A new country

If you want to read this story from the beginning start withe entry for July 23rd/24th. This is episode four.


Why did I need a rest day?

Because my legs were, how can I put it, f***ed? No actually. They work fine. After a rest stop they can be a bit slow to get going but the pace gradually winds up.

My neck? Possibly. I get a headache every afternoon, it could be because the default riding position still pushes your head forwards so you have to crane it backwards to see in front of you. I have never understood how these drop handle bars are so popular. I think I will approach Dyson to get them to make something reasonable that ordinary people can feel comfortable on.

My fingers? It became increasingly difficult after the first couple of days to straighten my fingers. Arthritis? Something to look forward to, according to Bart. Actually I think it is the fact that you are constantly changing gears with twist grips in hilly country. At least I hope so. Does this matter? Well a bit. A single man travelling on his own has to be able to take a grip occasionally. For instance, of a pen or a fork. Actually eating has become something of a ??? Fill in the gap yourself. I have become an American in that I try and shovel everything in with a fork in my right hand; I have become a child in that I can exert no pressure with my index finger; I am an incompetent Chinese because I cannot use my thumb properly to grip chopsticks; I remain a pillock because I spill food down myself at every opportunity.

Because I was generally knackered after the days efforts? Mostly true, although I didn’t realise how knackered until a few days later.

Anyway Chalon is a nice civilized town, in fact a good place for a rest, an old pedestrianised bit that you can loaf around in, buy a few supplies, sit on your (recovering) arse in and I did enjoy the baths. But after a day off it was back on the road again. The navigational aid was working so I knew that I was going too far east but didn’t care, it was a lovely day, a nice road, the odd coffee stop. What could go wrong? The French, of course. It was Sunday and I had targeted this fairly large village for a spot of lunch out of the sun. It was, of course, closed. I carried on for a while but gave up and had a can of olives by the side of the road plus some of Bart’s remaining dried fruit. A light lunch had also meant no water refill so the olive water wasn’t too salty. 5km later there was, of course, a bar – naturally I was too late for lunch but did manage a couple of halves and a water refill before they kicked me out at 3. I headed back towards the river but a big black cloud appeared in front of me. As you know it never rains in France in summer – hence no waterproofs - so where had this thunderstorm come from? I waited it out in a boulangerie/cafe, that closed at 5, obviously, and I was on my way in light drizzle, which became not so light after another 5km so I went into another cafe. No hotel in this village, 5 km north. I ignored what they said and went looking for the road to Macon. 10 minutes later I was back in the bar confirming instructions and, after another wait, made it 5km north in a not too heavy a drizzle. I had done my 100km for the day but was only 45 from Chalon!

So next day it is? Raining. In a break I make it back to the bar for the third time but not before I had been completely cut up by a truck coming onto a roundabout. I presume that he hadn’t seen me, but it did make me write a note with some contact details and stick it in the back of my passport. In the cafe they were obviously used to me waiting around in the rain by then and treated me as a bit of a joke but it was the last time. In the next rain break (i.e. break from the rain) I made it 10km and the following one 20km. At 3.45 it cleared up and I got on with it to do my 100km. Naturally many of them were in the wrong direction but it was great. I was in the Beaujolais region and, to my surprise, it was the first area where grape vines predominated. I also hit the first moderately serious bike problem. Two links in the chain appeared to have locked. This means that you can still ride but, depending on the gear you are in, about every third time that your legs rotated you got a clunk and a missed drive moment. Not desirable. Anyway twenty minutes fiddling about and a liberal application of WD40 (thanks Bart) and I was on my way. Ten days and three bike shops later I can still feel the click sometimes but, when I turn the bike over, can I find the dodgy link?

It had been a lovely ride, the main problem was that after 8 1/2days in France I was still north of Lyon so the following day St Etienne is the target. Having done a spot of googling I soon lost my way but was making good progress going south, the main problem was that I should be going south west. A quick right turn up a valley and, after I have been going an hour and a half I see the sign saying Villefranche (where I had stayed the night before) 16 on the road that I should have been on. Never mind, I had gained some height and only lost half an hour against best time and then gained some more fairly quickly. This fairly quickly (as in height gain, not speed of advance) got thrown away, of course, and I started a new climb. After 4 km I stopped for a rest thinking I must be most of the way up, after 8 km I stop for another and it is only after 12 km that I reached the top. The angle wasn’t fierce, only 4 or 5 degrees I would think but it did mean that I had gained a good 500 metres and could see an open vista to the south. Good. Most of the way down I stopped for a couple of halves and did a bit of bike maintenance. The landlord gave me a beer on the house – whether it was because he believed that I had cycled from London or new what the 60km to St. Etienne were like will remain a mystery.

