A cycle round France

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Day 1- So for a first day it was eventful. The weather wasn't too bad at home, with just heavy rain. But by the time we cycled over the hill and down onto the marsh, the winds had really picked up. This made it a slow grind, until my rear tyre blew out! Just outside of Lydd, and only 10 miles in. I had all the kit for most repairs, but I'd never experienced an exploding tyre so had nothing to fix it. So a quick call for help to Richard, and a new tyre and tube were delivered. While Rich was sorting the tyre from Activ, I replaced the tube and gingerly pumped it unto 30 psi, which was just enough for we to walk the bike to Lydd, but I wasn't going to chance cycling it. After a short walk along a footpath, across a field, and carrying the bike over a couple of styles, I made it to Lydd church. While waiting for the replacement I stripped the wheel down in preparation. Of course there was plenty of stick from Rich while making the repair, but at least the trip was back on.

We headed down the cycle path towards Camber for lunch, and found the seafront path was finally open. Unfortunately it wasn't quite fully open, as the end ramp was still under construction. After lunch we cracked on towards the feared Winchelsea hill! I was very pleased to complete it, and made it 12 seconds less than when I rode it on theRaleigh. Steve caught up a bit later, and it was a nice fast downhill all the way toHastingsseafront. By which time the rain had stopped, and the sun had appeared, just leaving us with the headwinds. At Bexhill, there was enough time for a quick break, and an ice cream then we pushed on toNormansBay, arriving with enough sunlight to pitch. Once showered and setup, we ordered Chinese to be delivered for dinner while playing a game of pool, and making coffee on the stove on in the Rec room. The site was excellent, with great facilities, which were very clean, modern and well maintained.

Day 2 - The day started off in beautiful sunshine with a tail wind, which pushed us along for most of the day's route. Progress was so good, the first 20 miles flew. Once past Polegate, we headed down a bridle path that's part of route 2, and found two areas of deep stodgy mud that couldn’t be ridden. As we rolled away from the Bridle path, Steve felt a bump on his rear tyre. After checking it over, we couldn't spot the reason, so decided to carry on till Brighton to get it checked out. By Peace Haven, the tyre blew. Steve bodged a repair with a piece of card inside the tyre, and we carried on, with Brighton still 7 miles further to go. But all of a 100 yards down the road and I got a slow rear puncture! With this fixed, we got all of a mile down the road, and Steve gets a front puncture!! We used the blown out tube with a patch that had held, but a few miles down the road at Salt Dean sea front, Steve’s front had gone down again. All fixed with a new tube, a passerby asked us for the dead tube, as he wanted it to hold up young trees. A short while later we made it to Evans for a new tyre.

At first the kid in the shop claimed they didn’t have any tyres available in the size we needed, then he managed to find one that was close. We rolled the bikes to the back of shop front where they let us replace the tyre. This was the point I noticed a bunch of tyres on the display which were the sizes we needed... All fixed, we Rolled back down to Brighton’s seafront and with the tail winds, we made good progress to hostel. We missed the place the first time by all of 20 metres, but spotted it after turning around and rolling back towards town. The Lady in charge showed us to the bike shed and we locked the bikes away, then went in to unpack and get showered. Dinner that night was a load of Steve’s ration packs, to lighten his panniers, a lot.

Day 3 - After a good nights sleep in a proper bed, we headed in to town for a few bits and a few pastries from Lydl. The weather had turned again, and was back to raining. We rode all of two miles before I needed to repair a puncture. It turned out that the piece of glass from yesterdays puncture was still hiding in the tyre, far enough inside I couldn’t feel it, but after clipping a pot hole or bump in just the right place, it pierced the tube again. A couple of hours later we stopped at a lovely country pub for lunch, and probably ate too much but it was very, very nice. The Sun reappeared beforeChichesterso we pulled over and removed all the waterproof gear. Steve needed the loo, so we headed off the main road and down in to Bossingham. While waiting outside I notice I had yet another slow puncture! As we headed out of Bossingham and back on to the main road, Steve was nearly taken out by a van that was too busy talking to his mate parked next to him to notice us.

Chichesterwas a bit easier to get into this time round, until the GPS froze, making it a mix up getting out of town. Once we were back on the cycle path along the coast we foundPortsmouthrelatively quickly. The cycle path down to the south of Portsmouth was efficient, but really boring and long, as it ran along side the dual carriage way. Then as we tried to negotiate the route for Evans, we found out in would be closed before we’d get there. Now in the middle of nowhere it, the route toBrittanyferries was unclear, but we finally found it. Unfortunately there are no facilities at the port, just a Costa and useless little shop, so with no secure place to leave bikes, we couldn’t go off anywhere. It was midnight before we boarded making it a long day. Once on board, we quickly found our cabin and after a quick shower, it was straight to sleep.

