clairedavieswriter

I’m not going to lie, today was very hard work. My blowy friend was back, and of course I was riding straight towards him. While this time I was never at risk of being knocked over, I did find that, when going downhill, I had to keep pedalling, which should give you an idea of what I was facing. Maybe I should start categorising the wind according to observations of its effect on cyclists – I could call it the Bernard Wind Scale.
It didn’t help that (a) I had no music, because I’d failed to charge my power pack and couldn’t risk my phone dying, and (b) for large chunks of the day Mr Blowhard had nothing to get in his way:

So it was just as well I set out well-fuelled, thanks to the only restaurant in Gournay with the business sense to open on a holiday/not holiday (it was packed). The waiter had described the lasagne, correctly, as ‘copieuse’, but I’m no quitter.

Team Bernard started the day in the département of Seine Maritime:

And finished it in another iconic river valley:

The parts of the route where I was less exposed to the wind posed other challenges. A car driver might have called them ‘undulating’:

This cyclist would call them something else. As you’ll see from the scale on the left, it was hardly the Alps, but I can confirm that effort was required, particularly in the second half of the day (the blue dot was me at lunchtime).

It wasn’t really a day for sightseeing. But the sight of a spire always lifted my spirits, albeit not for the reasons the Church might have intended. I would pedal enthusiastically towards it, motivated by the possibility of coffee, a loo, a nice shady bench, or at the very least something other than cereal crops to look at.

In the tiny village of Beaucamp le Jeune, this was a surprise:

As was the phone box in Aumale’s broad main street. If you squinted, it could have been a Cotswold market town

And I wondered whether West Kent know one of their buses is rusting in the tiny village of Mareuil-Caubert:

As for this: it was indeed the main street, but I nonetheless admired the self-importance that the name conveyed:

However I think my signe du jour was this one. I wasn’t quite sure what or who was banned on the lawn, or whether in fact the grass was carrying out an act of defiance merely by existing. Truly, it is the bane of the passing cyclist that we rarely learn the answers to such important questions.

Tonight I’m with with my second set of Warmshowers hosts. Maurice, Brigitte and Florine provided a warm welcome, a delicious vegetarian dinner and conversation ranging from bike touring (of course) to psychotherapy via Irish traditional music. Merci beaucoup!