Retrospective Write Up: Day 9 - Monday 20th September, 2010

Day 9 - Monday 20th September, 2010 

Briare > Marseille-les-Aubigny

55.9 miles

5:10 moving time, 10.8 mph moving average

An early-ish start and another cold morning. My question of "is this weather normal for the time of year?" to the hotel owner was answered before she even spoke.  The smirk and look of disgust said it all.   "Non".  Apparently the lowest of the lows are normally around 12 degrees, not between zero and two, and we're not the only ones who are upset about it.

Still, we weren't in tents last night, the Loire was amazing yesterday, and we feel good.  A little tiredness in the legs (and bum, and back, and wrists, and neck), but nothing too much.

We never got bored of the views!

We stay on the Briare side for a bit before we cross, and the sun's out but it's not warmed up yet.  Fingers crossed this afternoon will be as hot and sunny as yesterday - still can't quite get over the temperature range we cover in one day.

This section is lacking a path surface, and we're riding on the harsh foundations - it's still being worked on and it's not all quite ready - this section's due to be finished next year we think. In fact we don't think we're even meant to be riding on it but we can't see another way round.  

Nuclear power.  Lovely spot for it.

We see another power station and again we think it's nuclear.  Later this is confirmed by a radiation symbol on a sign.  Nice.  As we said yesterday, it's just unbelievable that anyone would consider building one here.  The cooling towers and smoke stacks look amazing in their own way though.  We ride very close to it, and the path only just detours us around it.

There are quite a few more unfinished sections now, and it's hard-going on some of it.  We're obviously riding carefully not only for our safety, but because we don't want to ride the bikes to destruction - loaded up hard as they are. For the sake of man and machine, we detour off the cycle way after a couple more bone-crunching miles.

Huge nuclear power station aside, the scenery is just as amazing, and we keep stopping to look and take snaps.

We're  constantly amazed at the scenery

Sancerre is marked on the map, just off the river route.  Technically it's part of the trail.
We're in a slight dilemma as we're on a tough schedule, but at the same time it's the one place we're both familiar with from drinking enough of their wine, and we decide that it's a detour worth adding to the schedule.

Idyllic spot for fishing.

So, we're off on our pilgrimage to Sancerre.
After a few days of flat riding, what we're not prepared for in any way is that Sancerre's sits at the top of a big hill, and it's a very steep climb up.  We don't know it's vital statistics, but it looks a bit 'interesting' to say the least.  Of course had we done some research we would have known this in advance....

It's now burning hot, and after many long, gruelling minutes of pedalling, and perhaps even the odd swear word, we near the top.  It's nearly wiped us (me) out though, with my pedals having been spinning at a hundred miles an hour, and the village is still higher.  Had we known it was so high and the gradient so steep, we almost certainly wouldn't have bothered coming, considering the time pressure we're up against.

We can't resist it.  We think we earned it.

Once we're up there we're glad we did though as the views are amazing.  We grab a quick lunch of salads - after a bit of confusion with the order where my vegetarian goats cheese came with a load of ham, which John kindly took over and swapped mine for his.  It's expensive and touristy but the view from the outside table is great.

It's an expensive lunch and not the best.  The waitress literally seems to hate us with a passion for some reason and treats us with contempt.  Deep down we'd both been dreaming of a posh vineyard lunch with beautiful wine tasting, but that hasn't happened and we didn't have time to search for it anyway.  Need to get some more miles done.  Another trip....

Like a crazed fool, I cycle back up to the post office near the top of the hill so I can send my wife a postcard from Sancerre, and John comes along too - probably because he feels sorry for me on my extra pilgrimage.  Legs feel pretty tired now.  Burning in fact.

As we leave a the village we take a backroad that I can't believe cars can possibly use.  Its so steep we crawl down at a snails pace - fully on the brakes.  The view of Sancerre and surrounding area on the way back down is amazing. You can see right across the valley and down the Loire river.  Really beautiful.

You can see for miles.  Is that more hills in the distance?

The sun's fairly fierce, and we empathise with the heavily loaded female tourer climbing hard as we speed past her on our descent.  But we're on the way down!  Woohooo!

The view out across the vineyards on the way down.

Back on the path south, and a few more bone shakers of unsurfaced roads.

Something's broken on my bike but it's only a plastic disc by the cassette.  It's come loose and is rubbing and making an unsettling noise.  Will break it off as soon as I can as it's unnecessary anyway - couple of grams saved.

Back on a surfaced track in the afternoon we're hot and we've run out of water.  We kept thinking we'd pass a village shop, but all villages are a bit off-route and the one we detoured into had nothing like a shop.

At the next village a lady in her driveway directs us 3 miles to the nearest town/shop when we asked where we could get water.  We certainly didn't expect it but if I saw two cyclists in the burning heat and having run out of water I might have offered to fill a bottle up from my sink.  C'est la vie.

We're not desperate as we're in civilisation but it's not nice being really thirsty and I wonder how it would feel in the wilderness.