Yes, I made a wrong decision. I had three choices. Lyon – No. The tourist route to St Etienne and Clermont Ferrand – No. The middle choice did not go to Lyon and looked flatter. After 4 km I could see the top of the pass through a gap in the trees, after 8 km I could look down through a gap in the trees at said top. After 12 km I took a photo of the pass - 810 metres. During the day I had cycled up a greater height than Ben Nevis.



At the next decision point I chose Lyon and, in fact, stayed on the eighth floor of a hotel directly overlooking the Rhone 20 km south of Lyon. The hardest day so far. There were only a couple of downsides. The restaurant (not cheap) in the hotel turned out to be the best I could find, the rest of the town was characterless with the usual pizza and kebab shops. Bit of a bugger when a bit of tooth filling fell out in my dinner. Closely followed by a bit of the said tooth. I have remembered to chew on the left side of my mouth most of the time since but a cold drink (beer?) can cause a slight intake of breath. I will survive, I am a road warrior.

Flying down the Rhone for 150 km the next day was a piece of cake. Road quality in France varies considerably depending on the local area but that is true anywhere in the world; the real problem is that on main roads going through towns you cannot deviate off the line you are travelling; this may give some slight discomfort in a car with tyres at 30 psi, suspension and soft seats, a bit different on a bike with tyres at 60 psi, no suspension and what sort of a seat. For the benefit of the non-cyclists amongst you, tyre pressure on bikes are run about twice as high as cars. This is for two reasons at least, and I am sure that my proper cyclist friends will correct me. 1. You go quicker; there is less tyre in contact with the road and hence less friction. 2. You get less punctures. This may sound counter-intuitive but the less contact with the road, the less to cause you grief.

There was no uncut wheat left at all, in fact the land had been ploughed up in many cases. This rather surprised me – doesn’t the top-soil get blown away because it is so dry? Anyway I was into peddle-pounding and I am beginning to get rather good at it. A short rise means that you do not change down, you just attack the hill. In fact, this means that your average speed increases; you cruise downhill faster than normal, power your way up the incline so that you are still doing a reasonable speed at the crest and fly down the next slope. Impressed?

On to your next fantasy. Here are two things on this day that make me think that I am really making progress. The cicadas. You know that you are out of a cool temperate maritime climate when those little buggers start rubbing their legs together in earnest. The other was signs to Marseilles. They may have been over 300 km at the beginning of the day but that was not the point.

The guy at the Sphinx hotel in was very interested in what I was doing. I don’t think that he had noticed me scratch the car the previous night when I was putting my bike in the garage. It (the thought of the scratch and, more to the point, trying to explain that it was there before, honest guv) had got me up in the morning and it was the first time I had left any hotel on the trip at eight. Perhaps I should scratch a few more cars for motivation to get me up in the morning. Let’s face it, I don’t give a flying f**k about a scratch on a car (including all the one’s that I have owned) and anyone who does should get a life, because they haven’t got one now. The nice man asked me if I had had plenty of punctures and I assured him that my mechanical problems had been slight. Oh silly me.

Bombing along on the way to Avignon with the Mistral behind me was great until I heard a horrible noise. Get the baggage off, turn the bike over and the back wheel is not running freely. At this moment two real cyclists turned up with all the gear and tools. They adjusted both sets of brakes, told me that having one pannier was wrong, I should have the weight over the back wheel and, finally, noticed the broken spoke on the front wheel. That is what I had heard. The pannier advice was complete bollocks, putting it higher would have raised the centre of gravity and I liked a wide backend so people give me more room (I know, I have one anyway, I don’t need a pannier in the middle of the road with a red spot on it.) It is amazing how I have got through life so far when everybody else clearly knows more about how to do things properly than I do.

In to the next town and the tourist office tell me that there is no bike shop but give me a marked map, address etc. of the one in the next town. This is when I found out how strong the Mistral was (or even is) because I was going across it. Anyway, all was fine, spoke replaced, both wheels properly aligned, brakes adjusted properly (so they actually worked, the nice, helpful guys had put me in significant danger if I had had to brake on a steep hill) and bought a spare link, in fact nearly a service. I should have got the man to blow up the back tire though, I had put no air in either tire since the start of the trip and thought they were both hard but I then realised that the back one was not so hard.

So what did I do about the tyre problem? Have a coffee. Did a few kilometres out of town on the nasty big road, turned off and had a beer. In fact, what should have been a lazy day turned into a bit of a pig. I kept changing roads but always came back to something with big trucks on it. To try and escape I turned down a side road, seeing a couple of trucks coming the other way thinking that they were avoiding the height restriction on the other road at the junction. Blown along by the Mistral, just the odd TGV to keep me company, I was fine. (They, the TGVs – Train Grande Vitesse -, do not look fast but count the seconds that they take to pass and work out the length of the train then you will realise.) Carry on down the road, into a wood where I have to brake to avoid running over a lizard. Too perfect? Damn right. It was a dead end (un-signed, get used to it, it happens again later) with a big mining operation at the end. For some reason they did not offer to show me around. It was only about 5km back to where I had left the main road but this is where you felt the power of the Mistral; I was a good five gears down from going the other way (it was flat) and having to work damned hard at it.

