<span style="font-family: Arial; color: #000000; font-size: medium;">
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Starting out from Chartres, we rode through Centre-Ville close to the Chartres Cathedral.<span> </span>Simply a beautiful building.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Leaving Chartres, it was back to the wheat-filled flat countryside.<span> </span>And our timing was pretty good weather-wise.<span> </span>We started out in the first sunshine we’d seen in a while.<span> </span>Later, we lost the sun, but otherwise had comfortable riding.<span> </span>Then as we entered Verneuil-sur-Avre, the rain started, getting pretty hard by the time we found the hotel, which was a Logis de France called Le Saumon.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The best portion of today’s ride was D25, which had no traffic and some nice variety including some forest, which was a nice change from the flat wheat fields.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>
</span><span style="font-family: Arial; color: #000000; font-size: medium;">During the day, we passed from the Eure-et-Loir Department in the Centre Region to the Eure Department in the Haute-Normandie Region.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; color: #000000; font-size: medium;">
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></div>
</span>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: #000000; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;">Background:<span style="font-family: Arial;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></div>
</span></div>
My wife and I have been doing self-supported tours in Western Europe (a majority in France) since 1993. This series of rides covers our 2009 4.5 month route through parts of France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and then back to France. Our beginning and ending point is near Chadurie (south of Angouleme) where our friends have a farm with Gites and Chambres d'Hotes.
We rode our Dawes touring bicycles purchased in 1993 heavily loaded with 700Cx32 tires. All of our riding was on paved roads, mostly with very little traffic. Pretty much the only unpaved sections were some bicycle paths in Germany and Austria. Sadly, that wasn't so great as Helen fell a number of times on the unpaved paths. Fortunately, though, no serious injury.
If any questions, feel free to email me at jeffkadet@netdiving.com
Jeff
