Seven Hours Fine, Seventy Kilometers Not

The plan

I checked the forecast the night before. Rain was on the radar for the following day, which I’d probably want to use as a break anyway, so the sensible move was to get as far south as possible while the weather was still on my side.

I put in a rough target — Bourg-lès-Valence — heaved the luggage back onto the bike, and left the industrial estate outside Metz after the second morning coffee.

The route

The fast way south is the toll motorway. I didn’t want to pay for anything, so the Route Nationale became the road of the day.

At one point I wondered whether the navigation was having a laugh, because one of those national roads turned into a narrow mountain lane for several kilometers.

The day ran from south of Metz past Pont-à-Mousson, curved left around Nancy, through Charmes, high-fived Épinal, wondered whether I was still on course somewhere near Besançon, and ended in Valence, south of Lyon.

The fuel situation

Of everything I’d worried about, fuel was near the top. Not where to find it — how to manage my comically small tank.

Eleven liters, ridden sensibly, is good for roughly 240 kilometers. Filled right to the brim, the kind where it sloshes back at you as you close the cap, maybe 260.

The first bar disappears after about 80 kilometers. The second after another 45. With six bars in total, the whole thing might stretch to 300.

I had no intention of finding out where exactly, somewhere in the middle of France.

So the plan from day one stayed: visit every second gas station, whether I needed it or not.

The obstacle of the day

The other part of the plan stayed too: find somewhere to sleep in the late afternoon.

What I hadn’t planned for was a phone that was simultaneously overheating and running out of battery. The device that navigates and books the room was barely running, and I couldn’t charge it, because it was too hot to charge.

Solution: lots of breaks on the last stretch to the place I’d be spending the next two nights.

The first 500 kilometers of that day took about seven hours, through genuinely beautiful French landscape.

The last 70 took two and a half, through rush-hour traffic, with pauses for the phone to cool down and the battery to come back.

Accommodation

I got to the hotel — an industrial estate again, this time in Bourg-lès-Valence — with just enough time to raid the supermarket for water and snacks before it closed two minutes later.