon, in 190km of riding.

We set off at 8am, with a nice chill in the air for the climb of the Télégraphe, a pleasant warm up for the day. Coffee in Valloir and then on to the mighty Galibier.

Getting used to riding light bikes on the Télégraphe. I couldn’t even get out of the saddle without wobbling to start with!

Where we just came from — half way up Le Col du Galibier

Job done — it was chilly at 2642m

We shot down the glorious descent of the Galibier — 40km of fast downhill, with a short stop on the top of the Col du Lauteret for a baguette. Then it was on to Bourg d’Oisan and the foot of Alpe d’Huez.

This climb is probably the most famous cycling climb in the Alps, and Tiger enjoyed turning onto the 10% ramp at the start just as we’ve seen so many racers do before. There weren’t quite as many people to cheer us on though.

The Alp started to wear on me. I was overheating and had to slow a little half way up. We made it though, a big tick for Tiger. Extraordinarily this is my 10th time up the climb and possibly my slowest (no Strava for previous times).

“It’s still cold”

Atop Alpe d’Huez, the lake where we cooled down Tiger as a three-year-old when we camped here to watch Iban Mayo win the Tour stage. Tiger wasn’t keen for a swim this time.

Then it was down the beautiful side road from Huez village to Villard Reculas and then down a classic alpine descent to Lac du Verney. From then on you’re starting the climb of Croix du Fer or Glandon, dependent on which way you turn at the top.

The climb dragged on a lot and I started to feel weaker and weaker. By the top I was feeling quite sick and had no power — luckily the descent of the Col du Glandon woke me up. What an amazing road! Switchbacks through pasture on a narrow road that seems to weave about just to give you a bit more fun, and at 7pm there was practically no traffic (one car) and a really good view of what was coming. Amazing.

Le Col du Glandon goes on forever

Beautiful views keep you sane

On top of the Col du Glandon, too fatigued to turn round and show the sign

Then it was just the valley road back to Saint Michel du Maurienne. I was dead by this point, and though we tried to keep the pace up, we ended up stopping for me to be sick, so just limped in to town in the end. Still a fantastic day’s riding, and a good night’s sleep seems to have cleared whatever bug, nutritional issue or lack of HTFUs that I was experiencing.

Day 235: Susa to St. Michel de Maurienne

Crossing the Alps - big climb but no skiing elephants

We’d been quite reticent to cross the Alps. I’ve ridden over many big Cols before with no problems, but with the Tandem and a full load of five bags it’s a different matter. However, in the end we found we didn’t have time to time to skirt the coast through Monaco and the south of France, so we bit the bullet and headed for the Alps.

We chose the Col de Mont Cenis, mostly because it’s a simple climb and doesn’t often go over 7%, which suits our heavy laden bikes.

The climb starts straight out of Susa, no warm up

About three quarters of the way up the climb we cross into France. Country number 16!

Near the top there' are some spectacular switchbacks

The most beautiful place to have crèpes with local cheeses in them. Plus we saw a family of three marmottes for the full alpine experience

Finally a big descent into the Vallée D’Arc and some pretty impressive Savoyarde fortifications

A diversion due to a landslide left us a little confused, but we were very capably saved by a passing cyclist who set us in the right direction, and then this guy who talked us through the whole route

The Tour came this way only a week ago. These Pinot fans won’t have been happy with the outcome

A treat for Tiger’s birthday at last — we’ve hired a couple of road bikes and we’re going to head up the Galibier, Alpe D’Huez and the Croix de Ferre tomorrow. For some reason Sarina would prefer to stay in the valley and chill.

Oh, and the skiing elephants? Apparently there are those that believe that the pass that Hannibal used when he crossed the Alps with elephants and then attacked Rome was the Col de Mont Cenis. Eddy Izzard has a bit to say about that…

Day 234: Torino to Susa

Foothills of the Alps

We finally managed to get the rebuilt wheel with a new rim back from the shop and back, where it belongs, on the back of the Blue Strawberry. Thanks to TurinBike for sorting this out.

At last, a new back wheel for the Strawb’

Then we were off - riding out of Turin towards the hills. It seems everyone in Turin has gone on holiday at the moment as the streets seemed incredibly empty. The European Masters Games were taking place, but we didn’t see many people from that either. The whole place was weirdly quiet. But that suited us fine as we headed out of town.

Biggest crisis of the day – Sarina and I now have non-matching socks. The catastrophe was averted by the end of the day when we found a nice bike shop call Nosolobici. Not only bikes, they also sold socks (and spoke French, which was handy).

We tried some weird cycle paths, but they always seemed to end in trouble, so we just rode along on the main roads in the end, and there was so little traffic.

