Up bright and early, silly o'clock is the technical term for being on holiday and out of bed before 7am, and down for breakfast. The great thing about being in France is plenty of freshly baked croissants and baguettes. Excellent food if you're going to be cycling all day. The Kyriad provided a lot of them and I managed to consume quite a few, washed down with orange juice and a couple of eggs. Lovely view from the breakfast room of the mini golf course next door and a large number of beach huts on the plage.
My room mate informed me that I'd snored the night before. If my wife says this, it's equivalent to her saying that she was camped at Victoria Bus Station pretending to sleep while every thirty seconds a fleet of buses departed. It's that bad when I have a throat infection. Decided that it might be best to see if I could get a single room for the rest of the trip.
Bag packed and in the front room and ready to go. I asked Jo to have a look at my brake pads as the front brake kept screeching down the frame when I used it. Note to self: must learn how to replace and realign brakes. Then I checked the tyres and decided the front one needed more air. Undo Presta valve, get large bike pump, inflate tyre to correct pressure and remove pump. Presta valves blows out and tyre goes flat. Bother. Take off wheel, replace tube, put tyre back on and reattach wheel and inflate new tube to correct pressure. This means I'm the last to leave the hotel at about 8:30 and tootle off looking for orange arrows to head out of town. I bumped into Mark from DA who promptly ended up with a flat and headed back.
Calais is nice enough, but when looking for orange arrows it's difficult to remember much than a bunch of roundabouts and a bridge before getting onto the main road out of town. The morning was beautifully sunny and the fresh air felt great on my face as I cycled along. Left over a bridge and past some fields, and then right onto a long flat D road beside a canal. Lots of interesting houses on the other side of the canal, all with little bridges that provided access to them. Really pretty, especially with the dew rising into a morning mist.
I cruised past three locals who were out for a morning cycle and worked myself up to a speed of about 30km/h for the next half hour. At one point I noticed that Stan was sitting on my shoulder enjoying the tow; it was certainly a great feeling to be zipping along and be quick enough to stay out in front.
The canals gave way to a larger road and Stan and I caught up with a group who'd made a stop in Louches; one of them needed to visit a local bike shop to sort out a wheel. Apparently one guy had a stick catch in his rear wheel and throw him off on the first day, which sounds nasty but luckily he weren't hurt. It also meant the wheel was not running true and needed sorting.
Ten minutes later and we were heading up a smaller hill and getting closer to the first water stop. After going up one reasonably small hill we were then faced with a climb of about 110 metres spread over 2 km. It doesn't sound much when you write it down. But being novice cyclists it seemed quite a long way. We were catching up with a few of the slower people who'd chosen to get off their bikes and admire the view on the way to the top. At the top of the ridge I took a great photo of some cows heading towards us; brilliant blue sky in the background with low white cloud on the horizon, all quite breathtaking.
Water stop was at the top of the next ridge in a car park, right in the middle of a national park. Very peaceful surrounds as there were only a couple of cars. Surrounded by trees and the sounds of wildlife, I could easily have spent the rest of the day sitting there. At the supply table, the rotten bananas from day 1 had disappeared and were replaced by varying sorts of biscuits. The routine was a little more familiar; drink plenty of water with some cordial in it. Fill up your water bottle, have an energy bar, drink more water, top up the water bottle and get back on the road.
Back out onto the road and I was travelling with the Uni team as we headed onto one of the better quality D roads that took us through two larger towns on the way to lunch. At one point I was chatting with Nick and mentioned that the road headed up the hill and over to the right. He queried if I'd been this way before; it never occurred to me that looking ahead and noticing that there were trees higher up with a gap between them was a useful skill!
At some point I left the Uni crew behind and started tailing Stan again and in one of the towns Karen caught up with us. It was around this time that I had one of my first "wobbles"; I went round a corner going up a hill and suddenly felt "wrong" all over. A weird sort of dizzy feeling, like all the blood is leaving your body. I figured it was a lack of food; 1 energy bar later and I was feeling alright again. Chatting to Karen, turns out that her bike was the one with the broken chain from the day before. Mike couldn't get the connecting pin sorted and it broke, leaving Karen to spend most of day one either in one of the vans or riding a bike that was too large for her. This all sounded very frustrating.
Going up another "undulation" before lunch, Stan started on a few songs to keep us going on the incline. Roger Miller's "King of the Road" was one of them. My lack of speaking ability due to my dodgy throat was a boon for my cycling mates as it prevented me from singing tonelessly loud. Stan started to put in a sprint to the luncheon; obviously keen to get plates full of the sumptuous feast that awaited us.
On the next undulation, there were a few cows loose on the road. A number of fellow cyclists all concluded that cows in France come equipped with horns. This makes it difficult to know if they are boys or girls. At lunch I discovered that Cat and Emma were quite worried by the appearance of these marauders threatening to take them out on what was an otherwise quiet roadside, so much so they were unable to identify the sex of the animals. I believe that, based on the udders on show, they were girls and relatively benign. Not that I was willing to tempt fate and just kept going.
On the map, lunch was somewhere near Perne; going up another longish undulation there was a large and very welcome sign saying "Lunch" with an arrow to the left. A slight downhill and bend took me to a playing field with the vans parked up and lunch tent ready to serve.
Matt and Alex had arrived well ahead of me, having got a head start on the day, and there were about 20 or so of the group there, including Stan.
Another big serving of all sorts of food; pasta, salads, mint cucumbers (very interesting) and lots for the carnivores. I grabbed mine and sat at one of the picnic tables and met Cat who filled me in on the problems with the cows.
We'd covered about 50 miles or 80 kilometres at this point, so we were over halfway for the day, and with the great company along the way all of it had passed by in a flash. Certainly easier than many of the long cycles I'd done on my own.
1 comment:
Cows? It was an angry bull I'm telling you!
Cat
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