September 15 2018, Honfleur to Le Treport

To days ride was 136.5 kms and 855 m of climb.  This made it a fairly challenging day.  Fortunately we did have a bit of a tail wind, while not a major factor was not a bad thing either.

The first order of business was the big bridge over the Siene River.  I had worked on this and could see the bike lane on the bridge so I knew we could ride across however I did not see the no cycling sign on the bridge on ramp.  Fortunately Juerg found the correct cycling ramp and we were across the bridge. 

We then had to climb the escarpment out of the Seine River Valley.  To do this we took a bunch of side roads on our way north.  Things worked very well through a bunch of freeways and I was quite pleased that the route worked so well. At one point a peloton of young riders went past us going almost double my pace.  Juerg jumped on the back of their tail and rode it for quite a distance.  Ken and I thought we would never see Juerg again but we did catch up about 30 kms later.  The climb was about 10 kms long but was only about 4.0%.  It got your attention but was not a killer.

We were at the 75 kms mark when we decide to stop for a sandwich.  We pulled into a little tobacco shop to ask where we could get a sandwich and the lady said she would make us one.  Sure why not and it turned out to be a great big sandwich on a huge chunk of baguette.

I had hoped to get into the Dieppe Museum however by the time we got to Dieppe it was too late to tour the museum so we settled for a visit to the Canada Square which is a memorial to the sacrifice that the Canadian soldiers made to lord Montbatton’s ego.  

I had originally hoped to stay in Dieppe so that we would have a 100 kms day and 110 kms day rather than a 130 kms day followed by a 80 kms day.  However there were no rooms in Dieppe and now I know why as there was huge festival going on and the place was a total mad house.  Maneuvering the bike through the crowd was a challenge.  After we got through the town the route took us down a a couple of side streets.  However every time we went down one we were off course.  It turned out the course went down a back alley and up a few stairs to get on the climb up to the top of the escarpment.

After Dieppe there was only 30 kms and it went by pretty quickly.  I found a shop which sold fresh fruit and vegetables.  The display was so beautiful I had to stop.  I bought a huge melon and some pears.  The melon filled the bike trunk and made the bike tail heavy.

The Airbnb is an absolute beauty. It has a fabulous balcony overlooking the historic town of Le Treport.  The melon and pears were so sweet and delicious; it made hauling them the 12 kms in on my bike well worth it.  Sitting in the sun and enjoying the day was a total treat.

Over all a long and challenging day but so much fun.   

Terry hot biker

September 14, 2018 Banville to Honfleur

To day was only 82.5 kms and with only 588 m of climb it was an easy day.  We set out from our Airbnb house in Banville and headed up the coast.  We all started out together with the idea that if we could get Earnie started on the right foot with his Garmin then maybe he would be able to get the hang of it and be able to find the handle on using his Garmin. 

It was a little chilly being only about 10 C when we started at 8:00 Am, however it didn’t take long to warm up only proving the old bike saying that if you aren’t cold for the first 10 minutes you are overdressed.  The first part of the ride took us back passed the Canadian War cemetery so we saluted to our boys as I rode past.

The route took us through a number of small towns and down a bike path along the water before we reached our first stop of the day which was the Merville Battery.  This WW2 battery was a major gun emplacement which had to be taken out prior to the D-Day landing.  To do this 600 paratroopers and 6 gliders were sent in early to take the battery out.   Unfortunately only 150 of the paratroopers and none of the gliders were in a position to attack the battery.  The commander of the strike force Terence Otway decided to proceed anyway as he knew the importance of his mission.  The highly trained paratroopers managed to overcome the defenders and put the battery out of commission. This battery would have been able to shell the British Sword beach head.  At the Merville battery they also have on display a C-47 which was one of the aircraft used in D-Day and in Operation Market Garden.  A long story on the plane but then I will leave it to you to reaseach that. While we were ate the Merville Battery Agnes and the van caught up with us so all seven of us toured together.