John loses some layers and we contemplate the water situation

A few miles later and a few euros later, we had some bottled water, which was really cold and hit the spot. Who would have thought the afternoons could be so much hotter than the mornings.... from jumpers and numb fingers, to 50 block in the afternoon each day for the last 2 days.

At Marseille-les-Aubigny, resting by the canal, we decide it might be a good idea to try and find somewhere to sleep since there aren't any campsites near, we don't want to camp anyway as it's still cold, and we know accommodation isn't as easy to find we originally thought.  After wading through some leaflets from the helpful Mairie (Town Hall), and a few confusing phone calls later, we're booked into a Chateau!  Well, at least we think we are, and it's a mile or so away so we hope we are.

We pull up to what is an impressive building and meet the man from the phone.  He says we've basically got it to ourselves as it's a bit out of season.  The rooms are enormous and absolutely gorgeous, and we really have got a whole floor of a wing to ourselves.  With no sight of the owners or anyone, we take in the rooms - somehow arriving here dirty and sweaty with a load of panniers seems a bit wrong but we love it!  And ironically, its pretty much the cheapest place we've stayed so far.  The man books us a place to eat (there's only one place within cycling distance), and after a shower we head there - armed with torches and lights as it's going to be a dark ride back.

'Roughing it' for the night at Chateauvert.

As luck would have it, it's a pizza place!  Really, another pizza?  It feels like Pizza is the staple 'open out of season' restaurant in most villages and towns in the whole of France!  What's that all about?  My visions of beautiful, healthy, French food is fading fast. I was hoping for a nutritious meal as I feel like I've been lacking protein and other good things for recovery, but not tonight.

It's a tiny place and the owners are very friendly, and the four very posh English people at the table next to us talk loudly about their boating issues of the day, while we sample the local wines - including a Sancerre.  So they're on the canal we guess.

A pitch black ride back (feeling slightly warmed from the drinks) leaves me wondering how my legs will be tomorrow as they're not seeming to want to climb the mini-hill back to the chateau.  Oh well, sleep ahoy.

Would need ten pictures to capture the scale of the room

Next Day

Retrospective Write Up: Day 8 - Sunday 19th September, 2010

Day 8 - Sunday 19th September, 2010 

Jargeau > Briare

41.7 miles

3:40 moving time

Ouch, that was a cold night, about zero.  The gear held up well, and it wasn't too cold (wouldn't want to go too much lower though).

Another cold morning at camp

Neither of us can believe quite how soaked everything is.  The tents deserve a new award for the amount of moisture they've managed to hold on every available surface.

Moisture.                                             More moisture.

Packing up's pretty miserable.  Just walking to the loo and back, and walking around the tent to start drying it, my shoes and socks are soaked through and my feet are freezing.  My hands are now freezing too and I have to wring my super-micro-thingy towel out about three times just dealing with one surface of condensation.  Nice - I've got to dry myself with that tomorrow!  Even the inner's quite wet today, and I felt a few drops on me last night too, so it's not perfect.  It needs detaching so I can get in there and do even more drying.  Performing the same exercise, John's not the least bit happy about it either, and I feel a bit sorry for him as I think his initial big enthusiasm for camping wasn't based on the realities of actually camping, and has now severely wained.  But I can't talk, I'm being a wuss as well.

We practically spend half the morning getting out of camp.  Even the bikes were soaked, and thankfully I remembered to put the carrier bag on my saddle.

The scene while packing down.

Back in the village we can't believe it's so busy compared to the evening before.  Where does everyone go in France in the evenings?  Last night it was deserted, but now it seems we're the last ones up and out for breakfast.

Looking a bit like a couple of hobos, we sit in the sun at a cafe, drinking our coffees and eating croissants, while all around us our clothes are drying. I've changed socks and have my wet pair on the chair next to me.  Sorry everyone.

The warming up bit takes ages, and we're not going anywhere until we're filled with a bit more joy.  We must look like a pair of grumpy old men.  Oh, we are a pair of grumpy (not so old) men. I don't think we're going to be camping tonight somehow.

Grumps

There are quite a few other cycle tourists around, and the bikes begin to stack up. A Swiss couple say hello.  They're doing a similar distance to what we've planned, but they're going East to West, rather than South.  They both looked well kitted out (we spot the Rolhoff hubs), and they seem a bit happier than us - probably because they're staying in B&Bs, but they're cold and they say they've been cycling in freezing fog from Orleans this morning.

By about 11 we'd warmed up and dried out a bit and feeling better we get on our way as the Swiss couple get ready to go.   We buy a couple of little bottles of water, and as we're pouring them into our bottles, a man leans out of the cafe window and offers to fill them all up for us.  That's really nice.  Bikes are definitely a bit more part of the culture here in general - but especially in this region.

