September 17, 2018 Le Touquet to Calais

The ride today was only 73.7 kms however the climb was planned at 515 meters.  The Garmin came up with 75.3 and 613 meters of climb.  I can sort of understand the mileage difference as when riding you go around the outside of all of the traffic circles, I am sure that over the course of the day a person would wind up riding an additional 1.6 kms.  The difference of 20% on climb seems like quite a bit and it seems like the Garmin always comes up 20% higher than the route plan.  The interesting thing on today’s statistic was I hit a top speed of 67.5 kms/hr.  There was no doubt there was more than on decent where I was hard on the brakes.  I find a lot of these roads have unexpected high and low spots and hitting one at speed is somewhat disconcerting. 

After yesterday’s mad house, downtown was deserted this morning when Juerg, Ken and I rolled out from the Red Fox in this morning at close to 9:30 am.  It was a late start as it was a short day and while we knew there was going to be a lot of climbs nobody was interested in an early start.  We cruised through some back streets and then a bike path out to the main highway north.  The main highway was quite busy however there was a bike path on either side of the road which was perfect as you were never concerned about traffic. 

At the 11 kms mark we came to the Etaples Commonwealth War Cemetery.  Etaples was an important supply point for the British army in WWI and there was a huge hospital there.  The cemetery contains 11771 commonwealth graves from WWI of which 1145 are Canadians.  There are also an additional 662 non commonwealth graves (mostly German) and 125 WWII graves.   While not a well know cemetery it is still a very impressive sight.  I have been so impressed at how well the cemeteries are maintained and at how many graves have had flowers, wreaths or poppies placed beside them.   Maybe we haven’t forgotten this horror. 

The ride continued up and down the rolling hills.  None of the climbs were particularly steep but there were lots on long grinders.  Down in the lowest gear and just spinning away.  Finally we came to Boulogne and for some reason I thought we had to cross the big estuary there.  As we rolled through town it was so pleasant riding along the water’s edge through a big huge park and public place.  We stopped a number of times to take pictures of the harbour and different marinas. Finally I could see the Atlantic and the mouth of the estuary but no more bridges.  I had to stop and pull out the map to see that we had crossed to the north side of the estuary about 6 kms back when there was just a little creek to cross. 

From there we climbed a number of hills and could look out and see the white cliffs of Dover. It was so close it is no wonder that the German defenders thought that this would be the place for the invasion. Along the coast there were lots of different WWII bunkers still in place.  The largest was the Battery Todt.  This battery consisted of several huge circular bunkers which contained some very large guns, living quarters and command headquarters.  I had really wanted to see this installation however it was closed.  So a few pictures and Ken and I rolled on as we had lost Juerg in Boulogne.

We were only a few kms out from Calais however we had the two biggest climbs of the day in front of us.  The first was about 100 meters straight up a long hill of about 5% grade.  This was followed by a very steep and winding decent into a little village with a stop sign at the bottom.  On the decent you could look across the valley and see the opposite climb which had a few switch backs in it.  This climb was only about 5 kms but had some steep sections especially when you were on the inside of the switch back. 

The view from the top was spectacular of the English Channel and the Dover cliffs in the background. 

The decent into Calais was a blast and Ken and I rolled in pretty happy. 

Tonight we are in a very interesting hotel from the turn of the century which was bombed out in WW2 and rebuilt in the 1950’s.   It has a very classy feel and some very nice amenities.   Ken, and Sally, Juerg and I enjoyed a cold beer in the cozy lobby bar.

Terry