Day 57 – Vezac France

Day 57

Paray-Le-Monial France – Vezac France

Today was an awesome day.

So after breaking camp I headed to the little independent bike shop in this small town and asked if they had anty tires in the odd ball size my Guzzi uses. The proprieter goes in the back and rummages around for about a minute and comes back asking if I want a Dunlop or Continental tire! My jaw almost hit the floor. He then immediately proceeds to start mounting the tire. No need to leave the bike in the morning and pick it up in the evening for a 20 minute job like at a dealership. I after he mounted and I paid for the tire he then asked me if I wanted him to fix my broken brake lever. He didn’t want to take any money for the extra work but I forced 20 euros on him.

For the last 9000 miles my head had horrible head shake if I let go of the handle bars. It was so bad I’m pretty sure it would develop into a full blown tank slapper if I didn’t grab hold of the bars. With the new correctly balanced tire 99.99% of the head shake is gone. I can let go of the bars at 60mph and slow down to falling over speeds with only the slightest wiggle of the bars around 45 mph.

I then started making my way towards the Vezac. Even though I told my moronic little friend TT to avoid hightways I was still being routed down a 4 lane divided highway. I then told TT to take me on the bicycle route and was rewarded by being sent down narrow little roads through the French countryside. Part of the route included dirt roads and I even had to do an ~18″ deep water crossing. I guess now it’s an official adventure ride. I also got routed down a lot of great twisting two lanes roads. While most of the day was gray and chilly it never did more then sprinkle and around 5pm the Sun finally broke through the clouds.

Around 7 pm I made it the location of the Guzzi rendezvous which was being held at a moto specific campsite called Les Relais Moto. After introductions and refreshments were consumed we all sat down to a four course meal lasting many hours.

The day consisted of great service, great riding, great company, and great food. Truly a great day.

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