A bit of kayaking on the Loire

The path we found kind of stopped at Jargeau, but we know where we're heading, so we go straight up into a park, on unsurfaced roads.  It's quite exciting riding, and pretty off-road actually.  The bikes seem to hold up, and it feels great (if not maybe just a little bit silly) to be putting them through their paces. The river's just alongside us through the trees but we can't see it properly.  A clearing appears, and we leave the track and head to the rivers edge.  As the view opens up, we can't quite believe we're in France.  We walk across a wide river bank of sand, with bushes and trees popping out of it, until we finally hit the water.  It's quite hot in the sun now, and it feels more like Africa than France.  It actually brings back memories of Safari, and if I'd been transplanted here and asked to guess where I was I would never have said France.  Not in a  million years.  Truly beautiful.  Despite the start, this is turning out to be the best cycling day ever, and it's only about lunchtime.

It's just beautiful...

...wherever you stop

A few more miles of slightly bone-shuddering surface leads us to a park bench right on the Loire.  Perfect -   time for lunch!  Time for a spot of laundry and drying too.

Lunch and a spot of drying

As we tuck into more bread and cheese, and some (about half the packet of) Micaodo biscuits and other supplies we picked up in Chartres, I notice that the 50 block suncream I decided to use today has caught loads of flies, and as usual, I look pretty rough.  I manage to wipe a few off.

The next most vivd memory is some miles on, where, now baking hot we pull into a village that has a solitary cafe, and we seriously need something cold to drink like a couple of Orangina's.  Even with flavoured tablets in the water, there's only so much warm water you can take.  The pair of guys sitting outside are a bit moody and off-putting.  The owner's not much friendlier.  Maybe we've come at a bad time.  But none of that is really a problem compared to the fact that where we're sitting it absolutely stinks of (what we can only assume is) cat wee.  We move away but with even the slightest of a breeze it reeks.  We gulp down the drinks and move on pronto.

Sully is marked on the velo map, with a symbol of a chateau.  We cycle to it and it's really beautiful. It's so nice we devote an official ten minutes (nearly) to get a few nice photos and a quick video.  Going in's not really an option on this schedule.  So many sights just sail past us,  but if you want to cover ground in a short-ish space of time, you need to keep moving.  Another trip.  As we leave Sully, there are a load more classic cars, as well as archers shooting at bizarre targets of life-sized cartoon animals - giraffes etc - along the river bank.  We hope the arrows are fake as some zing past pretty close to us, but they seem to hit the target.  More further along.  We laugh - thankfully health and safety hasn't ruined good old fashioned fun in France.  This lot would be pounced on in a second in the UK.

Chateau Sully

We see what looks like a nuclear power station ahead.  Wow!  Who the hell decided to put it there?  It's no wonder this area is getting near to the end of the official cycle path, with quite a few sections still in progress.  We both agree they need to plant some huge trees along the track to try and hide it.  Or maybe get a few more wind farms in and shut it down.  We've got loads of electrical gadgets that need charging, so we can hardly say we don't need power, but why nuclear, and why at the edge of a world heritage site?  Come on France.  Sort out the camping showers, and sort out these nukes.

There's been a mix of roads and cycle paths (or a bit of a combo) so far, but we seem to be pretty-much all on cycle path now.  And most of the time we get an amazing view of the river, which never gets tiring.

We leave the trail and head into Briare.  The route in is over an aquaduct (or viaduct?), and it's really beautiful.  I get the wobbles as I cycle along the path, sandwiched between the railings and a long drop to the river, pedestrians, and the canal on the right. I go all weird and feel like I'm really unbalanced and I'll come off.  On day one I felt a bit out of balance with a heavy bar bag, but not now, the bike felt really natural ten seconds ago.  Never had that before.  I start thinking what would happen if I went in, and then couldn't clip out of my pedals.  Not sure how those thoughts managed to ruin my view, but there you go.  John, immune to whatever weirdness gripped me, tears over it as pedestrians clear out of his way.

An amazing way to cross the river.

We find a small hotel, cheap-ish rather than cheap, but it does the job and it's actually quite nice with bike storage shed, and a bar.

We know the drill so we rush out to try and catch somewhere open, and after being told a few places were closing, we found something.

It's a cold walk back, and while trying to do some planning and backing stuff up to the laptop while having a beer or two, we get chucked out of the bar which closes as ten when the owner goes to bed.

Having not had a chair to sit in in the evening for a few days, we're a bit peeved as we thought we had an evening of 'luxury'. But the lady has to sleep, so we call it a day and do the same.

A short day, but an amazing one, and one to remember.  Total at the end of day eight, 318.3 miles - by far the longest ride we've ever done.

Next Day

Retrospective Write Up: Day 7 - Saturday 18th September, 2010

Day 7 - Saturday 18th September, 2010

Chartres > Orleans > Jargeau

62.3 miles

5:22 moving time, 11.6 mph moving ave

After a late and quite cold night wandering the streets watching the festival of lights (quite spectacular), I ended up with a reasonable nights sleep.  Am really glad we switched hotel.  This is a kind of monastery style hotel - probably also used by religious students I'm guessing - but run as a proper hotel.  It's in an amazing building right next to the cathedral, and although basic, it's clean and cheaper than the last place, and it's got facilities and we had our own rooms!

