Yesterday was the annual season opener (gourmand's season would be a better description, except that the walkers haven't stopped this winter) in the Brenne natural park. Lunch at La Gabrière. The lake is drained at present so a lot less wildlife than usual.
I decided to take the opportunity to do a bit of riding away from the group so got up early to do as much as I could of the voie verte that runs along the river Creuse. The start was a bit delayed with a 30min late start from home followed by a lot of faff finding a parking place and an access to the path. This coupled with a plan to be overtaken by the peloton led to rather less kilometers than planned. Had I known that my peloton planning had an error of 30mins as well I could have gone a bit further! The big surprise was that since my last passage the path has been all tarmacked. Great, except that the barriers are still as awkward as before but now there is an edge to the tarmac with a slight drop (which you can fall off negotiating the barriers, some but not all of which you can otherwise get round without dismounting). Decelerating and accelerating afterwards makes up for the flat ride and is about as tiring as going up a few hills (there are quite a lot of barriers, two for each road or track crossing). Using my Alfine equipped bike at least made the gear changing side a bit easier (approach in 6th or 7th, flip into 4th, negotiate barrier, accelerate back into 6th or 7th, sometimes repeating the process after 300m).
At 10.30, having crossed the viaduct at Le Blanc I went down through the town, up the only climb to get back out and into the flat and windy Brenne Park. Taking my time I still saw no peloton, although I did stop to observe frogs in a ditch and a flight of herons taking off. I got to the restaurant at 11.40, said hello to the first lady walkers to arrive and sunned myself until Jean-Pierre arrived, having ridden the 115kms from Limoges. Time for a beer or two! The peloton got in after 12.30. Had I known I would have gone further at Le Blanc.
After a nice meal and too much pinard, off again. A windy ride to St Gaultier, with a flock of ducks around a lake and a small herd of Limousine heifers for sight-seeing (didn't count the Charollaises, we are definitely Limousine fans here). A ride round St Gaultier looking for the path access and ride back up to pick up the car. 51kms in the morning and 37 in the afternoon doesn't seem much for a day out of over 9 hours car to car but a bit of that was resto time (probably more than one would like to think. No climbing worth speaking off, perhaps 300m for the day at most.
Verdict on the voie verte - no point in tarmacking if the communes aren't going to sign it and organise parking facilities; there are not enough people within public transport distance to justify the expense (and not enough public transport). And the barriers won't stop the scooters and mopeds (although the presence of an uncrowded nationale on parallel does) but they would stop tandems, trailers, recumbents and wheelchairs (who are probably the justification for tarmacking in the first place). Oh and trikes are technically not allowed to use the path anyway!
