May 20 2019 Carcassonne to Toulouse

Last night we stayed right in the Carcassonne Castle which was very cool.  The entire place dates back to the early 1200’s so needless to say the rooms were not real large, although they were quite modern and well appointed.

There was no breakfast service in the castle until quite late in the morning so Bob, Ken and I rolled without breakfast and were on the lookout for a place to eat as we rode through the downtown section of Carcassonne.  The route out of the castle was extremely steep and was real test of the brakes.  

Once  out of the castle and into Carcassonne the route was real easy and had us on the outskirts of town but no breakfast.  Luckily we spotted a grocery store just as we were about to leave the city. I grabbed a few apricots, a baguette, some cheese and a two liter jug of orange juice.  Baguette and cheese made a fine breakfast and the orange juice filled my water bottles.

Out on the road the 40-50 km wind from yesterday had subsided considerably but was still in the 25 to 35 kms range.  Whenever I was in the open the wind was right in my face and the best I  could do was about 11 kms/hr.  Progress was painful and the first 10 kms after leaving town were down a main road which had no cover from the wind.  It took us an hour to get to the first turn which took us off the main road and down some little winding country roads which had some tree cover.  

The first 55 kms were all up hill and straight into the wind. While there was some tree cover on the smaller roads and through the villages it took from 8:15 am until 2:00 pm to cover this distance to the summit. The second 50 kms was all down a paved canal bike path and this distance took us only 2 hr to cover.  

At 11:30 we pulled into the little town of Castlelaudry where there was a huge market happening. It looked like mostly used clothing to me but Ken went down a different lane from me and there were several different food vendors.  So we stopped for lunch.  I had a hot panni which really filled the bill. We still had a long way to go to the summit and were getting pretty tired.  As we had just crossed a huge set of train tracks I knew there was train service to this town, so I joking said to Ken that we should take the train.  Googling train stations near me on my phone showed one 650 meters.  We both laughed as Ken said taking the train isn’t sagging you know.  After we got into town, Ken confided that it would not have taken but a tiny push from me and we would have been on the train.

The second half of the ride was down the canal path.  It was so beautiful with huge trees shading us from the sun and wind.   It was most unusual in that the path was made of concrete. The concrete worked very well that tree roots did not break through like they do with asphalt.  It was very unusual concrete in that it looked like asphalt as there was the same kind of voids.  It worked so well.  

About 25 kms out on the canal path we stopped for a little break. I had a couple of apricots left from breakfast in my trunk and Ken and I were eating them when two other riders passed us and yelled out “Bon Appetite”. This was the third time today we were eating and someone yelled this out to us.  It must be a custom here.  

We were glad to make Toulouse and be in for the day.  Bob had dropped us early on and he had arrived about 20 minutes before Ken and I so we felt pretty good that he was in and not lost somewhere.  

The Airbnb condo we have is really nice and everyone is looking forward to a day off.

Terry