Basic but tastefully done with white walls and wooden beams, one bizarre aspect of the rooms was the odd prefab bathroom 'units'.  Behind the door was what seemed like an entirely plastic room, probably designed for ships or something - with everything moulded into it - shower, toilet, mirrors, sink. Ingenious.  John's, as it turns out, wasn't quite as ingenious - flooding and pouring out into his room and all over the floor.

With everything charged up, and lovely clean clothes, we decide to opt for breakfast in the hotel.  We're doing an early start, it's cold, and as much as we both love croissants and bread, maybe some fruit and cereal will be a nice change today.

It's served in the basement vaults of the building and it's just an amazing space.  It would be perfect for a boutique hotel renovation, but thankfully that hasn't happened, and since we're trying to keep the costs down, we can afford to stay here!

It feels really cold this morning (3 degrees it turns out later), and after an unbelievably steep descent out of the building on a cobbled road (glad we're going down), we stop straight away and I grab some extra layers.  It's quite hard to judge the weather.  This can't be normal - the whole point of heading towards the south of France is that it's meant to be warm!  Every time we check the weather, England's about ten degrees warmer!

Good to be back on the road, although I wouldn't say the legs feel totally recovered - mine seem to be in some kind of shock to be cycling again and it takes a while to warm up in the cold.  Easy does it.

We're soon out into beautiful villages again, and despite the cold it's great cycling.

Water tower.

I love the water towers, and we're not disappointed today.  I just think they're great features - each one unique in style/size/age - they look great against the landscape.

But even better looking than that, we see a huge wind farm on the horizon.  These aren't the little jobs, they're the big million pound type fellas, and even from a distance they're an impressive sight.  Once you get closer you have to strain to look up, they're just enormous.

As climate change kicks in further, I can't think of a better answer than wind power.  Some people seem to be very anti them for some reason.  I've heard the noise can be irritating for locals, but other than that I can't really understand people's problem with them.  They certainly don't look ugly - I think they're absolutely beautiful, and not only that, they turn free energy into electricity with very minimal downside.  Considering the alternatives are either to deplete the last remaining reserves of millions of years old precious fossil fuels, and burn them to create even more waste, or leave the next squillion generations with a load of toxic nuclear waste to deal with, I just can't see an argument against.

Beautiful wind farm

Anyway, green energy rant aside, they're not going very fast today, so I guess that could be another possible minor inconvenience.  We get the feeling that on these open plains the wind could really be howling (hence why they're here I guess), and in the wrong direction that would be bad for the morale of two novice tourers.  But today we're lucky, it's very still, so we make good progress.

Similar scenery unfolds for some time, along with more wind farms, and we're soon hitting some more built up areas as we come to the outskirts of Orleans.  We don't know much about the place other than we think it was an industrial city, and the outskirts aren't filling us with much joy as usual.  And these ones go on forever - we're definitely not arriving via the approved tourist route.

On the road to Orleans, it hasn't quite warmed up today.

We cross huge railway lines leading into a main station, along apartment blocks, and then into roadworks - where we seem to end up riding between concrete walls on a single width road in the wrong direction to the cars - makes us slip into a park, and we naughtily ignore the signs that say no cycling.  Well, we can't read French.

We get into the centre and it's quite busy.  Traffic's bad due to some major city renovations and roadworks, but we arrive at the cathedral, and then the central square and it's actually really pretty and quite big and lively.  We spy the toursisty cafes on the square, head in and get a well needed drink and a wee!

An older man comes out of the bar and walks past, spots the bikes and starts conversation.  As it turns out he's an old hand at touring and knows the whole Loire Valley cycle route well - he's done it all.  He's a lovely chap, but he's also had a couple of morning drinks, and before long both he, and we, are totally confused about the route and which side of the river to ride on from here.  Still, we've got a few good tips and we now know that the best side is either the right side or the left side, depending on which way you're going!  Mmmmm.

Overhearing the conversation, and with the man moving off, a Dutch couple sitting next to us reach over and hand us a proper tourist leaflet for the 'Loire a Velo' cycle route.  As it turns out after a chat, they were doing the Loire tour themselves, but having made it this far the lady has injured her knee and they're finishing their trip on foot/train.   It runs all the way from the Atlantic coast, to Orleans and beyond in the direction we're going.  Shame.  We feel sorry for them but they seem to have had a good time.

So, we haven't even made it to the tourist office yet and we've already got what we need.

Moving on, we head out of the square, and we're now in the really historic part and Orlean's starting to redeem itself - we could spend time having a look around, but there's never really any time - so we move on.

After just a few hundred meters, we round a corner and there before us in all it's glory, finally, is the Loire river.  I'm actually pretty taken aback.  We planned a couple of days along the Loire route because John had heard it was pretty, but I hand't really imagined what it would look like and I was blown away.  It's big, wide, and shallow at this point, and really scenic along the banks - even here in the middle of Orleans.  We hang around for a while and just look at it.  Once again, seeing the water's very uplifting, and we feel good.  A little paddle steamer even drifts by.  John explains that New Orleans was named after this city.

