Sunshine is Besancon

Friday, October 1
Dole to Besancon (70k)

Quote of the day: "She who succeeds in gaining the mastery of the bicycle will gain the mastery of life." Frances E. Willard

I (McKayla) think this weather has been making us sleepy. Last night we read ourselves to sleep before 10pm, and we didn't wake up until 8am this morning. The fog was thick when we started riding, but by mid-morning it burned off, and we were able to better appreciate the beauty of the surrounding area.

Finding our way out of Dole was a sinche compared to our ride out of Dijon yesterday. Ten minutes after departing our hostel, we were following a paved bike trail along the Doubs river. The narrow bike path was fairly quite except for the occasional jogger, recreational day cyclist, old fisherman, or lazy unleashed dog that lay alongside the trail. Several sections of the path paralleled rows of small canal-front cottages, but most of the time we were riding between cornfields and the Doubs.

Around noon, I happened to get a flat tire right next to a perfect lunch spot. We enjoyed apples and cheese before tackling the flat. We determined that the flat was caused by a split in the tire itself, so we decided to patch the tire (neither Erin nor I had actually done this for real before). I pulled out the handy, 1960's-era tire patch that my Dad gave me right before we left, and Erin attempted to cut off a small piece of it while I examined the tire. Unfortunately, her knife wasn't sharp enough, so she ended up pulling off a tiny unusable corner piece. We resored to the spare dollar bill trick, aka Amie's favorite tire patching techinique! It worked perfectly, and we made it another 20k to Besancon without any mechanical malfunctions.
So far, we have had nothing but pleasant interactions with locals in Besancon. Everyone has been so helpful. A kind man on a mountain bike, gave us directions to the tourism office, and the woman at the office helped us plan our entire route to Switzerland. Besancon happens to be incredibly bike friendly too! They have a bike rental program, called velocite, with bike routes/lanes/signs/maps throughout the city.

Tonight we're staying at "Le Centre International de Sejour de Besancon", another wonderful Ethic Etapes hostel. For only 15 euro/person, we get a newly rennovated room with 2 beds, a toilet, shower, and a television...one of our best deals yet. We walked to the nearby supermarket to pick up food for dinner (tuna on salad), and on our way home we met a group of 10 little boys, one of which was so excited to tell us that he, "speak english much very well." It was adorable. He even showed us a shortcut to get back to our hostel. We are now having another relaxing evening watching tv, reading, and mentally preparing for the mountains we will climb tomorrow!