After our visit to the battery and museum we headed to the nearest boulangerie for lunch.  After a quick sandwich the riders were off down the road.  We still had 50 kms to go and almost 100% of the days climb yet to do.  The route for the most part was totally spectacular.  We cruised down the ocean front promenade and swung through the main square to view the architecture in Cabourg.  After Cabourg there was a good long climb of almost 150 meters over a couple of kms.  This was followed by a very fun ride down a tiny little road with hedge rows on either side.  A twisting decent back to sea level and another.  Ken and Juerg had gotten ahead so I rode in with Earnie.   

Just out of Honfluer I called Agnes and found out we could not get into our hotel until 5:00 Pm. Earnie rode on to meet up with the van which was at a McDonalds.  Juerg, Ken and I sat in the main square in Honfleur and had ice cream.  The ice cream and atmosphere were great. 

We rolled down and checked into the world’s smallest hotel rooms.  Ok maybe not the worlds smallest but certainly tiny. 

Supper at a French restaurant was a wonderful finish to another adventure (the language issue added to the adventure).

Terry

September 13, 2018 Normandy American Beach Tour

Today we were up early and were off to go on an organised tour of the American Landing Beaches at Normandy.   We drove in to Bayeux were we met the tour. 

The first stop was where the US paratroopers landed in Sainte-Mère-Église. It was pretty interesting seeing the famous church tower from the movie “Longest Day”  They even had Red Buttons hanging from the church tower.  We spent about 90 minutes looking at the airborne museum there.  It is very well done however with only 90 minutes all we could do was walk through.  From there we were off to Utah Beach.  Right now it is a plain looking chunk of beach which could be anywhere.  So it is hard to imagine the scene on D-day. 

From there we were off to the German war cemetery.  There are 22,200 buried there in just 17 hectares. It is quite plain with flat grave markers, and two bodies per plot.  It is in very sharp contrast to the American cemetery where there are 9300 buried on 172 hectares.  The American cemetery has a huge monument and grass that is so perfect you would swear it was artificial.   I was quite amazed at the number of people touring the cemeteries.  There was quite a crowd but was informed by the guide that during the summer months it is a waiting line to get into the parking lot which is huge. 

We traveled up to Point Hoc where the rangers climbed the cliffs to blow up the guns which turned out to not be installed.  This place has been left as it was after the war.  It is nothing but huge bomb craters one beside the other. 

Finally in to Omaha Beach.  Again it  hardly looks exceptional and were it not for the events of June 1944 would not be anything but another cold and blowy Atlantic coast. 

Tomorrow we are off to Honfleur. It is a relatively short ride at only 79 kms.

Terry hot biker

September 11, 2018 Evreux to Banville

Today was billed as the hardest day on the tour and it certainly lived up to that.  We were all down in the breakfast room of the hotel at opening bell and the riders were on the road at 7:40.  Juerg, Ken and myself pushed off together and Earnie was close behind. The Garmin took us through more than a dozen turns just getting out Evreux.  We then started down this bike trail which was to take us about 35 kms to the next town. 

Unfortunately the bike trail took us into a golf course. We could see the route on the Garmin’s but there was no bike path. I knew there was a bike path up ahead as I had seen it on Google maps street view where it crossed the highway.  So we rode across the golf course until we got to the far end.  When the Golf course ended we thought we could see the bike path through some bush so we dragged our bikes through the bush for about 150 meters. It wasn’t a bike path we could see but a ploughed field.  We could see a transformer site across the field so we pushed our bikes across the field. About a 1kms later we got to the transformer site and took the road down to the highway and got onto the bike path.  This little adventure took about an hour and was kind of LEJOG story. 

The bike path was super and we cruised along making good time.  We then turned almost due east and were struck by a fierce head wind. I don’t know what the wind speed was but leaves were blowing down the road towards us.  We finally came to this little town which had a bake shop so we went in to get a something to eat.  I was totally shocked when I looked at my watch as it was noon and we had covered only 63 kms. 