We head towards the direction of the campsite, but as soon as we're across the river we're a bit clueless where we're meant to be going.  The leaflet doesn't really have much detail, so if you're not actually on the route it's not obvious how to get on it.  Or maybe we are on it? We've no idea what 'it' really is.  Are there signposts?  Is it cycle tracks or just a rough route along the river?  Not wanting to hunt forever we just hit the road, which leaves me feeling a bit down and like we're wasting an opportunity for some really scenic riding.  And this road is quite busy with a light hwadwind.  But we know we'll be better placed to find it in the morning, after a bit of research tonight.

A glimpse of the Loire between Orelans and Jargeau

We hack along the road at a fair pace to try and get it out of the way.  I set a pace which is a bit too fast, and even I know my legs might be paying for this tomorrow.

After a quick village stop to watch a precession of classic cars, and a few local club road bike pelotons, we carry on, and we're soon in Jargeau where we follow signs for camp.

As it turns out, we have to go up onto a raised pathway to get to the campsite, and having seen quite a few tourers go past in a very short space of time - probably more bikes than we've seen the whole trip so far - we guess that this must be the cycle route.  We've found it!

We pitch our tents right next to the fence and the cycle path is just the other side.  A few tourers wave as they watch us pitch tents.  No one else seems to be camping tonight though.  Mmmm.

Another weird campsite, this one with quite a lot of static caravans, and multiple blocks of 'facilities'.  I walk back to the entrance where the more modern building is and head to the shower.  Once again, I'm disappointed.  Firstly, although very clean and spacious in a new, modern building, the room's absolutely freezing.  Not where you want to be wet and naked.  But I need a shower so I jump in.  For reasons I'll probably never know, this one's been fitted with a button that only gives about 15 seconds of water before you have to press it again.  It's also been set to a pre-determined temperature (just on the hot side of warm), so that's what you get whether you like it or not.  And I don't really like it to be frank.  But once wet there's no going back as once the water stops flowing it's bloody cold.  It's a bit of a juggling act to use soap and shampoo and still keep the water going, but I just about manage.  After what seems like an eternity, and never quite warming up, I take the plunge and let go of the button and try and get dry at the speed of light.  Yup, it's really cold and this now ranks as the most unpleasant shower yet.  Obviously the floor's soaked and my clean clothes are wet since the shelf was barely more than a slapdash in size, and some of the things fell off.  Those that hung on still got wet, but that's because the shelf is put practically in the flow of water.

There are some little planes flying over - must be a local airfield nearby.  We head out for food, and in what is now becoming routine we search for anywhere that's actually open.  Its quite a nice village but it's deserted, and after circling a couple of times it looks like a little pizza place is the only option.  There was a kebab shop bizarrely, but being vegetarian that didn't really appeal.

The pizza was great as it turns out, and we head back and brace ourselves for what's forecast a cold night.  We bought quite good gear, and it was all pretty expensive (unfortunately), but our priority was weight rather than warmth.  We anticipated late summer temperatures.  These feel wintry.  I go in with thermals and hope for the best…

Next Day

Retrospective Write Up: Day 6 - Friday 17th September, 2010

Day 6 - Friday 17th September, 2010 

Chartres, Rest Day 

0 miles!

0 moving time, 0 mph moving ave! 

Today's a rest day. Well deserved? Who can say.

Well needed? Definitely!

Quite a few things to do. 

Get some more rechargeable batteries, and another mains USB socket adapter for charging. Do some washing. Find new hotel and move over to it (the Dell laptop that John has kindly been lugging around makes its debut and comes into its own). Sight-see. Eat. Plan for tomorrow. Clear off GoPro cam. Drink alcohol in reasonable quantities (read into that what you will). Get everything charged and re-organised for tomorrow.

As a side note, we're really happy with how the bikes have performed so far. They're heavy, but that's mostly because we've probably got too much gear. But in general they've looked after us well, and there are only a few things that we're thinking about chucking away or changing.

I'm particularly happy with the Selle-Anatomica saddle. I struggle with saddles in general, and have tried a few before this one, but I made the brave (or foolish) decision to buy a new one and bring it on this trip - based on reviews and customer feedback alone. I'm not disappointed, and I can honestly say it's the most comfortable thing I've ever used. It does require a bit of daily tinkering - adjusting the tension so it's just right is an art and not a science, and something the manual can't really explain, you just sort of get a feel for it after a few days - but that's the design and it means it's more comfortable out of the 'box'. It's a good design too, and I don't think about the saddle much now which is about the best you can hope for.

