58km / 2 hours 47 minutes / 403m gain

Today was a nice ride, mostly on back roads and smooth gravel. Thus my butt is happy as it didn’t get hit as hard as the last few days. The ride was beautiful, and the land has switched from flattish farmland with spots of forest to mostly forest and rolling hills. I like seeing this switch as I cover ground.

Last night I only had 2 cans of sardines to eat as the grocery store in the small town was closed on Thursdays. I’ve been in mostly small towns so finding food has been a little harder than normal.

I woke up early this morning, and I was the first one at the small local grocery store at 8 am (slightly before their bakery delivery). I had one warm croissant and two warm pans de rasien. I also bought some bread, tuna, and goat cheese. Later I stopped to get sausage and cheese to stock up.

For lunch, I had an amazing meal. White wine from this region, followed by goat cheese on toast, followed by an amazing steak and frites with sauce, and for desert 3 kinds of cheese. I also had a Cognac for desert, I’ve never had one before, and it is strong! I biked near Cognac, France, a few days ago and have been wanting to try a local one. I’ll stick with Port but it is quite good.

Tomorrow I bike to Orleans and stay there for 2 days of rest. I am looking forward to it!

~58km / ~3 hours 20 minutes / ~400m gain

My Garmin tracker didn’t start this morning. That annoys me. I rode at least 10km before I figured that out…

My butt hurt today :). Doing a 90km and 80km ride this week to get to hotels was a lot of time in the saddle. It wouldn’t be so bad, but I am doing a ton of gravel and wild routes, which means a lot of bumps (so more hits to my royal buttocks). A few days of rest, and I should be as good as new.

Today had a lot of weird routing; at one point, I had gone several kilometers down a trail, only for it to slowly fade into nothing as the howls of a pack of hunting dogs came closer and closer. I already had to walk my bike for the last 100 meters or so, so I quickly walked it back and then rode out to find an alternative route.

Another time the so-called route told me to turn on an alley that was a 10-foot pile of dirt :). Adventure!

55km / 3 hours 13 minutes / 400m gain

Today was gorgeous. Most of my ride was in a national forest or along a converted rail track (gravel). I am a bit tired from some long rides this week but otherwise good. I ate so many blackberries today. I should call this the Blackberry tour for how many bushes are along my route.

I saw my first fox today. My goal is to see one in every country I visit/tour. I’ve seen one in France (he/she even played hide and seek with me) and Portugal.

I also read one of the best thrillers called “I Am Pilgrim“. Fantastic and in the running for one of the best 3 books I read this year.

I am staying at this amazing B&B in nature. I am running low on food, and going to be a small dinner. I’ll need to find some food tomorrow. Dinner was the last hunk of crusty bread withy butter and camembert cheese. Plus, some carrots, nuts, and cranberries.

82km / 4 hours 35 minutes / 564m gain

Today was a long day. My butt was hurting by the end. I had to go extra far today as I couldn’t find a hotel in the middle.

Some map routing issues today. First, the route ended in a random cornfield :). I had to walk through that to get to a road. I kept expecting velociraptors to pop up in the tall corn.

Then on another one, I was going down a dirt road and where it showed a road, there was none, as it was very overgrown. I had to carry my bike through a forest, breaking things to make room. Eventually, I got out :). My legs got pretty torn up, and hopefully no poison ivy.

On one of the dirt roads, there was a herd of Bison. Behind them was a huge nuclear plant. It felt very surreal. Note the bison makes the coolest noise, like this deep hum/growl in their chest. If I had heard that in the woods, I would freak out, but now that I know, I will never get surprised by a bison in the woods.

54km / 3 hours 0 minutes / 417m gain

Today was more farmland, rolling hills, and a lot of little forest groves. The weather was beautiful. It was cold enough this morning that the B&B had a fire going. I stopped for lunch at a little park and read for a while until I could check into the little B&B. Tomorrow is a long 80km day (couldn’t find an open hotel, so going a bit far).

45km / 2 hours 35 minutes / 436m gain

Nice easy day today after the longer day yesterday. I had a big headwind all day, which was rather nice. It was incredibly cool all day; I am thankful for this weather. I think it will get hot toward Wed/Thur.