Day 4 -France!! After a great sleep, we went down stairs for a quick breakfast, then back to pack up ready for disembarking. We were waved through customs and headed straight off into town, where we found a park with an amazing water feature. After this we head off to seafront, where we found our first good climb of the day. The weather was perfect and the roads had been too, until we hit a sharp downhill which was covered in patched up tarmac and pot holes. Having made it down in one piece, or so I thought, the rear wheel began to loose all its air while we were standing still, discussing the next bit of the route. The puncture was due to tube failure along a seam, though by now we were getting good at fixing them. We dropped down in to Fecamp and found a small shop to refill our drinks. The main climb out of the harbour was nice, except the first 100 yards which happen to be a sudden climb with no warning, so neither of us had the right gear for it. The route had been 5 miles longer than first thought, but we did find the campsite, which had an amazing panoramic view point behind it and the sunset that evening was amazing. As for the campsite itself, it was very basic and aimed more at the campervans, but it was clean and very quiet.

Day 5 - We woke up to a wet start, so we moved in to the wash up area for breakfast and to pack our stuff up. Like the day before, it was climb after climb, but they were a bit more frequent this time. As it approached midday, we struggled to find any kind of shop to buy lunch. Eventually we found a market closing up in a small seaside town. We bought mini pizzas and cakes from a small bakery and ate it all on the seafront. Similar to Fecamp, we had a mega climb back to reach the cycle route, but once at the top it was fairly flat for a long time. Unfortunately as we reachedDieppe, the road had been diverted so we had to fight our way through the city. All over the place we had seen adverts for a Lydl’s, but couldn’t find it any where. IN the end we stopped at a small shop to refilled our bottles and picked up a few sweets. As we got to the top of the hill, just on the outskirts of town, we found the Lydl’s and a Carfour supermarket. Again the days mileage was more than we first planned, and as we reached the 55mile target, we looked at stopping in different campsite, till we realised the original campsite was only another 6 miles to go, so carried on and reached Creil sur mer.

Day 6 – We woke early and after breakfast we headed down to the beach for a few photos. Again like every day, there was a climb to get out of town, but the views this gave you of the town and coast below were amazing. By now the cycle route had become hard to follow, as the signage was changing to include local cycle routes, and the EuroVelo 4 route now took us along a dirt track. After the first section of this we decided to head back on to the road until we reached the cycle route again. This turned out to be a mistake as the cycle route began to send us inland, so we turned back and stuck to main roads till we were at Saint Valery Sur Mer.

By this point the lack of rest had caught up with us, so we parked up at a McDonalds for a Mcflurry and some WiFi. Using this we found there was a campsite two kilometres away, where we could relax and get some clothes washed and dried. It was at this point the rim tape in the rear tyre had shifted once again, so my tyre went flat yards from McDonalds. While I fixed this Steve walked over to a couple of superstores to see if he could find a new gas bottle, as his was getting low.

It didn’t take long to reach the campsite, and once the tents were all setup, we cycled back to a supermarket down the road. This felt weird as the bikes now had only an empty pannier for the shopping attached, so instead of feeling heavy and cumbersome, the bikes were now fast and agile, or twitchy is a better description.

Day 7 – Today was another great start. We were out by 9, and the riding was mainly flat with a tail wind for the majority of the morning, even if it was a mixed up start. The cycle path started at a round about but had a no entry sign for the way we wanted, so we duly followed the correct direction around the roundabout, only for us to go all the way round to face the back of it! The first 45 miles flew by with such ease we reach our destination early, so decide to carry on to Bolougne, as it was only another 12 miles. Once There, we decided to crack on toCalaisas Google claimed it was only 19 miles more. This actually turned out to be 31 miles.

Now due to having caught up on our sleep and still feeling 100 percent in Bolougne, we put the port in the GPS and off we went. The problem with this was the fact we had done 61 miles so far, with little in the way of climbing. Then from the moment we left Bolougne the route was non stop up and down, especially the last 15 miles, where at the top of each hill, you could clearly see Calais, so you believe the hill in front, must be the last, only to drop down to the bottom of the next hill. This routine continued till we were 6 miles from the port. At the bottom of the last climb, the weather turned its darkest, with fog, strong winds and heavy rain! Annoying as this was, it didn’t stop there. We reached the edge of the port, to find a road bridge had been raised to allow a trawler through. Now any other day this would have been an amazing sight as the engineering was great, but when you’re soaked through, and standing in cold, howling winds, it was the worst thing ever! The bridge moved so ridiculously slowly the banter was turning to abuse at the operator, who we swear was making it move this slowly on purpose.

Eventually we made it to the port only to enter through the lorry entrance and get kicked out. With all the formalities done, we made the ferry with minutes to spare, as the ferry began raising its ramp while choosing what we needed to take upstairs. After buying dinner, we settled down to eat and warm up, then crashed in the coffee lounge till the ferry docked inDover.



Things I would change next time would be to make more of an effort to pre-plan each days route so I would have a better idea of how much effort each day would be, and a clearer idea of where to go as most stops in the day were to check the maps. I also think a lower daily mileage so that there’s more time to relax at the campsite or more time to enjoy the lunch stops. There was nothing controlling when we stopped each day, except we had chosen finishing points before hand in theUK, and part of us wanted to reach these. The other driving factor was probably the mileage we hoped to cover each day. The problem with this was that Google maps didn’t match the actual cycle route we were following so each day was a lot longer than we had planned for.

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