Previously, even on a 3 day London>Paris, the saddle I bought for that trip (Specialized Alias), was hurting a bit and I was constantly shifting weight and position during the day to try and find comfort. But it's an OK saddle and it now lives on my road bike. But any pain that gave was nothing compared to the saddle I had before that - a quite expensive Selle Italia Max Gel type thing. It

was extremely painful and left me bruised and in agony for a week after just a single days ride! That one will soon be seen on eBay and I hope I never have to ride on one again.

But the (Brooks based) Selle-Anatomica, which can be ordered from USA or their distributor in Germany, is an absolute find, and I want to tell everyone about it.

The Ergon grips are also nice, and actually I think I like this setup better than drops for long distances. You can't brake while on the end bars, but it's a small price to pay, and seems generally more comfortable than drops for me. Again, the rotation angle of the grips took a bit of adjusting but when you get it right there's very little pressure or strain on the wrists.

What else? Well, all the rest of the gear seems good. We abandoned the CTC bike bag. Although we'll probably need it, we can get a similar one or order it online to arrive at our destination, so it just seemed like a kilogram extra that I could live without carrying. But there are probably some other things we can lose too if we get desperate and need to shed more weight.

I'm really happy with the gearing. I've used the really low grannies so many times. For anyone that hasn't toured much - like us - you just can't underestimate what a difference the weight makes on hills, especially long ones. John's a bit fitter than me and has stronger legs, but even he has started thinking about whether it was wise to not change out his gears to make them closer to mine. One thing I've noticed though is in the lowest gear, when you try and set off you have to be careful as you can really spin fast, especially if you've ended up on a less steep section. But you can start again from static even on a steep hill, albeit you need to be careful as it's a bit out of control and a bit hairy sometimes. It also feels like you could rip the wheel off if you give it a bit too much welly - but fortunately my legs are unlikely to do that!

John's Ridgeback's steel (we think), and mine's Aluminium, so my ride should be harsher according to the experts, and maybe it, is but I'll never really know as I can't compare it to anything, and so far it seems fine.

That was a long aside, but the bike's are an important part of the trip, so thought we should talk about them!

Back to our day off in Chartres. Although there were quite a few interesting happenings even on the rest day, it's not 'really' part of the tour, so that's enough typing, and here is a small selection of 'the day in pictures':

A view of Chartres Cathedral

Finally, some properly clean clothes!

Wanderings....

Wanderings II....

The sun's deceptively fierce at the cafe

Now we can see why people come.

View from the new hotel

More wanderings....

Dusk, and the festival of lights begins

And related street activities

The stills don't do it justice

Later on, acrobats performed on these spires!

Next Day

Retrospective Write Up: Day 5 - Thursday 16th September, 2010

Day 5 - Thursday 16th September, 2010

La Bonneville-sur-Iton > Chartres

59.9 miles

5:44 moving time,  10.4 mph moving ave

Another first today was the idea of having a breakfast at the campsite.  Not least because there's nowhere close by, and we're not sure how far the next place on route will be.  So, the eggs we bought yesterday afternoon at the shop come out along with all the cooking gear again for a bit of scrambled eggs action.

It's really nice, and goes down well with a coffee and some bread.

We actually pack down camp pretty quickly (we're getting better and more efficient at it) with John racing ahead, and the only thing that really slows us (me) down is the mammoth task of cleaning the pans.  Mental note to self: scrambled eggs don't come off easily.  That's the most cooking we've done on the trip so far, and it has to be said it's a bit of a pain dealing with all the gear afterwards.

John's well ahead in the packing down game today...

The clothes haven't fully dried so there's some airing to be done on the bikes today.  I also made the mistake of being a bit heavy-handed when hanging my white top up in the bushes.  In the cold light of day it wasn't such a great plan as it's got all green stains on it and will need washing again.  John's faired far better.  Am glad bought two kits.

Country roads.  Big haystacks.

We're greeted with lovely scenery and wide open hills and plains today.  Lots of pretty villages along the route and we're doing some seriously nice country roads with minimal traffic.  There are also decent stretches of flat mixed in among the softer hill or two, and it's all exactly what cycle touring should be and what I thought it would be like from the start.  These roads might be slightly less direct, but they're much nicer to ride on.

One interesting feature is the giant, square, hay stacks. I remember something similar from our last trip to Paris. Maybe it's a feature of Northern France, but they look amazing against the rural backdrop.

More scenery

One village we pass is absolutely beautiful (neither of us can remember what it's called), with a little river running right past the church.  Interestingly, there's a mobile cinema lorry parked up, with the side wings opened up so its pretty big.  As we sit and grab a snack, people are enjoying a movie inside.  Brilliant!

We roll into Dreux - again the outskirts don't do it justice - but once in the centre it's very picturesque.  We see a cafe right on a bridge over a canal/river and take the opportunity to grab a coffee.  An almost death defying trip down to the loo is survived (another mental note: cycling cleats and steep polished stone stairs don't really mix), and after baking in the sun for a bit we do a slight clothing adjustment as it's now pretty hot, and get some sun cream on before setting off.

More similar scenery and roads for quite a while.  Heavenly.  What an enjoyable day.