After lunch we were headed due east down a very busy highway with no shoulder, straight into this wind. I wasn’t enjoying this one little bit.  This went on for about 30 kms and took close to 90 minutes.

I was so glad when I turned off onto this little back lane.  It was so quiet and peaceful.  The road was dappled sun and quite twisted.  It took me through a lot of tiny villages with no shops.   The road had some great views of the valleys on either side which were lined with apple orchards.   At one point I passed the group of people having a picnic in the orchard.  They had a beautiful table set with a blue and white table cloth.  They had driven out in their antique Jaguar.  Some people just know how to live.

As the road rolled on the joy of being on this fun little lane wore off.  As the miles worn on I was getting more and more exhausted.  The only thing that kept me going at this point was that I had only 14 kms to get to this bike path.  From the bike path it was only 16 kms to Banville. 

As I was coming into Banville I came to the Beny-Sur-Mer Reviers war cemetery.  This was the cemetery where the Canadian soldiers who were killed in the D-Day invasion were buried.  As tried as I was I had to stop and visit.  The grounds are immaculately maintained and it was an honor to visit.  There are 2380 Canadians buried there.

I rolled in with Ken and Juerg after 9hr and 50 minutes on the bike.  We covered 152 kms with a climb of 900 meters.  We were surprised that there was no van in the yard.   Agnes and Betsy had gone to get Earnie as he had phoned Agnes to get a ride.  I was so exhausted I could not even eat supper even though a wonderful chicken dinner had been prepared for us by Agnes, Betsy and Sally. 

We are in a very quaint French country house for our tour days in Normandy. 

Terry   

September 10, 2018 Baron to Evreux

This morning was foggy and cold which was a marked difference from the weather we have had so far on this trip.  At the last minute I pulled my safety vest out of the luggage as it is quite warm and I was really glad that I did.  Even though were working pretty hard I felt that without the vest I would have been cold.  I had fingerless gloves and my hands were cold for the first 25 kms. 

The fog lasted all morning although it lifted and was not really ground fog.  However it was thick enough that you did not have a shadow.  The morning traffic was pretty busy as we were just north of Paris and there were a lot of commuters, and work trucks on their way to work.  Although we were on some secondary secondary roads I was still surprised by the traffic.  This lasted until about 9:30 am when it started to thin out. 

At the 60 mile mark Juerg, Ken and I stopped for coffee and were only there for about 10 minutes when Earnie pulled up.  We were quite surprised to see him as we had been speculating on where he was.  Earnie felt that he was too slow to ride with us and had insisted on riding by himself. Earnie didn’t join us but kept on riding.   

The country side was totally amazing and seeing the small villages close up was a great opportunity.  The route was considerably hillier than I had expected and I was taken totally off guard at how many times I was in my bottom gear. 

As we pulled in to the historic town of Magny-en-Vexin for lunch we caught up to Earnie who was headed into a shop for a Coke.  He had made a sandwich from some of the leftovers from last night’s supper so he didn’t hang around but rode on.  As today was Monday pretty much everything was closed. So the three of us went into a Middle East place where we got these marinated chicken sandwiches which were the best.  We sat in the middle of the town square and took in the atmosphere while we ate.  While we were eating the high fog cleared off and the sun came out and it turned from chilly to downright warm.

After lunch the hills never let up and we had the two largest hills of the day the first was out of the Seine River valley.  It was a big long climb of about 10 kms at close to 5%.  The second was out of the Eriwin river valley and while only about 4 kms it was much steeper.  As the fog had lifted we discovered that it was really the wind which had blown it away and we were now faced with a 15-25 kms/hr head wind. There is just nothing like a head wind to sap your energy levels and I was starting to feel pretty punk by the time we hit the 120 kms mark.  However we never found a single place to get a coke or anything else until we were only 2kms out from the hotel.  I stopped any way and got a 1.5 liter coke just to get out of the wind and off the bike for a few minutes. 

