Tuesday 30 June – bike trouble
The first part of our journey from FesseVillers was wonderfully easy, with long downhill runs. In particular we had a run of around 8km snaking through the mountains down to Saint-Hippolyte.
We found this Roman Amphitheatre on our way into Montbeliard, just outside Mathay.
We had visited Montbeliard before, on our 2012 bike tour – heading in a different direction that time. This time our experience was not good, as the tourist info was unhelpful. They had no information on bike routes to the north, only on the Eurovelo 6 west-east path. We bought a detailed map from a book shop. We continued onto Belfort, the next town to the north. Despite the lack of advise from the tourist info, there was an excellent bike path going north along the canal.
Not long after we left town, we started having problems with my bike. The front bearings started giving in. We made it to Belfort, and to their tourist information. It was very hot at this stage. The contrast with our last tourist info experience was startling. They were incredibly helpful in Belfort. Luckily there was a Decathlon (the store we bought our bikes from) about 5km out of town. We were given detailed instructions on how to get there and they even phoned the store. We also got information on accommodation near the store and on bike routes.
Decathlon replaced the front wheel and then the back wheel started making a clacking noise, not related to the bearings. The Decathlon mechanic partially fixed the clacking noise by adjusting the back cassette sprocket, but we were not convinced that this was a permanent fix. Kris’s bike has a rear wheel that is somewhat buckled from an incident when he went through a hole in the road – so we are not sure how much longer the two bikes will last.
We found accommodation in the town near the store. This is a private room in an old farmhouse. It sounded romantic but turned out crummy with a slightly mad landlady who kept on asking questions we couldn’t understand in French. We should have gone to the hotel this time (usually we prefer the private rooms).