Lots of blackberries along the way, they were delicious. Today was mostly farmland with little bits of forest. So much wine!

90km / 4 hours 54 minutes / 749m gain

I got an early start today; I knew it was going to be a long ride. Luckily it is still super cool here and I didn’t have to deal with heat. Equally good as I didn’t refill my water bottle and ran out of water in the last hour.

The ride was beautiful, with lots of gravel roads, trails, and paved back country roads. Not too much elevation, given the distance. I ended up near Cognac, France, which was cool to bike through. I would like to try some Cognac (never had it), but it is Saturday, and tasting rooms are closed.

I ate lunch under a tree in a vineyard while it started to rain. I had sardines in water and drank the salty water to make sure I was hydrated and had plenty of salt. Once I got to the apartment, I stocked up on food for the coming days (smaller towns don’t usually have a bakery so far).

53km / 3 hours 18 minutes / 144m gain

It feels good to be on my bike :)

Calico and Lindsey had to get up at 3.30 am to catch their flight, so it was very early morning and a bit of a sleep disaster for Lindsey and me. I don’t think either of us got more than an hour of sleep before the wake up. The hotel was hot, and the window opened to a floodlight that was almost as bright as the sun :).

After they got into the taxi, I went back to sleep (I hope she gets some sleep on the plane).  managed about 3 hours of sleep before my 6.30 am wake-up.

As a result, I am loopy as hell.

I drove to long-term parking, and it took me twice as long to get ready. I started riding at 7.45 am. And I was extra careful getting out of town in a loopy state, I didn’t want to get hit by a truck (I meant to avoid rush hour).

The bike lanes and paths were amazing; the French do such an amazing job on their bike infrastructure. 80% of the time, I was on a dedicated bike path (20% shared, but with a decent amount of room).

The ride was beautiful but wild.

There were plenty of times I was just going through what felt like a wild field. Because of the area, there is a lot of sand, and everything is covered in it. Lots of mud and very careful routing over bumps and weird rivets from the logging trucks. Fun day and I hope the gravel route keeps up. Gravel riding is slower but really fun.

Breakfast was an apple and cashews; lunch was sardines and rice crackers; dessert was some wild blackberries next to the wine fields. I am looking forward to dinner; the small family hotel is surprising me with something!

I jumped on a ferry to get across the inlet, and on the other side was an amazing fortress, the “Citadel of Blaye” (one of the hundreds). I rode my bike all around it as the city made it into a park. It was massive and a really cool history read.

I am going to come back here and do a tour + underground tunnel tour at some point. Hopefully, we are living in this area at some point :)

Summer break is a new experience for us (since this is Calico’s first year in school).

Generally, we like to travel for a month, but this is the first year we have done it over the summer in peak time. We spent July in Issigeac, France. It is a small medieval village in the Dordogne (see marker below of map).

We got a good deal on an Airbnb with a big discount since we stayed an entire month. It didn’t have AC, but it didn’t get too hot, and we had plenty of fans. The weather in France was remarkably cool, given the rest of Europe was under a massive heatwave.

Mom and Tony visited for over two weeks, which was amazing! We had a lot of fun :)

I turned 42 on July 20th, and it was terrific to have Lindsey, Calico, Mom, and Tony there. That is the first time in quite some time :). We ate Indian food in a nearby town. And, randomly, one of my favorite cousins was on a trip nearby, so we got to have lunch with him and his fantastic family toward the end of the trip.

I did one of these posts last year, and it is helpful to figure out how to train better for the next long ride.

For the Italian bike trip, I was better prepared than any previous ride and felt great.

How did I train for Italy?

• 12 weeks where I ramped up training over time. The last week I rested
• I did 93 hours of rides in that period.
• I did 37 2+ hour rides.
• I did 9 3+ hour rides.

How did I train for this ride in France?

• I did 12 weeks of training. I am going to rest the last 10 days (I might get one or two rides in).
• I did ~73 hours of rides in that period.
• I did 20 2+ hour rides.
• I did 13 3+ hour rides.

