Chuzelles to Tarare

Monday December 13, 2010

My campsite for the night just off the road in Chuzelles.

Today was an interesting one because it was different to usual. I was rudely awoken at 9:30 am by rubbish collectors collecting rubbish from the bin right beside my tent.

It wasn't too far to Lyon, and I quite enjoyed the ride into the city, I was getting along at a good pace. It was a little hilly to start with, but more downhill than uphill, and then flat leading into Lyon.

I arrived in Lyon at about 1 pm, and located the Tourist Information centre, which was in a large central city square. 

A square near the city centre of Lyon called Place Bellecour. It is the largest clear square in Europe and the third biggest square of France.

It was so nice and warm in there, plus they had free Wi-Fi, so I was in no hurry to leave. At this point I was very tempted to catch the train straight to Paris, because it would only take a few hours, whereas riding would take several days. Of course this wasn't the first time I'd faced this temptation, but I hadn't used the trains yet (other than day trips), I'd only used my bike and ferries for the entire trip so far, more than three months. The deciding factor would be whether there were still Air tickets available for their show in Paris. I hopped online and discovered the tickets were sold out, so I decided to ride the rest of the way to Paris. Before I left though, I surfed the net for a few hours and talked to a good friend, Ruth, on Skype; she was telling me that she wasn't invited to Mel and Boosh's wedding (some friends from uni), but she wanted to go, so she was scheming with another good friend of mine, Al, who was invited to the wedding. Their idea was to pretend to be going out so that she could be his "plus one" and then snag an invite to the wedding as well. Interestingly that later turned into an actual relationship, and what followed was messy situation and a long story that I won't go into.

Eventually I left the comfort of the information centre and stopped by a kabab joint before continuing my journey. From Lyon, I was deviating from my former northerly trajectory of the past several days and starting to head in a north-westerly direction to cross a bit of a mountain range and head towards Paris. The road turned uphill suddenly over the other side of Lyon as I started riding out, with an initial gradient of about 13%, and continued climbing up to an elevation of 273 m. By this stage it was getting dark, and I'd made barley any progress for the day, less than 25 kilometres! So I'd have to keep riding into the night to cover more kilometres. I couldn't slack off because I only had about ten days before I would have to catch my plane out of London.

The roads were quite busy, and I felt somewhat endangered. And as I rode on and up further into the mountain range, it got colder and colder. I kept an eye out for the digital displays they have on the outside of some of the petrol stations and shops; it was -3 degrees Celsius at 8 pm! I was in a town called Tarare, at an elevation of about 400 metres and was rather taken aback by how cold it was, and not really prepared for it. It was time for tea though, so I rolled around the little mountain town investigating my options for a meal. As you might expect, I stopped in at the pizzeria and bought a big delicious pizza. Unfortunately there were no tables to eat in, so I ate it just outside the pizza shop, lest the pizza get cold before I ate it. I actually had to eat the pizza with my gloves on, because my hands were so cold! Crikey!

Pizza for dinner in Tarare, France.

I decided I didn't want to ride any further up the mountain range, because I didn't want to get any colder. Also I had another puncture in the back tyre, so I stopped at the McDonald's nearby to repair it. 

Repairing another puncture at the local McDonald's in Tarare, France.

This was one of the more difficult punctures to repair because my hands were so cold, and thus my fingers didn't work properly, didn't have any strength. I took advantage of the warmth inside the Maccas though. I haven't been a fan of McDonald's for a long time, I haven't eaten it for more than ten years, but I was actually starting to warm to the place (or rather, the franchise). They'd helped me a lot during the trip, with all the free Wi-Fi and tables I'd used for lunch, and toilets. I started feeling a bit guilty about not supporting them, I was really just using them, never buying any food from them. It's like having a friend help you out but never offering them any help in return, never returning any favours. I consoled myself by the fact they are a huge franchise and probably making a huge profit. 

After repairing the puncture, I moved to a nearby park and set up the tent beside a playground not too far from the main street. The grass was covered in frost, and very crunchy. 

Other than the obvious problem of keeping warm, I discovered the cold also posed a few other unforeseen problems - the toothpaste was really hard to squeeze out of the tube (okay, not the biggest problem in the world, I admit), and the water in my drink bottles was freezing solid! What was I to drink?! I was starting to worry about whether I would survive the night or not, my sleeping bag was nothing special, just a synthetic one I'd had for years and only rated at zero degrees Celsius. So I put on every piece of thermal clothing I had, seven layers, and then I laid everything else I had over me in an effort to keep warm. I placed the pizza box underneath the tent to minimise the amount of heat lost to the ground, and I used all my clothes either laying them over the sleeping bag or using them as my pillow. I even used the tent bag, sleeping bag bag and sleeping mat bag lying over my sleeping bag for an extra layer of insulation. I basically built a cocoon around me, and hoped for the best - I was optimistic. And as usual I had my trusty red beanie pulled down over my head and face as I nodded off at around 11:30 pm.

My route for the day, Chuzelles to Tarare.

An overview of my route so far from Rome.

Ride Stats:

Distance: 70.49 km
Average: 15.4 km/h
Maximum: 48.9 km/h
Time: 4:33:03

Total Ascent: 816 m

Total Descent: 667 m