Things start getting a bit more developed as we come closer to Chartres, but considering the size of the city, it's actually really pleasant pretty much all of the way in.

The weather's turning though, and as we see what we think is Chartres on the distant horizon, it starts to rain.  The sky is moody and we go carefully on the busier roads.  But even being careful, I have a slight near miss.  Caught out by the wet and the extreme camber of a cobbled street, I find the bike trying to get away from me after we stop at the lights.  Once again I can't clip out, and the bike rapidly starts to flip over.  I really think I'm coming off, and even though the traffic's static, it won't be nice.  In desperation I somehow get my foot unclipped, but the bike still goes down and my inner thigh and groin catches the momentum of it, getting a good bruising and scrape right down my leg.  Picking myself up (and thinking how much worse it could have been), I make another mental note to do something about the SPD's.  Although a different Shimano model, my other bike doesn't need anywhere like the same release force as these, and these are set to the weakest.  They don't feel quite right.

Clouds are building - looks like rain's ahead

A bit sorer than I was a minute ago, but glad I escaped relatively unscathed, we press on up hill.  We see another tourer, and he stops in the rain to say hello, and fill us in on camping and places to stay.  He tells us he's almost retired from it, but that his bike computer says 9,400km!  Impressive.

We'd decided earlier that we'd probably have a rest day in Chartres.  It's a bit too early for one if we're honest, but we need to do things like wash clothes, and we're tired, and it would be nice to have a proper bed and a real shower.  So having checked out the first 'budget hotel' as we enter the city (and found out it was expensive), we start the task of getting the Garmins and the internet to help us scope out somewhere to stay.  Or rather, send us on a load of wild goose chases.

After more than an hour of searching we sense that it's unusually busy compared to everywhere else, and its really expensive, so we end up - with little enthusiasm - in a really crappy hotel right by the train station (never a good sign).  It's actually not that cheap, and they've only got a twin room so we have to share - but by this point we're beyond caring and even the guys shouting and generally hanging around outside the Kebab shop next door don't totally put us off.  "At least it will have a nice shower" we say to ourselves.

The room's pretty horrible, and smelly as it turns out.  This isn't in keeping with what we've seen of Chartres so far which seems a bit more upmarket.  But then we're on a budget.  It's just that this is just the wrong type of 'on a budget', and we know it's a rip off and we could probably find somewhere better if we had the time/energy/local knowledge.

They let us put the bikes down in the locked basement along with the laundry, so that's one less thing to worry about.

The leaflet we pick up at reception explains why it's so busy.  Chartres has a thing called a 'Festival of Lights' where key buildings are lit up with projections, as well as other arts and music activities, and tomorrow night is one of two big 'grand finale' evenings - attracting loads of extra tourists.  OK, so at least we've chosen an interesting place for a day off.

We take all our gear out in the room, including the tents, to dry everything out since it was packed away wet.

A huge animated architectural projection

After grabbing a proper dinner - I had an interesting meal of prawns in curry sauce with apple and pear - in what was a bit of an over-fancy restaurant, we have a wander.

Chartres feels like a rich city.  Everything seems really well kept, with lots of nice details everywhere.  Neither of us know anything about the place, but we check out the lights, and they are quite impressive - a huge undertaking and very brave of a city to put on such a spectacle, neither of us could imagine local governments in England getting their act together and doing something this elaborate and well executed.

Since we're staying tomorrow, we grab some beers after wandering more cobbled streets, and finally head back to the 'hotel' and off to sleep.

That's 214.3 miles done in total at the end of day 5.  Something to be proud of for us, but the line drawn on the northern France map is still looking very short, and there's still a long way to go!

Next Day

Retrospective Write Up: Day 4 - Wednesday 15th September, 2010

Day 4 - Wednesday 15th September, 2010 

Pont de l'Arche > La Bonneville-sur-Iton (via Evreux) 

31.9 miles 

3:08 moving time,  10.1 mph moving ave  

Wake up at 3am to the sound of the rain lashing down against the tent.  It's quite hard.  I know it sounds worse than it really is from inside the tent, but it's never been tested in the rain, so, still slightly delirious and half asleep, I have a quick look round with the torch to check it's holding up OK.  All seems dry.  Find the earplugs, insert them, and crash straight back out.

Woke up again at sunrise, and exited to find clearing skies, but a little cool.  Everything was soaked so made a coffee and waited for John.  Since it had stopped raining, we decided to leave the tents in the hope they'd dry off a bit, and headed into town to get breakfast.  Not bothering with morning showers any more - it seems to make more sense to just shower at the end of the ride, and then just wash in the morning.  All the gear's sweaty anyway, and we'll be sweating profusely as soon as we get on the bikes, so it's one less time-consuming hassle to worry about. More people are around this morning, and in the light the town's really quite pretty and it looks like there's a lot of historic interest - if we had time to have a look around - which we don't.  The owner of the little cafe says no croissants, but suggests we buy from the boulangerie, and eat them at back at the cafe - which is what we do.  Plus we order a couple of coffees.  Its quite busy with the locals chatting about the day, smoking, and buying lottery tickets etc.  The owner asks about our trip, and he gives us a tourist leaflet about Pont de l'Arche and explains that it's very historic - a Medieval town.  Its nice that he's so passionate about the place he lives in.  We get the familiar look of surprise, empathy, and foolishness when we say where we're heading.

