Week Five
Day 29
I have been going for 30Km with just a couple of short croissant breaks and now, just when I need a coffee, I see a church tower which always signifies a bar tabac or similar. For once there is nothing to be had. Onwards I go.
I have been retracing my steps today and am back on the Voie Verte for the last 5Km to the campsite. This is the side view of the bridge that sits alone which you have seen end-on earlier in the tour. This was built in 1886.
Today I finish at Ducey-les-Ceris which does not leap out from the guidebooks (1910 or current) though it has a municipal campsite close to the town centre and a good selection of eateries serving typical French food rather than pizza or kebab which can be a feature of some towns.
Day 29 provided good weather, great cycling and some campsite cooked pasta at my last campsite in France. I then have two nights at a B&B near Dol-de-Bretagne; Dol-de-Bretagne is where I spent my first two nights in France, though this is a different B&B. Dol-de-Bretagne is a medium sized town with lots on offer but without being too much of a tourist trap. I plan some cycling but not too much as I then have two hard days back in the UK.
French municipal campsites are great and exist in most towns. The protocols vary significantly and today there was no information, no website, and when I arrived there was no reception. Some close inspection revealed cobwebs across the door and door frame telling me that the reception wasn't going to open anytime soon. Eventually I found some notices informing me that outside of the July and August peak period you just turn up and camp for free. This is in contrast to one municipal by the coast which was very well-run but 17 euros a night.
Today I received a "trés bien" (very good) as a lycra cyclist sped past me downhill as I was hauling myself uphill. I have mentioned some of the French cycling phrases but the holy trinity has to be "Bon Courage" meaning good luck in a sporting way, "Allez! Allez! Allez!" which people may say to encourage you, and finally, as you cross the finish line, "Chapeau", hats off to you, or well done. I have been the honoured recipient of the first two but not "Chapeau", though admittedly this is usually reserved for when you complete your challenge.
If everything goes to plan I will tip over the 1,000 mile mark tomorrow and as I had rashly quoted that target in my mission statement I feel obliged to deliver. Also, with limited time left in France I plan an all out fishing expedition to elicit that elusive "Chapeau". I am hopeful that my B&B hosts will be sufficiently cycling-savvy to do the honours.
Ducey-les-Ceris has a chateaux as its main attraction.
Day 30
A late start with a 5Km return to Pontaubault with its three bridges; you've seen the disused one already. The river-side setting is a hot spot for touring cyclists pedalling to or from Le Mont Saint Michel. There was a group of three all towing cycle trailers and a German woman who had given up her job to tour for as long as her funds held out. She was camping and using Warm Showers for free accommodation and sites like CampSpace for affordable options. From her home in Germany she had already travelled through Belgium and down to France and was headed to Spain but with no fixed plan.
Today, day 30, I revisited Le Mont Saint Michel which I first visited on day 4. I park my bike in the bike park and take a walk up the touristy hill and down again via the equally touristy ramparts. It is hard to see the site for the restaurants and souvenir shops that scream for attention.
No, I haven't joined the French Foreign Legion but these young uniformed people were out in force at Le Mont Saint Michel.
After a heavy dew it's time to dry the tent. It is all so glamorous this cycle touring lark.
Yes, the uniformed people I mentioned earlier are young and far removed from our image of the French Foreign Legion given to us by the 'Carry On' film franchise. They were in fact military cadets from a school currently located in the department of Morbihan, Brittany. Though the school was originally created by Napoleon in 1802. The cadets I saw had earlier been in their gym outfits with their school name written on the back; Saint Cyr.
Oh, and not that I looked into it or anything but the French Foreign Legion is still going strong. Oddly you can apply even if you are French, but you need to change your nationality to be non-French before doing the admin and signing up.
I arrive back in Dol-de-Bretagne and it feels good to be in familiar surroundings after a month of exploring new territory.
De Londres j'ai pédalé seize cents kilomètres! This is the rehearsed phrase provided by Google Translate that I tried using to get my Chapeau from my B&B host. And it didn't work. Oh well, with hindsight I had chatted to a German woman earlier in the day who had already completed 1,800Km and planned to double that before her tour ended and she was carrying a lot of kit. I should have Chapeau'd her. My new mission is to seek to give praise rather than being the recipient.
I am staying at a countryside B&B and on arrival a small yapping dog had chased (OK accompanied) me into the courtyard. The precise building/entrance was not clear but luckily the owner was outside one of the front doors and welcomed me. She asked me how far I'd travelled and I leapt at the opportunity to deliver my rehearsed line. De Londres j'ai pédalé seize cents kilomètres! She was impressed, but no Chapeau. When her son turned up she repeated the distance and he was impressed, but still no Chapeau.