Got back on a main road and stopped for lunch in a restaurant. Response “Go forth and multiply”. It was 1.30. I am coming round to Bart’s point of view concerning the French. On through Orange (yes such a place exists and it has rather a nice arch – I suppose that I had better describe it as Romanesque or I will get complaints) but all I can find is big roads to Avignon.
Solve the problem by turning off to Chateau-Neuf-du-Pap or similar, it seems to be Pape locally. I think of this as the most famous brand name in wine but, after struggling up some horrible hill, when I get there I have no idea what to do. I notice that there are many (and I mean about thirty) vineyards with showrooms for sampling and buying. I am not the sort of person who will just sample and leave – yes, I know that I need some education by Meady; the free samples are all built into the price. As I roll through I begin to think that CP/Joe would rather like some of this stuff. I can remember his old house and phone number quite clearly but he only goes there about once a month. I begin to think, yes, I do know the address in Harrogate but no I don’t know the post code or phone number. No, I haven’t taken any mobile numbers so I can’t phone him to find out what to buy at what price and, anyway, all I really want is a beer.

Back towards Avignon on the horrible roads and clearly they all think that they are English drivers so you have to concentrate all the time and stay in a straight line, absorbing all the bumps and potholes with your tyres at 60 psi and no suspension – you asshole cardrivers should try it and realise what it feels like on your arse and your machinery you selfish, planet-destroying ignoramuses. In France, you should, by law, give 1.5 metres space to a cyclist and normally you get at least a metre, which is OK. Clearly these tossers round Avignon had never heard of the rule or were so busy rushing to the back of the next queue, just like the English, that they did not realise that cyclists actually travel faster than cars in cities and, hence, there is little point in giving the cyclists a hard time. Just think though 1 ½ metres – five feet as near as damn it – imagine a London taxi pig giving a cyclist that much room.

Avignon is an amazing city. I have never seen wall-to-wall tourists in such profusion. The main square is ALL restaurants. I have never seen such a large ice-cream dispenser. It is just fantastic.

Why were they all there? Naively, I assumed it was for the bridge. Also, naively, I thought it was for the Roman bridge. Silly me.

I had decided against cycling to Nimes and the trains didn’t look frequent when I checked at the railway station. The following morning the tourist office was absolutely heaving, 50 or 70 people in it and three people answering questions. I don’t do queues so decided against Nimes. I have seen the aqueduct at Segovia three times and would like to compare it to Nimes sometime.

Anyway I didn’t so I was stuck with the tourists (no, silly people, I am not a tourist, I am a traveller and an observer, have we got that straight?) The tourists are mainly there for Popes. In the fourteenth century there was a bit of a bun fight in the Catholic Church (this is pre-protestantism) and one version of the Papacy moved to Avignon for seventy years before they patched it up and Luther did his stuff at Worms.

The Popes Palace had big queues and cost lots of money, the Little Palace (a museum) was closing for lunch – these people have no idea. So I actually went into the Cathedral. From the outside it is not impressive, just a massive horrible gold-painted statue of JC to make an impression. Inside, at first glance, was no better but then you start looking in the side chapels and they begin to impress. Not fantastic (remember I was in the Hagia Sophia in Instanbul a few months ago where they do side chapels on a truly grand scale) but worth a visit.

That left the gardens at the top of the hill. Avignon may (or may not) be so called because of some dodgy translation of the windy city. A bit before Chicago – how sad. One thing that I can say is that it is bleeding windy at the top of that hill. There is also a very commanding view for a good distance all round so you can see why the city really grew up.

And then there is the bridge. I was expecting some story about how the Romans built it and it had survived in various forms until they built newer better bridges recently. Oh no, the Romans barely get a mention. It is all about some religious nutter who persuaded the town to build a bridge in the twelfth century; they just happened to use the bits left by the Romans. Bloody Christians. I should have gone to Nimes.

Off to Aix-en-Provence in the morning down boring but quick roads. Aix is another great tourist town and a good place to watch people, street musicians, weddings in the town hall etc. But it is only 75kms from Avignon so I decided to do the bonus 25 because tomorrow should be a long day. After doing 20kms I was back on the same road back into Aix. There were no markers to say “No through road” anywhere on my route. I began to realise that it was trouble when there was no traffic, the road got bumpy and I had a railway line for company. There were a few signs saying “DFCI” which i realised later obviously stood for “Don’t Come In”. When I got to the gate blocking the road (and I mean blocking ; this was no barrier that a bike could get round) a lady in a car came the other way and assured me, yes, I had to go back. No wonder Bart hates the ####### French. And, yes, I did check on the way back; there were no “no through road” signs.