We followed the Garmin route and rolled into Evreux and straight into the hotel.  Agnes had checked in around 1:30 and she and Betsy and Sally had been out for lunch and exploring the city.  As we were putting our bikes in the storage room they rolled in.  We were surprised that Earnie was not in as we had not passed him after lunch.  As I was showering Earnie rolled in. He had been riding around the town looking for the hotel.   

We were off to supper at the place where Agnes, Betsy and Sally had been for lunch and it was excellent. 

Today’s route had been scheduled for 140.9 kms and 675 meters of climb. My Garmin recorded 141.3 kms and 981 meters of climb.  Close on mileage but way more climb which explains why I thought it was so hilly.

Tomorrow is 149.9 kms and 625 meters of climb.  These are the two biggest days on the tour by a long shot. Fortunately we have a double rest day in Banville as we are off to see the Normandy Beaches. 

Terry hot biker

September 9, 2018 Garmin Training Day in Baron

Last night I suffered from jet lag and could not get to sleep.  I tossed and turned until about 3:30 Am when I finally got up and had a glass of warm milk. It helped a lot and I did get some sleep.  It would have been nice to sleep in however everyone was up early and being quiet was not on the list so I wound up getting up early as well.

Today we had set aside to do some practicing with our Garmin’s to make sure that everything was in order.   I was pretty confident that my machine was working as it was purchased in Europe and had the factory installed maps and I had used it on last year’s LEJOG tour.   Ken had just purchased his the week before flying out so he was in the learning mode.  However Ken has used Garmins before so knew what was going on.  Juerg was using a trekking model but as he has ridden extensively with it so he was good.  Earnie was in the “I have never used this sort of thing before and I don’t see what is wrong with paper maps” mode, so he was having a lot of problems with his machine.  I put together a little 20 kms route for a test ride and down loaded them to the Garmins.  I wound up e-mailing the route to Earnie so he could put it on his Garmin using his laptop.  After a lot of work he got it loaded. 

Juerg, Ken and I set off as Earnie was not ready and didn’t want to hold us up.  It was a beautiful day and being out on the road was just great.  We rode up to the abandon castle at Montepilloy we had seen yesterday and Agnes, Betsy and Sally drove up in the van.  We were all set do a castle tour but the tour only ran at 11:00 am and 3:00 Pm.  So as it was 11:30 Am we had quite a while to wait for the afternoon tour.  The riders rode off and Agnes and the van riders went touring.  The route had a couple of short but steep climbs and a couple of really nice down hills.  When we got back to the house we decided to do a second little ride off to this other tiny village of Rozieres I had seen a sign for.  Even in this tiny village there was a neatly trimmed park with a war memorial commemorating their soldiers.   By time we got back Earnie was in from his ride.  Somehow he had gotten off track and had used a paper map to get home. I hope things work out for Earnie as it is going to be a long tour if it does not.   With the little side trip we covered 30 kms and had 250 meters of climb. 

The afternoon was a little nap but I don’t want to have another sleepless night so I kept is short.

Tonight is one of my favorites – barbequed pork chops. 

Laissez les bon temps rouler.

Terry

September 8, 2018 Logistics Day Baron France

It would have been nice to sleep in today after yesterday’s long journey from Vancouver to France. However by 4:00 AM I was wide awake and could no longer lay in bed.  I guess in all fairness I had gone to bed at 9:00 PM so I did get 7 hours of sleep so it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.    As I was the only one up I just kept quiet and read a few e-mails and surfed the web until everyone else was up.

After breakfast Earnie had to return his rental car so Ken, Agnes and Betsy went to Charles De Gaulle airport where Earnie had to drop the car off.  They were also going to do some grocery shopping and some other errands so this meant that Sally,Juerg, and I had the place to ourselves for most of the morning and well into the afternoon.