We were soon out in the countryside, and a nice tail wind came to join us too - sometimes everything goes your way.

Hills are starting to loom over us

The houses are looking ever more alpine

That’s the hills we’ll be tackling tomorrow

Found another Binachi like mine, a ‘74 Rekord. We also found the original rider, who must have been around 74 himself, still running a bike shop. He didn’t have any socks though.

It seems incredible that we’ve covered 13,000km now - with only just over a thousand to go. Plus, in 31 days, at the end of August, this journey will be over and we’ll be back to life in jolly old England. That just seems extraordinary at the moment.

It’s been an amazing journey and I’m so lucky to have had some much time to spend with Sarina and Tiger over the last eight months, in so many amazing places. I’ve learned a lot, both from them and from the places.

Day 233: Yet another rest day in Turin

Another day hanging around in Turin

We spent a couple of hours working out how to send some stuff back to the UK. With the Alps our next challenge, getting as light as possible seemed like a good plan, so we sent two boxes of stuff home. All things we hadn’t been using or didn’t think we’d need again — the coffee maker (plenty of coffee around now), a head torch (you can use a phone), some clothes we weren’t using. All in all, about nearly eight kilos less to carry over the Alps in the next few days.

We also went to check out the car museum that’s been built by the old Fiat factory in Lingotto. You’ll have seen the building because it has a test tract on the roof and the drive the minis up and around it during the Italian Job. Iconic stuff. The first bit of the museum was very good, but tailed off a little.

The factory is so huge it is now being used as a whole lot of things. It’s an art gallery, a polytechnic, a student halls, a shopping mall and a hotel or two amongst other things. It’s not the most inspirational place — it’s a shame it’s a little wasted really, particularly the car ramp that spirals up to the roof.

The Fiat Lingotto factory

The spiral that allow a car to pass on to the next stage of the production process on the floor above, before finally emerging for a drive around the test tract on the roof

The BMW “Bubble Car”

A Goddess that can fly

Cinquecento - they had to have one here

Day 232: Another rest day in Turin

Another day lounging around in Turin, experiencing the deathly quiet of Monday morning in Italy, when everything is shut and everyone seems to still be asleep.

Sarina was working on having a job when she’s gets to the UK, so Tiger and I headed off to take a look at the “Mole”, the enormous tower that is the symbol of Turin for most people. It is incredibly large. The glass lift takes you up through the centre of the dome - suspended on wires but with no structure around you. Quite unnerving.

Il Mole Antonelliana

Inside, you rise up through the dome on wires in a glass lift. The main part of the building is a cinema museum.

The view of the mountains from the top. The big in the hills is the valley we’re aiming for, but it doesn’t stay that flat for long.

Palazzo Madama — its owner commissioned the front to be updated, but they didn’t bother about the rear. Quite a contrast.

In a coffee shop — a very agreeable view of Europe

So many lovely piazzas

I found a Bianchi just like mine in the window of an opticians!

Video: Italy, Trieste to Venice

Heading straight across the top of Italy, from Trieste to Venice and then the Po valley to Turin and the Alps. Starting to feel like we’re nearly home now - 13,000km down, just over a thousand to go.

Day 231: Rest day in Torino

More mooching around in Turin. Mostly spent the day moving house, as our apartment wasn’t available for the extra days we need to wait for our replacement rim.

Tiger and I managed to get a haircut too, which was well worthwhile.

Day 230: Rest day in Torino

Our tour stage cancelled due to storms

It’s just as well that we’re forced to wait in Turin for our replacement rim to arrive. The storms in the Alps that shortened the last two stages of Le Tour de France were exactly where we plan to cross as soon as we’re ready. Instead, we’re snugged up in a very nice Airbnb in Turin watching hail and lightning through the windows.

This morning was reasonably sunny, so we managed a wander around the city. It’s quite a smart place — although nowhere near as affluent as when it was a kingdom of its own and controlled all the trade between Italian cities and France.

Just to prove we’re here, here are some photos.

The Royal Palace, Palazzo Reale di Torino

The Royal Square - Piazzetta Reale

Porta Nuova Station

Day 229: Chivazzo to Torino

Today’s ride was an easy 20km into Turin, where we’re going to be staying for a few days. We have some cracks in the rim of our rear wheel and we’ve ordered a replacement from the UK. However, “delivery in 2-4 days” has turned into “delivery in 7 days” and we’re going to be hanging around in Turin for a while — until next Tuesday at least.

We’ve clicked over 13,000 kilometres now, with only 1,300km left to go now meaning we’re now over 90% done!

Stopping for a coffee in Brandizzo