The first 4 weeks of training were a mess. I visited Nick in Cannes, and I didn’t bike. And then, my bike had some serious problems, and I was biking indoors while it was in the shop for a few more weeks. That all slowed down my total hours a bit.

The good news is that in that between June 19th to July 17th I got in thirteen 3+ hour rides and they all felt good. Plus, I got a lot more altitude in my rides since I am in rural France. I am hoping that translates into a good tour, we shall see:).

In April, Calico and I did a father/son bike weekend in Northern Portugal. We had a blast, and I wanted to plan out his first overnight bike tour while we were in France. We found a nearby converted rail trail called the Sarlat Voie Verte. It was perfect, as he is too young to deal with cars.

Day 1 – He covered 36km in ~ 2 hours 50 minutes. He even rode a few km on a pretty busy road with cars (I was nervous and took most of the lane so he would be safe). We stayed in a beautiful gite with a swimming pool, and he got to practice his swimming (doing great). And he made some British friends at the local town we walked to for dinner (they made plans to meet next year same town).

Day 2 – After we stopped at a bakery on the way out of town, we rode 21km in 1 hour 47 minutes. And met Lindsey at our pickup point :).

While Lindsey and Calico head to the U.S.A., I plan to do a bike tour along the EV3 route from Bordeaux to Paris and then at Paris to turn and head to Mont St. Michael on the Veloscenic cycle route.

The route is estimated to be around 1,300km and ~6,700m of climbing (last year’s bike tour was 999km and 11,000m). I’ve got 31 days total (including breaks), and I still need to map things out a bit (last year was 18 riding days with an average of 56km each riding day).

I am currently training; I’d like to be in as good shape as I was for the Italy trip. I didn’t get as much notice, so we shall see how it all comes together. I am nervous as this will be in August, so I hope to avoid terrible heat waves (cue global warming’s deep, maniacal laughter).

The Welch-Bolen brothers have united for the first time since Christmas 2018!!! Watch out world :)!

Here we are in front of the red carpet in Cannes, France :)

I got to visit with Nick for ten days, and it was fantastic (he lives in Shanghai, and with Covid, that was a pretty impossible visit either way). We even managed a swim on Friday!

He is in the movie industry and was on a team that won this year’s 48-hour film contest in Shanghai. They then got picked by the global 48-hour film contest as one of the best short films worldwide and were given free tickets to Cannes to do a screening in the short-film corner. They are here to network and hopefully line up funding for a feature-length horror film they are working to make (if you know Nicolas Cage, they feel he would be perfect for the lead).

We are back home in Portugal!!!

It is so nice to be home :). I love working from my office with a nice office chair and a big monitor.

Aix was a bit of a bust for us, we had some great times with Marton and Vera, but it was super hot and not a great setup for Calico. So we left a few days early to go check out Lyon and Bordeaux as we slowly drove toward home. I also took the week off so that I could spend time with Calico. We haven’t gotten as much time together as I would have liked this year. And, Lindsey needed some downtime to explore those cities and see what she wants in a more permanent home.

Beach near Aix (and some park shots)

We had a wonderful time at a beach near Aix. I love swimming with Calico and I tried to get him started on learning how to swim (he needs some lessons)! And, the other two photos are from a Japanese garden where Calico could play in the stream.

Lyon France

Calico and I ate at an amazing French Vietnamese place. Calico tried Wasabi (a little too spicy for him right now). And, I took him to a museum which I haven’t gotten to do much with him on this trip. He put on his Egyptian hieroglyphics goggles and made up an entire story from what he could read. We spent the afternoon chasing after a magical crow while trying to avoid the cat that winked at us.

And, I managed one bike ride along the river.

Bordeaux France

Bordeaux clicked for both Lindsey and me which is a really good sign :). We think it is a good place for a long term home and digging into some research into all of that.

I had a blast with Calico and managed a really nice bike ride on a converted rail trail.

Montpellier is a beautiful town, I hope to come back when it is a bit warmer. We’ve had a nice stay here this week, and it has been nice to have some bread treats here. It was also cool to see real flamingos out in the water!