clairedavieswriter

I’m not a religious person, but I’m starting to believe in guardian angels. More on that in a moment.

First though, phrase of the night: “Mon voisin ronfle comme un train”. There was only one other camper on the site – another cyclist. His (competently pitched) tent was about 20 feet from mine and in the peace of the night I heard every snore. In the few merciful gaps between them, I managed to snatch some sleep, once I’d worked out that my lightweight sleeping bag was perfectly warm enough, provided I wore all my clothes.

Feeling as refreshed as such a night allowed, I hit the road at 11am, farewelled somewhat repetitively by the resident cuckoo, and left Roche with my lunch riding shotgun.

In a triumph of optimism over probability, I didn’t look for bike shops, hoping instead that my superglued puncture would survive another 80k, and that I could deal with the problem on my rest day in La Rochelle. However, it was clear my tyre needed more air than my mini pump could deliver, and I thought my luck had changed for the better when I came across this outfit in the first hour, where their track pump did the job.

All was well for a couple of hours, but for the same reasons as yesterday, it was hard to relax and enjoy the ride – today it was the turn of the (busier than its name suggests) D746 to test my nerve.

The main street through the tiny hamlet of La Mainbourgère seemed a bit of a come down for this national hero. Perhaps he would have preferred a water tower?

The pretty scene below belies the constant stream of trucks thundering across the bridge, that your plucky photographer had to dodge to get the shot.

After two and a half hours of buffeting by lorry, I finally left the main road and was immediately enveloped in birdsong. Suggestions on a postcard please for the name of the blue flowering crop below. Are cornflowers harvested?

By the time I reached the elegant town of Luçon around 2pm, I was starting to relax, and enjoyed a peaceful coffee (competently ordered) overlooking the imposing church.

However, I feared the worst as soon as I realised the next section of the route was off road, which is inevitably harder on the tyres.

It was a pity, because in normal circumstances, it would have been a dream ride – flat, traffic-free, with a following wind. The scenery was reminiscent of the Norfolk Broads:

Though in places the width of the track required a certain level of concentration:

At 4pm, when I still had over 30k to go, I came across my first guardian angels of the day, although I didn’t realise it immediately. Pascale and Patricia were cycle touring via the coast from St Nazaire, with suitcases strapped to their rear racks. We had a little chat and I went on my way. Ten minutes later, Jean’s superglue finally gave up, and Bernard, as he has now become known, once again assumed the position of shame.

I had two options: insert an inner tube, or try the superglue trick again. My preference was for the latter, but ridiculously I couldn’t open the cap on the tube Jean had given me. And I couldn’t achieve the former without help because, even more ridiculously, I hadn’t brought the necessary Allen key to get the wheel off (in fairness, I’d thought I wouldn’t need to because – tubeless tyres, doh).

Fortunately, the cavalry arrived in the form of my Breton friends. Pascale had the necessary Allen key and before I could say ‘feeble female’ he’d set about removing the wheel and inserting the spare inner tube I thought I’d never need – getting covered in pink goo in the process – while the three of us chatted cheerfully about our respective trips. Ten minutes, and many profuse thank yous later, I rode away, assuming my problems were solved and thinking I could be in La Rochelle by 6pm.

I flew along the last bit of off-road, and bid a not altogether fond farewell to La Vendée. But that’s when the real problems started.

To cut another long story slightly short, my tyre went soft again within 15 minutes of putting the tube in, and soon afterwards had completely deflated twice. The second time, things could have been really difficult, as I was on the very busy D9 – the most direct route to La Rochelle. Luckily, it happened on a bridge with a decent hard shoulder. I managed to get enough air in to continue, which was just as well, as there was no way I could have pushed my bike in either direction.

Ten minutes later, on a quiet back road outside the village of Villedoux, it went flat again, this time for good. The only building nearby was a ramshackle looking farm, with decrepit vehicles rusting in long grass. It didn’t look hopeful, but there was nothing else for it: I would have to follow the US Ambassador’s advice (cf Lejogblog) and ask for help.

As they say on clickbait sites – you won’t believe what happened next…

It turned out that behind the crumbling exterior wall was a pretty courtyard garden with a sprinkler playing on a manicured lawn. A woman and her adult daughter appeared, looking friendly and concerned.

Me – Can you help me arrange a taxi to La Rochelle?
Them (to each other) – Pierre might be able to take them in his camion… No, let’s call papa.
Dad arrives, in a jazzy acrylic jumper so torn it looks like he’s been fighting a bear, and with hands so large I reckon he would have won. They explain the situation to him.
Dad (to me) – Have you got a spare inner tube? A patch? An Allen key?
Me (feeling idiotic) – Non, non et non
Dad (to daughter) – Fetch me a bucket of water, I’ll get my tools.
He returns with a range of Allen keys, a bottle of acetylene (?), and a tyre patch (word of the day: rustine). We get the wheel off, and in seconds he’s got the tube out, plunged it in the bucket and found a hole. Soon afterwards, having pressed his daughter into service to hold the tube as the acetylene dried, while I stood there like a lemon, he had patched the tube, inserted it in the tyre, re-inflated it with a compressor in his garage, and got it back on the bike. Unbelievably, I was good to go, but their work was not yet done.

Before I left, the daughter told me that her brother-in-law Arnaud runs a bike shop called Lovela in La Rochelle – I should go there to get my spares tomorrow and tell him they sent me. I was so stunned by this turn of events that I never asked their names, so let’s call them the family Dupont – truly, my guardian angels.

The last 10k were a confusing meander through the suburbs of La Rochelle, but I finally reached my accommodation at 8pm, and was at the Vieux Port for dinner before the sun went down. Tomorrow – a rest day for me, and hopefully new tyres for Bernard.