A Quirky Cycle Tour in France

Pre-amble

Since doing the 1999 Paris Brest Paris, when I visited my birth town Portsmouth on the south coast of the UK for only the 2^nd time since coming to Oz in 76, my wife and I made the decision to save our pennys to go back each year to visit the family. I reckon a years worth of commuting on the ole treadly pays for my ticket J. Having family (our daughter also lives in the UK just outside London where she works) to stay with obviously is a bonus, but an added bonus is that Portsmouth has become a major car ferry terminal with sailings to Spain - Bilbao and to France – St Malo, Cherbourg, Caen and Le Havre and an even bigger bonus is Mum’s commission flat is at the end of the Charles Dickens Birthplace Precinct and overlooks the terminal J  

So with a short bike ride across the road, up the ramp of a ferry and after locking the bikes next to huge great intercontinental Double D trucks and a 6 hour cruise, we can ride off the ferry in France - a great place to have a wee break from family and friends for a few days. This year our plan was to ride from Le Havre to the Australian War Memorial in Villers-Bretonneux and return via Dieppe along the coast.

What we took

Our cycle touring is not the full on camping type trip, with panniers fore and aft and handlebar bags with maps in a plastic cover on top. We each have a pannier (which I carry on my bike) and each have a rack with a rack bag. 

My rack and rackbag is designed to allow me to slide the rack bag on and off without disturbing the panniers. In my rack bag are the valuables – camera, phone, chargers, passports, travel documents, maps, bike lock and the like plus the Barrington Rain Jacket. Being able to slide the Rack Bag on and off makes it easy to be able to carry the valuables when the bikes are locked up whilst having a sticky beak tourist attractions, etc., en route. 

My wife uses the Tioga Delux Rack bag and the Tioga Rack (the model I used for over 10 years of commuting and riding Audax). She carries some wet/cold weather gear, plastic knives/folks/plate/cups, bottle/wine opener, wet-ones and the like with the expandable feature of the bag giving us ample additional storage place to carry the bits of food we acquire along the way.  

We use the panniers (the Tioga Economy Bags with a built in water-resistant cover) to carry our clothes/shoes in the main compartment and toiletries and the like in the two outer compartments. Heavy duty plastic builders bags are used to put everything in for added protection from the elements. We take with us 20 or so clip-on Koalas holding the Aussie Flag as giveaways along the route to those we stay with or to those who show us random acts of kindness, help us out and the like.  

Apart form the Rack Bags and Panniers, Maria carries a water bottle on her bike. My bike is set up with 4 biddon holders – one for a water bottle, another spare, another for a BBB Tools and Tubes – Large (spare tube, brake cable, kevlar spoke, chain link, seat post bolt, 15mm pedal spanner, crank allen key,1^st Aid kit) and another for a BBB Tools and Tubes, tyre levers, adhesive patches, spare tube, foldable scissors, small pliers, 15mm ring spanner). I also cable tied a fold-up tyre suitable for both bikes to my seat post/tube.

Maria rode our daughters bike (one we took over to her on a previous trip) a Learsport lady cruiser 770and I rode my Fixed Wheel set-up with a 48 tooth chain ring and a 20 tooth rear cog. My BBB (body, bike, baggage) was 145-150kg.

What we forgot to take

By just wearing a couple of Equalisers for the week and not having time to wash/dry them meant personal hygiene was important, but…… I forgot to take my Qoleum Antifriction Cream. Apart from being anti friction it also neutralises the sweaty acid that develops between the legs when wearing/riding in knicks all day. It is also anti-bacterial and antiseptic. The upshot - got a bit of a sore and I went to a number of bike shops en-route trying to find/explain what I needed until finally in one shop they wrote down what I needed on a piece of paper sent me off to the pharmacist. Phew – what a relief.

As mentioned previously I forgot to take a peaked racing cap so borrowed my daughters. Ordinary caps are not a good idea cos most have a button on the top of the skull which would do untold damage to the noggin if pushed into the skull as the result on an accident and other caps like baseball caps have an oversized stiff peak which would compromise the integrity of the helmet with the likelihood of catching in a ‘touch-down’ and breaking the neck L

In summary

Maria is not a regular bike rider and barely gets on a bike from one years end to the next so for her to do a 550km in at times very windy and hilly conditions was an exceptional achievement. Having “mega range” gearing on the Learsport made it possible for her to pedal smoothly howbeit slowly up the steepest hill. 

It was hard for us to ride together given the disparity in our riding ability and types of bikes. I would wait for Maria at the top of hills, and when on the flat, at major intersections so we didn’t lose each other. On the downhills it was a different story. Maria could freewheel down at speed whereas me, being on the fixie, had to hold the bike back from the very top of a hill with my legs by resisting the pedal (trying to pedal backwards) so as not to let the bike runaway from me by exceeding 35kph. On 5-9% hills with descents up to 10km, it is not practicable to rely on the brakes to hold back a plummeting 150kg. 

Our daily routine was for me to check the bikes before we headed off, especially as the slick tyres which had been put on Maria’s bike seemed to have the habit of picking up glass. From years of commuting I have learnt to use heavier and slower Kevlar belted tyres rather than faster, softer and lighter slick tyres. Even then on a regular basis I would turn my bike upside down, let some air out of the tyres and starting at the valve methodically go round the tyre, squeezing as I went and with the point of a Stanley knife blade, carefully digging out the odd fragments of glass that invariably I would find in some of the fresh cuts in the tyre. With the storms we encountered, part of the bike checking also involved oiling the chains a couple of times during the trip plus adjusting the brakes which can wear quite quickly on hills in adverse weather conditions. 

Once packed, we’d leave after breakfast around 9.30 and stop for morning tea in a village where we could track down a Tourist Information Office to ask them to book ahead the Bed and Breakfast (Gite) in the village we would be aiming for by the end of the day. As most things shut down in France from 12.30pm to mid afternoon we’d find a supermarket, bakery or delicatessen to buy food/wine for lunch ensuring we had a bit left over just case the village we ended up in that night didn’t have eating facilities when we got there.