Yesterday was pretty tough (I think I’ve said that every day). Suisse Normandy in the rain finished me off. I slept well in two bites – once until 4am and then again until 8.10 am. When I woke a 4, I had a searing pain in my thighs – I think that’s what woke me up. I paid a visit (as you do). As I walked the 3 paces to the bathroom my legs had the flexibility of one of those display models that you get in a shop window – basically none. When I woke at 8 I felt well rested but my legs still weren’t keen on bending. 

I spoke to H early on just to show off that I’d had a pretty good nights sleep. It was just a quick check in to see how things were. I did a few bits and pieces and went for “petit déjeuner”. As much as we can learn from the French, breakfast is definitely not going to make the top 10 list. Croissant and two chunks of bread with plenty of coffee. 

It was then that I got the killer text – “I know it’s the last thing on your mind – Happy Anniversary 19 years x”. I’d forgotten to wish H happy anniversary. 19 years ago today we got married in Las Vegas. Not a great start to the day!

I got my stuff together and headed off. The roads out of Domfort were good. I was in to the countryside quickly. Field upon fields of sweet corn. The terrain was pretty flat and I picked up speed well. As I headed south I followed a lovely river and came across a deserted canoe school (see the pictures on Twitter). Really lovely area. I’d had a relaxed start and didn’t leave until 10.30. By 12.30 I was ready for coffee and found a small village and bar where I enjoyed coffee poured from a traditional pot. I had a bar of chocolate which just to remind me of the previous day was Swiss Milka. Ironic I thought. I was on the bike again. More sweet corn fields. These things must have gone on for 30 miles or so. There was so much sweet corn growing that I thought the Jolly Green Giant would jump out at some point holding a can singing “green giant”. I crossed the route of the Tour de France and on to St Mars Sur Colmont. Something looked odd. As I got closer I could see that armed police had the road blocked. It won’t apply to Cyclists or Brits I thought but the Gendameres found one that could speak “un petit” and he explained that “zare iz a dangerooss man in the howse”. I thought about asking if it was the green giant but thought better of it, turned round and followed his detour. When I said I was going to Chateau Gontier he looked at me as though I was nuts.  I pushed on and by about 3pm I was starving. Luckily I came across a larger village with a carfourre store and had a great tuna sandwich and half a litre of orange juice. I also replenished my cereal bar stash. 

The garmin was earning it’s Spurs and by now had lost its “bloody” prefix. I know I’m going to have a love hate relationship with that thing but for now all was well. I ignored it as I headed towards Lapal (spelling will be wrong). It was a busy but ancient town with lots of old architecture. Probably a nice place to go but I  couldn’t be bothered to stop. On the way out of town I was joined by a local cyclist who like so many people here speak very little English. He indicated that the route ahead was quite hilly – which it was – but by now I’m starting to realise that if you know what’s ahead your mind starts playing tricks on you. It’s amazing that if you don’t know, you just get on with it. As an example, at home. I wouldn’t ride hills out of choice and rarely go out in the rain. Over here, I’ve a destination to reach each night so I just “ride it”

Chateau Gontier was a welcome site as I rode in. It’s seems quite a big place. I arrived at the hotel – downed 2 pints and went and sat in a freezing cold bath. Pete Boyle physio at the cricket club said its what all professional sportsman do. I did point out to him that I was neither of those – but I’d give it a go. That was about 6.30. As I sat in the freezing cold water, my nuts headed north taking refuge In the warmth somewhere behind my stomach. It’s now 9pm and they show no sign of reappearing anytime soon. I feel how a castrated dog looks. That said my legs feel ok and I can bend them which is more than last night. 

I’ve just devoured a tuna pizza (yes Seb – it had a soft egg in the middle) and I’m about to walk into the “centre Ville”. 

It’s all change at home. Seb finished school today and Lou does the same tomorrow. Meanwhile I haven’t got a clue what day of the week it is but know that it’s off to Bressuire tomorrow – riding the first of the routes that I have had from the Hadlow Bikers. From memory it’s 94 miles so an early start tomorrow

Day 2 ended well with a couple of pints on the Ferry before I turned in to my cabin. It was about midnight I think when I finally turned the lights out. Whilst having a beer, I don’t know why but a started thinking about the Zebrugge disaster. Just how did that ship turn over? That was a bad move. I fell straight asleep – despite the fact that the bed was less than 2 foot wide – but during the night, every time there was a bump, an unusual “land based” movement or the ship just moved a little too much with the sea, I woke up.

It felt like I got to sleep again about 5 am UK time but what I didn’t realise about these night crossings is that they get you up by playing an alarm into the cabin that you can’t turn off. It was some sort of medieval tune – I can’t imagine why – it was just like Heidi Hi – without Ruth Maddock. It was an early start to the day as a result but I was soon walking off the boat and through to passports. I popped to get some cash and while I was inside the heavens opened. It was about 8.10 by now.

I cycled off and was soaked within 5 minutes and remained so for the rest of the day. The garmin was driving me round the bend, beeping in annoyance because I was off course. I followed my nose and went to the nearest “centre Ville” and found a cafe to shelter – and have coffee. I must have found “Le Wetherspoons”. At about 8.45 some blokes were already having half’s of lager and putting their bets on at the PNU terminal (I think that’s what it’s called).

I looked at the map and headed in the direction of the course (which is what Garmin call the route). By chance I stumbled upon Pegasus Bridge. I remember this from a film that I’d seen. Pegasus Bridge for details.

