We woke up to a breakfast buffet that was satisfying, and then started riding North to Entrechaux. A stiff headwind blew in from the North, which I took as a good sign, despite the presence of clouds overhead. Riding into a stiff headwind is no fun, even though I had Mike and Roberto to paceline behind much of the time. Since we were heading North-East, and a big mountain was directly to the East of us, we soon faced a headwind, which made pacelining impossible given that we couldn't use the full width of the road.
At Rasteau, we finally had to head south for a little bit, and the relief was immense. Then we rode through Vaison-la-Romaine, where I realized we should have headed the day before, since there seemed to be plenty of lodging in this town. A stop at the bike shop to search for a replacement center-set screw for the one that had fallen off Mike's bike yielded nothing. Riding out of Vaison, however, Mike suffered another front flat, which once again proved to be a glass shard.
Riding into Entrechaux, we spied a castle on the hill, but in town did not find a tourist information center except a map with hotels listed. Calling the first hotel yielded no answer, but the second hotel answered and we made a reservation and rode there to find that it was actually a vineyard near St. Marcellin. We booked a Demi-Pension and then went in for lunch.
After lunch, it was 3pm, and the overcast clouds started to threaten rain, so doing Mt. Ventoux was out of the question. I rode into town instead to get more batteries to feed the GPS, some snacks, and some soda, and got rained on a little for my trouble, but the rest of the afternoon and evening was uneventful.
A super short day, with only 48.7km and 432m climbed, though the stiff headwind made me glad to finish.
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