Once the bike was garaged I explained my earlier dog incident as a way of explaining away my lack of affection towards her little dog. She saw the wound on my leg and had the presence of mind to ask how long ago it had happened so she could gauge the original severity; or to assess if the risk of rabies had passed. Anyway, my hand gesture for the size of dog that had left this lasting wound probably put the dog at around the size of a small pony. Not to be outdone she said she had a dog that size and took me to be formally introduced. This in turn afforded me the opportunity to scratch the pony sized dog behind the ear to show I held no hard feelings towards our canines friends.
We had the usual breakfast time conversation. You know the one. "When would you like breakfast?" she says, "8 O'clock" I say, thinking I'm being more than kind in offering up a later time more in keeping with France. "How about 8:30?" she says. 8:30 it is.
My landlady speaks no English but has mastered the art of speaking simple French in a clear manner that even I can understand and is unflustered by my bumbling attempts to communicate.
Day 31
There is nothing on the map and no notices but I am treating this as a menhir. Also, compare the golden corn compared to the green of a month ago.
As in the UK, villages and towns in France have memorials to both World Wars. Here we see an homage erected in a field to a pilot who fell from the sky and gave his life for liberty.
Today is one of my designated rest days and I have chosen to do a relaxed 45Km route even though tomorrow's ride to Saint-Malo is also short and relaxed. This is because I then have a 90Km day - with hills - starting at Portsmouth. Cyclists like to work in Kms as it sounds longer and my 90Km is really only 56 miles.
The earlier memorial in the field got me thinking about 1919. Individuals, businesses and countries were trying to recover from the first world war. Thinking about my 1910 guidebook, in 1919 this included businesses offering guided tours of the WW1 battlefields. If this sounds morbid then remember that many families had lost loved ones and visiting the site of the known or possible resting place of a loved one was helpful.
There was of course a cycling angle to this though very minor in the grand scheme of things. Back in 1903 it had been a newspaper that ran the first Tour de France and they did it to have an event to report on and thereby sell newspapers. The aim was to make it tough enough to have exciting action to report on. Remember this was an age before Sky Sports or ITV4 who currently provide tour coverage. In 1919 a newspaper created a bike race to tour the WW1 battlefields. Though they struggled to get many entrants they did manage to assemble a field and the race began. It was gruelling, the weather foul, the roads often destroyed by the effects of war. The race officials struggled to follow the course in cars and had to relax the cut-off times to ensure the whole field wasn't timed out. The riders struggled on with the promise of a big reward if they finished. This meant long days sometimes catching a few hours sleep in the dug-outs recently used for war. Along the western front France still has areas designated as no-go zones as the ground is so toxic with chemical waste from the sheer volume of shells fired. The 1919 race included an unknown amateur rider on an unsuitable bike who kept pushing on. He was one of the finishers and though he came in last - the lantern rouge - he was afforded great respect from the pros.
Stay with me on this one, though in truth I'm not that sure it's worth it.
If velo is French for bicycle, and the Illuminati is a society that aims to keep the code for the right way of doing things, then it makes sense that the velominati keep the cycling code. See what they did there? And it's true, they have published the code which they uphold.
Unlike the code of piracy (think of Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean) the velominati code is strict and not just a set of guidelines. The trouble is that some of it makes sense and some of it is, well, make up your own mind. Some examples from the 95 - yes 95 - rules.
Sock length is tightly controlled as is the type of coffee you can drink; espresso or macchiato only. Carrying and positioning of bidons (water bottles) such that the front cage is used first.
Cultivating a razor sharp tan line is so important it is up there at rule number 7 and rumour has it that some pros wear their regulation kit when getting a spray tan.
Handlebar, saddle and tire colours should match. The photo of a random bicycle shows how adhering to this rule can be beneficial; the tires are black but with a brown trim.
Reference: https://www.velominati.com/
Oh, and please don't report me to the velominati; that said, the bike looks alot better than me and they may let me off on that basis.
I've held off thanking my lucky stars that there have been no mishaps but today I will allow myself to revel in the success of this tour.
The cycling has been fantastic, on varied roads, coast and countryside, few cars, good quality tarmac and great cycle tracks. And this trip was a cycling trip. The weather has helped greatly.
Food has been plentiful and (unfortunately) I didn't lose the weight I thought I would. The boulangerie has kept me fuelled as have the assorted pasta based campsite cooks. I have sampled a range of what is available in Brittany from oysters to the ubiquitous galette.