I carried on at a leisurely pace along the river to Caen. The cycle paths were fantastic and we could learn a lot from the French in this respect. Throughout the day, I kept thinking about “Fury” (if you haven’t seen it – get it and also saving Private Ryan. Parts of Normandy are really exposed. The wind whistles across the really open fields. Any advancing troops would have been seen for miles.

I kept seeing these signs “Suisse Normandy”. Suisse must mean something else here I thought but after the 6th “Alp” I began to catch on. They were long climbs and quite difficult in parts. They certainly seemed longer than Snows Hill from day 1.

I decided to keep going. After a crap nights sleep it would have been easy to stop. I stopped for lunch in a lovely hotel in a village called Saint-German-du-Crioult. Everyone else was dressed for lunch. I sat in the corner soaked right through and starting to stink like a dead fox does on the side of the road.

The afternoon was a little better in the legs but still quite alpine in my opinion. I can ‘t wait to get to the long flat days from Royan (providing there is no headwind that has plagued me for 3 days now).

After a long 3 mile straight I could see Domfort perched on top of a steep hill. Up I went only to find out that my hotel was at the end of the 3 mile straight. I was too knackered to realise. It had rained for the majority of the day and my rain coat that I’d nearly left behind had been off and on (mostly on) all day. I’d discovered muscles in my arse that I’d only used previously whilst riding a motorbike in the wet. Somehow you use whatever you can to hold on and keep the bike upright. It was quite twitchy at times and I slowed down a lot on the descents. The days time was really slow as a result of the ups and downs but better safe than sorry.

The hotel is OK. They are drying my minging kit that has had the travel wash treatment. Let’s hope it’s ok in the morning. Having a wet arse all day is no fun. No wonder toddlers cry when their nappies are wet through.

Apart from sampling the hotels Kronenburg, I’m going to replan tomorrow. I can’t stand another alpine stage in the wet!! Let’s hope I get a better nights sleep. Chateau Gontier tomorrow!

The big day was final here. My final preparations are unlikely to have been followed by the professionals; Sunday lunch at Zizzi washed down by a couple of glasses of Sauv followed by an afternoon at the 2020 (Worcester Rapids vs Durham). You can’t watch cricket without a beer – so I had 3. I got home and we’d arranged farewell drinks with Julia and the Captain. The captain doesn’t drink in the singular so we had a few.

On Monday morning we took the boys to school – Lou is on a D of E expedition and Seb had a big transition day to his new class in year 7 and the senior school.

H had arranged for many friends and family to join me for “the grand depart”. I was still repacking bags at 7 am that morning just to make sure that I had enough – without having too much. One of the last things that I ditched was a UK plug/electrical cables. I wouldn’t be needing those.

We finally left at about 10.15 – Me, Nick, Dave and John who joined me for various stages of day 1. It was a great send off – thanks to all those who came around to ensure that I definitely left. It was good to be on the bike and starting the adventure – but I was also nervous about what lay ahead.

After about 10 miles the heavens opened. Thankfully in repacking my bag i’d decided to put my rain coat on the top. Rain coat on we pushed on to Broadway – it rained for 21 miles and as we jumped off to dive into the café the rain stopped. 3 latte’s later we were revitalised. Dave headed off leaving just the 3 of us. We went to the Broadway deli and grabbed a sandwich. I must apologise to the lady on the till in the deli. “Have you got far to go” she enquired politely……”about 1900 miles” I said feeling a bit of an arse for dropping that one in.

We pushed on and in typical fashion after Broadway the route out was a tough one – Snows Hill. If you don’t know it, its a real drag of a climb. Tough enough on a bike – let alone one with panniers on the back. All the way up it felt like Seb was sitting on the back. From the top of their the next area that that I remember is Northleach. Great little Cotswold village with an excellent hotel and wine bar. We visited the wine bar……..for about 3 cups of tea before pushing on up another hill, through some other great villages such as Barnsley and on to Cirencester. JB looked like a man who needed food. We’d been pushing it and it was already his longest ride yet. We dived into a local shop and 5 minutes later – thanks to a Branstons sausage roll JB was back on form. We pushed on following the Garmin Cycle routing. The software picks out quiet lanes and cycle tracks based on the defaults set by the user (me). The lanes were great to be fair, but there were just too many of them,

I started coming across villages that I remembered from the time that I worked in Swindon. Again there are some great places down there. As we approached Brinkworth (I think) we cam across a road closed sign. We thought that we’d be able to get down it as we were on 2 wheels so we carried on. Half a mile down the road we came across a very important looking little man in a orange coat. Lets call him Peter Rick for the sake of this story. You will have come across his type in life. Typically about 5ft tall, wearing the cleanest fluorescent jack (for health a safety reasons), rule bound and accompanied by a young female apprentice.

He’d been waiting for us to come along all day and now he had his chance to impress. “Hi mate” we called out – “we are cycling to Portugal – any chance of letting us through”. We tried to reason with Peter – but he was having none of it. “Its full of machinery and holes down there so you ai’nt coming through” he scowled (arms crossed – looking at the apprentice for approval. “You’ll have to do a 5 mile detour – which wont be bad if you are cycling all that way”. Peter turned and walked off and over the very dangerous bridge that we couldn’t cross. “Prick” was about all we could muster. We turned around and cycled off, round the diversion and onto a cycle route to Marlborough. This was a killer – 2 monster hills after about 88/90 miles. One led up to the Ridgeway – nightmare. From there we cycled down to Marlborough and our hotel for the evening.

Our stats were 95 miles travelled, 5167 ft climbed (about 1575 meters). I didn’t keep the calories and annoyingly the full ride didn’t save.

[more to come – along with Day 2]