Day 12 - Allerey-sur-Saône to Bensançon (79 miles)

There are a few things that I might remember from the day: the cold, the continual headwind and the afternoon hailstones; cycling a kaleidoscope of coloured fields from freshly tilled rich, brown earth, to bright yellow rapeseed and vivid green crops; joining the Rhine-Rhône canal, a sense of progress to new territories further east; or more time spent alongside the Saône river, as peaceful and tranquil as yesterday. All these have their place but in the end are all overshadowed by the almost catastrophic breakdown of my bike.

It had been a slower morning than I had hoped for but eventually I arrived at Dole for lunch, a beautiful town sitting on the Doubes river and the Rhône-Rhine Canal and for all the world a French Bradford-on-Avon. Later that afternoon, as I cycled yet another canal, I thought the bike a little skittish but found nothing obviously wrong and put it down to the surface I was on. But things were definitely worsening and I soon found the problem: the (new) rear wheel had a number of spokes loose. With fifteen miles to go to Benançon, and very little between me and there, I had little choice but to either walk the bike or nurse it carefully along. I chose the latter and the next two hours had me physically and mentally tense as I anticipated a total failure of the wheel while trying to close the distance to my destination beforehand. The miles slowly ticked down, the bike slowly got more wobbly and the views - when I noticed them - became more dramatic. As long as I kept moving things appeared to be more stable, but stopping seemed to make things worse and thoughts of circus clown bikes and what I would do if the worst happened were never far from my mind.

Dole

Dole

Dole

My luck held, well almost. I ended up walking the last mile; things were getting too bad and I think every spoke was loose by then. And Lady Luck cast her gaze upon me again as I was pushing my bike towards my accommodation: I passed an open bike repair shop, complete with resident English bike engineer, and they have taken my bike with the intention of having it sorted for tomorrow. That leaves me with the evening to explore this lovely city nestled deep in a winding river valley, to keep my fingers crossed for tomorrow and to reset my plans for the next three days. 

Bensançon