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Cycle touring in France is awesome. I can't believe how different it is from cycling in Canada and Australia. There's no fear of the traffic - there's no need. There are roads to avoid, but they're easy to avoid and so many great alternatives. The drivers are courteous... almost to a fault... it's kind of freaky. Cycle touring without the fear is, well... AWESOME! I am finally experiencing the joy of cycle touring.
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We got an early/fast start today because of some morning drizzle. We had 17km behind us by the time we reached Tours, and before we had our first café au lait. Then, we had a long layover in Tours as we finally got the chain replaced on Brent's bike... something we'd failed to do a couple weeks ago. Then, with the help of a strong tail wind, we made the remaining 30km to Amboise in record time.
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While we were walking in Tours today, we saw something I've never seen before. Brent and I have been speculating about how people would move furniture in and out of some of the apartments around here with their impossibly tight narrow staircases (and no elevators). Today we saw a moving truck with a freakishly long ladder up to the top apartment with an electric lift on it with a mattress that they were moving.
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I was slightly perturbed with the city of Tours for putting their weekend market right on the EuroVelo route. I mean right ON the EuroVelo route so we couldn't ride on the route - it was blocked off for the market. We had to detour around, and although it was a short detour, it had a lot going on at once for us to navigate.
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When we were walking around Tours waiting for the
work on Brent's bike to be done, a young couple stopped us. The young man
recognized us from PARIS! We had been standing on Rue Jean Juares with a map
in our hands feeling lost, when he had come over and offered us directions.
He had traveled down to Tours, and recognized us thanks to the flags and
Brent's beard. We had a nice "reunion" chat with him. How crazy is that!?
Another reason to love the flags.
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