Juerg and I set to assembling my bike.  It turned out to be quite a big job as I had taken the rear derailleur off and somehow the derailleur cable and the chain had gotten twisted and we had a terrible time trying to untwist them and I final wound up disconnecting the cable and threading it back around the chain. Finally everything was back together and fortunately I had gotten all of the parts into the bike bag.  I had gone out to the garage the day before we left and found the seat post clamp on my work bench so I was having a panic attack that I may have forgotten something else but I sure didn’t want to unpack it.

The afternoon was absolutely perfect. Beautiful blue sky, nice warm but not too hot, not a breath of wind. It was too nice a day to not go for a ride.  So Juerg and I put on so bike shorts and we were off.  The excuse was a shakedown cruise on the bikes.  We headed west on the main road out of Baron which is still a pretty small road. The Garmin found the map and Surly was working well.   A few kilometers out we came to a side road which was only about 3 meters wide so we turned up it.  I thought it was flat here but after a climb of about 1 to 2 kms long we reached Montepilloy. In this tiny village was the ruins of an 1100’s castle.  The sign said the castle was in use through 1429 when it was occupied by Jeanne d’ Arc and Charles VII.   We didn’t go through the castle but rode on.  We came to the second little village of Montelognon.  The streets were less than 10 feet wide.  Such a cool little place.  In Montelognon we saw our second War Memorial.  It listed 18 men killed in WWI and of the 18 there were 5 sets of two names (10 of the 18) had the same names. I can only assume that these were brothers. This was probably 20% of the population of the village and 100% of the young men.    We had lots of fun on the ride and while it was only 22 kms it was a lot of fun.  My Surly Long Haul Trucker is such a great bike to ride.

For supper the shoppers had brought burgers home which I cooked on the grill.  The table was set in the yard and we ate supper outside.  Juerg had brought some Champaign when he had driven in from Switzerland so we enjoyed burgers and Champaign for supper.  Good food in a very fun place with good friends.  It just doesn’t get any better.   

Terry

Pictures from yesterday added

September, 7 2018, Arrive in Baron

Yesterday Agnes and I drove out to Vancouver so that we could get on an AirTransat direct flight to Paris.  Taking a direct flight makes so much sense to us. Much less chance of bags getting lost, much shorter flight and best of all no layovers.  So instead of a layover we stayed in an absolutely gorgeous B&B, although they prefer to call themselves a boutique hotel.  The room was a totally stunning suite with every amenity known to hotel rooms. The breakfast was a gourmet’s delight.  There was an egg sausage and omelet with sun dried tomatoes. 

In the morning we were off to the Vancouver airport and though security without a hitch.  The Airtransat plane was a brand new Airbus 330.   Before we knew it we were in decending into Charles De Gaulle airport. 

Charles De Gaulle was another story.  It is a huge older airport.  We were in an hour long cue to clear immigrations, and I don’t even think that the immigration officer even looked at the picture in the passport.  From there it was a long walk to find the train which took us to Terminal 1 where the car rental agencies were.   Good thing I had looked it up on line as there wasn’t a sign anywhere.  Once inside Terminal 1 finding the car rental booth was not easy either.  However once directions were found and we got to the rental booth Ken and Sally were waiting for us.  Our rental van was waiting for us and it is a very nice Mercedes with an automatic transmission.  It is a much larger van than we had in England or New Zealand. 

On the road we made a stop at the mall were we got some breakfast supplies and found a phone store. 

It was only a 30 minute drive out Baron but we managed to turn it in to a 45 minute by taking some wrong turns and wound up back at the airport. 

In Baron we saw our first of the “War Memorials”  The village cannot be more than a couple hundred people but the monument must have had 30 names. The monument commemorated the battle of Baron.  The Airbnb is a beautiful house in a the quaintest of little French villages.   Lots of room to spread out and assemble bikes and get out organized.  We could not of found a better place to start the tour.

Terry