Day 5: Villeneuve L’Archeveque to Vezelay

Just 70 miles / 110 km covered today, but I had been keen to set off early because the route to Vezelay involves a long hard climb and as with Villeneuve L’Archeveque I had gambled by booking a hotel since Vezelay is a key destination for pilgrims making their way to Santiago de Compostella and therefore accommodation is always in very short supply. Consequently I didn’t take too many pictures but those I did are available here. With the climb at the end I arrived at 8.30om this evening, but thankfully not too late for dinner :-)

I did however manage a few seconds of video of the old watermill where I spent the night.

And also of the seemingly never-ending fields of sunflowers that I cycled past.

Day 4: Soissons to Villeneuve L’Archeveque

This was the longest and hardest day (and night) so far. (105 miles / 170 km) This might not sound a lot but when you are cycling and it has got dark, I arrived at Villeneuve L’Archeveque at almost 11.30pm despite setting off just after 8.30am from Soissons. The GPS logger also ran out of batteries so that photos couldn’t be geotagged. However I have uploaded them here. I crossed into Picardie and Ile de France today and cycled through Chateau Thierry. I also took a couple of videos.

The first (above) was when I still in the country side as dusk was falling. I thought to myself that it was still so bright that it would not matter if I was half an hour late. The second (below) is crossing a canal as light began to fade entirely. Little did I know that the route was to take me through a forest where it would be pitch black. What was worse, rather foolishly I had not anticipated being in the dark so only had a dynamo powered headlight, which whilst it was quite powerful was of no use when stopping to read a sign.

That’s enough for now as it is very late and I need to press on early tomorrow.

Day 3: Bapaume to Soissons

Today felt like a long day, even though I only cycled about 70 miles / 110 km. This was partly because I crossed several departmental boundaries: L’Aisne, L’Oise and Picardie; but also because it began to rain cold and quite hard in the latter part of the afternoon. By 5pm, I was getting quite cold so began to look for a hotel and stayed in a Premier Inn on the outskirts of Soissons. The good thing about Premier Inn is that usually they are self-service. There is no reception as such, you just turn up and using your credit card book a room from a machine in the side of the wall. This means that you can take you cycle into the room with you, perhaps especially important in an out of town location, where these hotels are located.

Highlights of the day were the pipers I met at Peronne, There’s a video of them below.

I also came across a road sign with the villages Ham and Brie on it. A bit childish and this juxtaposition only works in English but it made me smile anyhow. I’ve uploaded a short video of the sign in question which also gives an idea of small you feel and how big the countryside feels as you are cycling across it.

Finally the pictures I took before I stopped are available here. I managed to get them geotagged, so the Picasa site should also map the pictures over the route I took. Soissons is just north-east of Paris, so although I didn’t get as far as I’d hoped, again! I finally felt I was making some real progress in crossing the country.

Day 2: Ardres to Bapaume

Today was harder than I expected, perhaps because it rained and being cold on a bike is doubly demoralising. When you are going slowly, for instance up a hill, you have the cold water which is merely irritating. Then when you get to the top, it feels much colder to go fast. If you put on your waterproof it invariably gets too hot, without it you’re almost bound to get too wet. In a race, where you know when it will end and someone is talking to you constantly, it might not be too bad. However, when you are travelling on an unfamiliar road, trying to look out for road signs, knowing that going the wrong way cannot be speedily remedied, as with motorised transport – it can all be a bit dispiriting.

I had intended to get past Noyon, and indeed was so confident of the 110-115 miles that I booked a place in an Etap Hotel on the outskirts of Town. After getting slightly lost a few times and with light and legs beginning to fade at 8.30pm, I stopped in Bapaume and was grateful to find a room at a local hotel. The patron was especially accommodating letting me put my cycle in a downstairs room. This is the kind of approach, that rightly or wrongly, I cannot imagine happening in England. but it seems typical of France, never once have I been asked to pay for the ‘garaging’ of my cycle. Route: I took the left turning onto the Avenue des Tilleuls (D224) as I left Ardres, with hindsight I should have carried on. I eventually ended up on the D943, then the D928, turning onto the D198 at Rue des Bruyeres, then the D341 before ending up in Bapaume via the D1017, the Route de Bapaume.

I only managed 86 miles / 140km despite being on the road for about 11 hours. I managed to geotag my pictures with my Holux GPSport 245 but foolishly managed to overwrite the notes I made of the roads. I had hoped to use my phone, but as I think I've explained earlier, battery technology is not yet the equal of a Smartphone's capacity to gobble it up for a whole day, well more than three hours if your phone has GPS, an accelerometer and compass (n.b. any HTC Desire users reading this).

I’ve  upload my pictures to my Picasa page here.

Day 1: Friday 27 August – Beckenham to Ardres

The journey didn’t start well. I got the 1.15pm train from Beckenham Junction with loaded bike and got off at Bromley South only to find the train to Dover Priory had been cancelled. An hour later and just made it to check in for the P&O Ferry at Dover Eastern Docks. Takes about 20 minutes from getting of the train to cycling to the ferry terminal, checking in via separate window just for cyclists and getting to the front of the queue. The ferry was also late by some 20 minutes, but unlike the train caught up with the schedule. The P&O crew, unlike their Seafrance counterparts when I’ve cycled over to Calais in the past, made me wait until all the cars had got off the ferry. Once off the ferry at 7.40pm French time, I took the D943 avoiding the centre of Calais, past Coulogne and stopped for the night at Ardres at about 8.30pm. Distance travelled: 15 miles / 24km. I’ve uploaded the remaining photos I took to my Picasa account, but here’s one from the ferry, showing what a wet and miserable afternoon it was, as I left Dover. You can just see the tugboat coming to take the Del Monte boat out to sea.