Two short but strong showers of rain in the morning make clear that I don’t want to ride small trails or meadows today. Additionally, the forecast predicts thunderstorms for the early afternoon.
So I decide to skip the last part of the mountainbike track of the Grande Traversée and ride down the beautiful small roads instead.
By lunchtime I’m down in the valley and have lunch near Artemare. It’s stifling hot down here, but only a few drops of rain fall. On the way to the Rhone I pass through a marsh and then ride down the cycle highway along the Rhone canal and later Rhone river.
A stop in Aoste, to wait for a cloud to pass through, is used for a grocery stop. Here I briefly consider riding further down south or over the Rhone valley to continue up the Massif Central, but then return to following the Rhone downstream.