The bike turned out to be perfect for the job, has attracted admiring glances and with only a few chain cleans and lubrication hasn't failed. Not so much as a puncture. Now that's how to tempt fate.
The campsites have worked well and even when I have had to change plans it always seemed to work out better.
It is hard predicting what your average daily mileage should be and keeping to the 30 mile a day I knew I could do has let me do a little extra without any pressure and still have the energy for site seeing. The final average including the non-cycling days was 34 miles a day over 34 days.
I've done my 1,000 miles which was always more of a measure of "cycling fun" than a physical challenge. And of course, I have got to explore Brittany in an interesting way seeing things I would have missed without my 1910 railway guide of Brittany.
Okay, I need to attend to the bike chain to keep the cycling gods on my side.
Day 32
I leave the countryside B&B today with nothing but Saint-Malo between me and the ferry. I have been sleeping well generally and last night was 10 hours of slumber only to be woken by the last half-hearted morning crowing of a cockerel.
Before I leave I plan another raid on my hosts excellent cherry tree. I say raid, she had offered and embarrassingly it took me a while to translate cerise.
As it turned out my host sent me packing with enough garden cherries for me to make myself ill and some of her homemade far pruneaux, a kind of set custard with prunes just firm enough to hold and eat. Like yesterday's breakfast crepes this was made with eggs from her chickens.
At the halfway mark I stop in a town to eat my second breakfast. On exiting the park a couple of women stop me to chat and insist that I visit Saint-Suliac and walk me the 800 metres to the junction where they send me on my way. Along the way I ask if they are walking the 4Km with me to Saint-Suliac. They laugh. Anyway, the route happens to be on my pre-planned satnav route and on the way I get a decent viewpoint.
You will remember a similar photo when I first arrived in Saint-Malo on day 3. It is now day 32 and I'm back.
Glorious weather and despite the fact this was a short ride into Saint-Malo it had all the usual great scenery, villages and towns.
I had enough time to walk around Saint-Malo old town wandering up to the cathedral, sandwich, quiche and another Far Breton before slowly heading to the ferry port. The dominant signage takes you to the local ferry that I think takes you over the Rance estuary to Dinard so even as you approach the Brittany Ferries and Condor Ferries terminal you are directed to do a U-turn.
Anyway, check-in and boarding was a breeze and this time I left all my luggage on the bike and just took a small bag of essentials up the five flights of stair to my cabin. Next stop Portsmouth.
Day 33
Having cleared passport control I am immediately thrown onto big roads and it takes me a few minutes to reorganise and get directions and bearings. Then I sail happily upstream and out of Portsmouth. This is my 90Km day so time to push on.
I am taking a longer route home and though it is all very pretty I've still only done 50Km and I need a faster road.
70Km into my longest day. The bidons dried up long ago, it is 25 degrees centigrade and the satnav chose this moment to say "continue straight onto Cemetery Hill". I am still in Hampshire which surprises me; must brush up on my geography. At least it forced me to pause for 5 minutes.
If you look at today's route you might be asking why I'm not heading for London and that would be a fair question.
Well, I am deploying a tried and tested NASA technique. Having blasted off from Portsmouth fuelled by cherries I pass close to the object I want to hit (London in this case) and then that object's gravitational force will pull me into its atmosphere for a smooth landing without me having to expend energy changing direction. It's sometimes called a slingshot or more accurately a gravitational assist. Either way I just keep pedalling and gravitational pull will drag me into London for free. Look at the Day 33 route and you'll see the effect has already kicked in. If I get it wrong there is a risk I orbit London on the M25 indefinitely so let's hope I got the calculations right. My navigation app is now pre-
programmed by Mission Control so all I can do is hang in there and brace myself for the final leg. Over to you Houston.
I can't think of a good way to lead you into the next thought so just buckle-up and accept the total change of direction and pace which comes with no gravitational assist for either of us.
The tortoise was always going to win today; mainly because the hare never turned up at the start line. I gave myself two easy days before today so the 56 miles rolled by surprisingly easily. I am lying on the grass of my pitch wondering whether to sleep under the stars and leave the tent packed; yes I suppose I am a bit tired. With the tent finally pitched I do what any sane cycle tourer would do and go for a short recovery ride.
Day 34
Well, I made it. My route up from Portsmouth was 160Km or 100 miles over 2 days. Fine for closing out a tour but it let me know my limits for day after day cycle touring. I could do 50 miles a day but not much else and my 34 miles a day average is a target for my next tour.
Until the next trip this is me signing off.
Click here for the day by day route maps.