Stocked up on more bread and pastries, we head back to camp, and start the process of packing down.  It seems to take forever (because it does take forever); letting air out of mat, getting it rolled up and getting it and the sleeping back back in thier bag, then packing up clothes and getting the panniers sorted out.  The tent has to come down (which when wet takes even longer as you have to wipe it dry as much as possible), and get packed away.  Then, it's what to wear to match the weather - jacket or no jacket.  Thermal layer?  Not sure so keep a few things handy. Then everything gets attached to the bike.  Plus I'm videoing the trip so the camera needs re-attaching and all the batteries put together in an easy reach place.  All the electronics fired up, we stagger out of the campsite after what seems like an eternity.  Today is a very late start.

In what now seems to be the daily routine for the start of the day, we go straight into a huge, long, hill through the forest. Jackets on as there's still a bit of rain, but it's variable, so when the sun comes out it gets hot quickly. Generally rainy for a few hours as we head towards Louviers.  A few climbs and a bit of a headwind today.  Louviers is bigger than we expect and when we pull round a side street we find even more to the place, and pull into a cafe for lunch in a nice square.  I get a fantastic tarte tatin.  I'm not a pig, honest, I've just got a fast metabolism.  Or it's calories for the cycling.  Or both. 

Can't quite remember where this was....

We press on to Evreux, with more headwind and now the scenery is starting to widen out a bit.

The outskirts of Evreux aren't too nice (no surprise there, we're getting the feeling we'll know all about the outskirts of towns by the end of the trip), but there are prettier bits once we get into the town proper.  Quick tourist office stop (after circling around a few times to find it) for campsite info, and some supplies. Yup, bread and cheese.

The nearest (and only real option) campsite's 12 miles west of track which we really don't want to do but we figure today is another 'behind schedule day' and we can make up for it tomorrow.  So we take the plunge and head towards the camp.  Since it's off track we make a quick call to make sure it's open.

Getting closer to the site, we take an off-road short-cut.  It's so steep and rocky - with loose stones - that I nearly come off my bike and with the new pedals a bit stiffer than I'm used to I only just about clip out in time to save myself.  Heart racing, I get off and walk the rest of it, sliding all the way.  Lovely place to walk the dog or something - right in the forest - but not too clever on a fully loaded bike.  Still it saved us some time and we were soon in the village of La Bonneville-Sur-Iton where the campsite was.

La Bonneville-Sur-Iton is really pretty, but as it turns out the campsite's more 'near it' than 'in it'.  To add insult to injury it was actually just a bit further along on the road we detoured off in the first place.  So a huge haul back up through the village gets us back where we left the main road, and sure enough a mile or less further on is the campsite.

After a chat with the friendly owners - who seemed somewhat confused about the price, but finally remembered all the extras they needed to charge us for - we headed in to find a spot.  A bit more manicured and unnatural, with lots of permanent caravans, this wasn't the nicest site aesthetically, but it was well looked after and there was power in the pitch next door - and we took advantage of every socket to charge all the gear up.

A now similar picture - camp!

John comes back from the shower block having invented an ingenious time-saving system of hand-washing clothes while showering, which I immediately copy when I shower.  Once again the facilities are clean and the water's hot, but from my limited experience so far, the French campsites do seem to be designed without much comfort in mind, even though it would be relatively simple and cheap to fix.  So far, there's been nowhere to put your clean or dirty clothes while you shower.  Whatever limited shelf space there is seems to be practically in the shower with you so it all gets wet.  Then there's nowhere to stand to dry without standing in water - so how do you dry your feet and put your socks on? And the building's cold!  When washing clothes in the official place, there's not even a spinner to wring them out - just a sink with a tap.  If I ever get the chance to design a campsite, I'd do it so differently. Walking back to the tent, for the first time I feel a bit envious of the people relaxing in their caravans/campervans. It's also a wake-up call that for all it's freedoms, cycle-camping is actually quite hard work and a lot more effort than we expected.

Nowhere nearby to get food, and we weren't cycling back down to the village again, so we made an effort with the supplies we had.  This meant sitting on a plastic sheet in near pitch black, while we cooked and ate, which while interesting wasn't really comfortable, and the heavy mini-stool I'd hauled along (or rather 'borrowed' from my wife's camera bag) didn't make things much better.  After a bit of chatting and planning for the route ahead, with nothing left to do we cleared up, and hit the sack early for some journalling/blogging/phone calls.

A la restaurant.  Al fresco dining.

It was a slightly unsatisfyingly short day today, so we need to do better tomorrow.

Next Day