Trying again went uphill and it was hot. When I found out that there was a 640 metre pass to go over I was glad to find a hotel only a dozen km out of Aix. This had obviously been someone’s pride and joy when it was built thirty years ago but they had mistaken the market and it was seedy, run down and musty. I think there was one other couple staying there apart from me. I liked it, my own balcony, big room, foot bath (I think that is what they are called – a sit down shower really).

Get up dreading the climb and, instead of getting going, I piss about until 9.30 so it is warming up nicely. Anyway, I get off and walk upwards along the road, after a while, for 500 metres (the first time I had got off the bike whilst actually riding for two weeks) and did it again for 100 metres 3km later but I did cycle over the top. It was Sunday so there were ten or twenty times more cyclists than cars, all going the other way to begin with. Naturally they all had proper gear, bikes, helmets etc but many of them did give this sweating mass of decrepitude on an inappropriate bike with almost non-existent luggage and a very battered straw hat a wave or a “Bonjour”. It has become increasingly obvious that when, every couple of days, I tell someone what I am doing they look at me, look at the bike and think “That lying bastard has got the train most of the way”. It would have been a damn site easier and I could have made up the story. But you all know that is what I have done anyway!

Basically it was a nice quiet day poodling along, stopping for mushy fruit occasionally through some nice villages. It was getting a bit hot though and I started getting some cheers/jeers from the odd car or two in the middle of the day. A pleasant lunch is slightly discommoded by the discovery of a broken spoke on the back wheel this time when doing a routine check. A broken spoke does not make a bike unrideable but it tends to distort the wheel and should be fixed within a hundred kilometres or two. It had probably happened the previous day on the lovely bumpy road that took me out of Aix and back. It was Sunday when I noticed so no chance.

I had been pretty lucky so far with the winds. Either non-existent or the Mistral blowing me down the Rhone valley. Suddenly my luck changed and I was facing a severe head wind and decided to give up for the day. I had decided that it was a sea breeze and would be gone in the morning (Correct) and there was an F1 hotel to stay in. F1s are built on the Travelodge principal of no restaurant but somewhere close to eat. In Frejus the pizza place (inevitably) is next door but this is a Sunday so no chance again. A cycle ride (15 minutes) in to the next town reveals three takeaway pizza joints, one of which does kebabs. The national dish of France is either pizza or kebab but I don’t know which.

I am within spitting distance of the Med but decide against the coast road because the inland route is shorter and I will be seeing plenty of the sea. Google doesn’t bother to mention the 310 metre climb. Why should it? No bother in a car.

It is only after coming most of the way down that I catch sight of The Mediterranean, sixteen days after leaving Dieppe, fourteen of them cycling 100 km a day so about 70% must have been in the right direction. Cruise into Cannes and waste a good two hours mainly trying to find a place to fix the bike. The tourist office is, naturally, closed – who needs information on a Monday? Eventually find the main part of Cannes but it is not full of beautiful people, just tourists. Some of the tourists weren’t entirely ugly, it is true, but I decided to try Antibes. That was full of people who had once been beautiful but were now just hanging on to their dreams.

Nice was next. This was great, there was a cycle track all the way past it! That isn’t very flattering is it? There were hundreds of thousands of tourists on the shingle beach with a very wide promenade from 5 km south of the town to 5km north with part of it marked as a cycle track. Of course, pedestrians wander all over this but I am, by now, an expert cyclist and avoid them all. The reason why it was great was that I flew past it! Google maps says that if you want to avoid motorways the best way from southern France to Rome is the ferry from Nice so I had passed that, rather great, temptation.

Darkness is approaching but I don’t hurry. I had made a cursory check on accommodation in Monaco and it started at 200 euros a night. From Cannes, all the way along the coast it had stunk of money but Monte Carlo – Jesus. Even the cheap boats cost millions. I watched one big thing back into its berth. There were six men on the back of the boat just to watch it in. I asked if it was privately owned “Yes” Who by? “You must be joking”. I have thought for quite a long time that Dubai would be improved by a good cruise missile with rather a large warhead. Now I know of two such places.

I wandered around a bit, just gobsmacked but also trying to work out which boats were empty so i could get a bit of kip on one of them. (Pathetic, I know but I am a country counter and I have been to Monaco nearly forty years ago but can’t count it because I had not spent a night there. This I was going to correct). Unlike France, the bars showed few signs of closing and I wondered about pulling an all-nighter but by two I couldn’t stay awake and, after a bit of searching, I found a quiet place in a park for a kip.

I had been asleep about two hours before the cops woke me up and told me to leave.