DAY 1 on the bike, June 14th - Paris to Montargis


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Europe » France » Centre » Montargis
June 14th 2017
Published: June 14th 2017
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This entry by Tom.

Up early and ready to go, we had breakfast at the Campanile instead of the Première Classe. It’s much better, with fruit and ham and chocolate pastries plus nearly everyone assembled a small sandwich for the road.

Packing the van with all the luggage went well enough and I lost count at half a dozen or so of the number of cameras Luce and Donna used to take the traditional group photo at the start with all of us wearing our custom trip jerseys. At least one of them will be suitable for public consumption. And then we were off.

We all started together as one big group as we always do but instead of leading I hung back with Caroline. Starting out on the first day is always tricky on account of the city riding and today was a bit tougher than usual. There were some short punchy climbs and descents, with one of the descents along a complicated string of narrow streets with tight turns. We fell behind the others almost right away but we soldiered on despite some minor bike problems, the most annoying of which was my rear brake howling as loud as Fannie on the trail of a rabbit. It must have been some residue from the packing tape. It eventually wore away on its own.

It was a hot and sunny day but we got 'er done, arriving at Fontainebleau just a bit after noon. We scared up Donna and Luce, who were visiting the palace, and while they were wrapping up we enjoyed some cold Cokes at one of the cafés next to the carousel. We then met Luce and Donna at the front gate where they took our picture. Caroline went with Luce and Donna to the van while I hit the gas on the rest of today's route.

I caught up to the rest of the group who were all still together at Château-Landon. We all rolled together the rest of the way to Montargis. It was nice to sit in and roll easy to the finish.

After cleaning up and a quick nap we were told that almost everyone was at a bar up the street. Teaming up with Mark, Caroline and I went looking but couldn't find the place. So we turned back and the three of us had dinner at a Chinese buffet close to the hotel. It was a bit different than Chinese buffets that we're used to back home but it was pretty good at a fair price and the Asahi beer was cold. As we were finishing, we saw the others through the window returning​ to the hotel. They had dinner at the bar too.

Back at the hotel Caroline had an Orangina on the patio while we checked the weather for tomorrow--hot with a chance of mid-day showers--while we decided to stick to our original plan to meet at Guédelon about half way into the prescribed route, visit the site, then ride together the rest of the way.

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Tot: 0.078s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 11; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0432s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.1mb