Jun 24: Blois to Briare

With the heat wave finally breaking and temperatures down in the 70s/80s, we decided to go big. Today’s 160km put us at our first century (in miles) of the trip since the Eleven Cities Tour in Friesland. We didn’t have a firm destination until around lunch but settled on Briare. Google Maps had some quaint images of the town, which was good enough for us. We also learned it is the endpoint of a canal from the 1600s which connects the Loire and Seine rivers. It created an important trading route for wine, timber, coal, iron, and some food products.

This was probably our easiest touring century of our recollection. We benefitted from mostly smooth, straight bike paths with an at least partial tailwind most of the day. The paths followed the tops of the levees built to protect towns from the Loire and apparently also provide habitat for a billion gnats, approximately half of which ended up on Andrew’s arms/legs (evidence below).

We passed through some terrific medieval small towns, came close to our first of many nuclear plants, and had some single track riding through regional parks. It ended with the mind-blowing and surprising Briare canal bridge (video here and picture below), which looked like a normal bridge until getting right up to it. In Andrew’s defense, the sidewalk was quite narrow and the canal appeared to be deep.