Bike Tour Day 2, July 26

Well, I have to say that day 2 of our Loire Valley bike trip was even better than day 1. Each day we have 3 different route options to choose from: a short option, typically 15 - 25 miles, the basic option, typically 25 -35 miles, or a long option, 35+ miles. Today, Rich and I did the long option, 44 miles of rolling hills. This was the longest ride he's ever done (usually his butt starts hurting @ mile 20 or 25), but he felt fine today. Either the seats on these bikes are radically different than what he's been riding at home, or he finally has his bottom conditioned to the riding (much as I'd like to think it's the latter, my hunch is that it's the former). At least it's working and he seems happy to be riding.

We rode through some beautiful country today and saw 2 chateaux, the Chateau d'Usse, also nicknamed the "Sleeping Beauty" castle (it's the first picture above) and Chateau d'Azay-le-Rideau. As I mentioned before, this is rolling countryside and the hills seemed to get harder and harder as the day wore on. It got VERY warm today, so I'm thinking that might have had something to do with it. The bad part, however, is that we ended our ride with a .5 mile climb to the chateau where we're staying tonight and tomorrow (although these chateaux are gorgeous, they always seem to have been built on the top of a hill - go figure). Just so you can see how hard we're "roughing" it, I've included a picture of the Chateau d'Artigny, our current home away from home.