Vaas to Angers 105km

I made it! I made up my lost kilometres and am back on schedule. 105km. 🤛

I left early knowing it would be a long day. There was quite a bit of cloud cover and the odd sprinkle which was a welcome relief after being so sunburnt. I rode mostly through farmland scattered with beautiful small French villages and a smattering of Chateau! The riding was on quiet roads and dedicated cycle paths until the last 15km which became extremely busy!

I found it quite difficult riding through Angers as it was very busy and there was a lot of construction works which made some of the navigation difficult. As I rode through, the temperature said 37 degrees!  The earlier cloud cover had burnt off and it was a scorcher! 

As before, I used my data and stuck with Google maps as she talks to me and I don’t have to constantly stop to check the map. She did take me down a street with just tram tracks, however other cyclists were riding parallel to the tracks without concern. This freaked me out as I’m not very steady on the bike with so much weight on it and I often wobble and could see myself riding into the tracks and ending up on the ground. I did ride parallel to the tracks for a while but in the end, decided the footpath was a better option.

I chose a campground on the south of Angers to make my exit easier on Sunday. I had thought Bastille day was tomorrow but got my dates mixed up and realise it is Sunday. Let’s hope there is food where I’m going. Anyway, the campground is the same one I stayed at in 2010! It’s improved substantially since then but the bathrooms are still terrible! However, there is organic food and organic wine by way of a ‘food cart’. The campground is on the Loire Velo route and there a quite a few cyclists which is nice. 

I realise I’ve left my Australian adapter in the last campground in my haste to make an earlier exit and get some charge in the phone before I left. So frustrated. I’ll try and get something tomorrow at the supermarket. Until then, another cyclist has lent me his Aldi equivalent.

I have a rest day planned for tomorrow. I need to do my washing, give myself and the bike some much needed attention, and find another charger! 

Vendome to Vaas 80km

So I tried to make up for lost time today. It didn’t work!  I had a headwind the whole way and I’m completely shattered. I hope to make it to Angers tomorrow but I’m not sure I can. That will be another big day.  

I want to try and stick to my timeline if I can because I need a rest day and I need that rest day after one more riding day so I will see how that goes. Generally I aim for four days on, one day off the bike. 

The riding today was quite lovely with some rolling hills and some flats and I actually didn’t get misplaced. I spent the time looking at my maps making sure I was on track. I’m so glad I have my Sim card in my phone because I have used that frequently to find out where I am and where I’m trying to get to. 

I still haven’t managed to get better sun screen and I continue to burn. Hopefully tomorrow when I’m in a bigger town. 

Chateaudun to Vendome 65km

It was a lovely day riding but I was exhausted from my flight and a very big first day on the bike. I only managed 65km and decided to stop in Vendome rather than push on the extra 20km to my intended destination. 

A couple of times today I followed the EuroVelo route and that made me come unstuck . I got lost twice, once only briefly but the second time, quite misplaced and ended up turning around to try and find the correct route which I eventually did. Good thing is I didn’t have someone else cursing at me!   This all meant more kilometres than intended and I just didn’t have the energy to push on for another hour. 

The gypsies are no longer here in Vendome although I was hassled by a couple of guys on a scooter as I came into town. No harm done but gives you a bad feeling. 

A visit to SFR advised me that my SIM card is locked and the PIN is on the plastic case that you pop the card out of, which I no longer have. Looks like 40 euro down the drain. I’ve sent a message to Elodie to see if she has any advice. 

The campground and town has changed quite a bit since 2006 with a lot of car free space. This makes it very nice to move around.

What a day! Paris-Chartres (train) - Chartres-Chateaudun 105km

I was awake early in anticipation of what the day held. After many trips up and down 70 stairs, I had relocated my baggage to reception to be packed onto the bike. I had a good breakfast and a few too many coffees to get me on the road. The Hotel de la Porte Doree was amazing. So helpful throughout my stay and storing my bike box until I return. Thanks Freewheeling France for the tip!👍

Despite my recon yesterday, my offline maps and google maps let me down. Perhaps it was the operator but I was hopelessly lost! I didn’t care other than catching the train I had booked but I was cycling a little faster than I normally would. I went with my gut and eventually found my way albeit many more kilometres than necessary. I arrived at Montparnasse only to find the elevator that was working perfectly yesterday, now out of order. 😩My first escalator was a disaster. I couldn’t hold the bike so we were both laying on the steps. More bruises! 😳Second escalator a nice French man provided assistance and I stayed upright! Phew!

I only had ten minutes to spare to validate my ticket and find the right carriage! 

Good thing I’ve done this before! The train trip was uneventful until I arrived in Chartres and realised I was going to have to unpack the bike and ferry my gear up and down multiple stair cases! Along comes ‘arsehole’ who picks up my pannier that I’d ferried to the second set of stairs. I yelled! He stopped! Mumbled something that I didn’t care about! Eventually someone from SNCF came to help. I assume they were having a laugh watching all this unfold when they realised this shit was real! 

I wanted to revisit the Chartres cathedral and light a candle for my trip so I walked the few hundred metres uphill to be greeted by an elderly local couple who lived in the town and had been to Australia. They wanted to tell me about cycling the Camino St Jacques. How does this happen? Out of nowhere a memory that I share! I guess this will happen for the rest of my life! A daunting feeling. 

I was confident I knew the way out of town because my internal compass is pretty good. I used google maps to be sure and that worked fine. The cycling was beautiful. Quiet country roads shared with tractors harvesting the wheat. It was hotter than I expected and I found myself quite sunburnt at the end of the day having underestimated the midday heat. 

I found my way to Chateaudun without any trouble. The day was much longer than anticipated and was made longer by a walk along a chemin that was a short cut to the supermarket. It wasn’t a chemin! I returned to the campground the get the bike to take the longer but more practical route. In my haste to get back to the campground to eat, I somehow left the only protein I had purchased in the basket at the supermarket so dinner was potatoes, cheese, nuts and tomato and of course a nice French red to wash it down with. I was quite dehydrated after such a long day so consumed a lot of water as well. 

A lovely Flemish couple in the campground provided me with some medical assistance to dress the blister on my hand. It is quite irritated from such a long day on the bike and I have another long one today. 

I need to do a couple of adjustments to the bike, my rear panniers are not holding on to the rack strongly enough at the bottom so I need to fix this as it is annoying hearing them rattle around! My speedo is also not working so I need to fix that! 

Day one done and dusted albeit a little worse for wear! 

Paris by bike....

My recon trip to Gare Montparnasse required an across Paris cycle. I tested the Maps.me offline app and it was great but did chew up most of my phone battery.

Paris by bike is crazy! Dodging buses, taxis, pedestrians and anything else that jumps in front of you. My heart was pounding! I did eventually manage to get my train ticket for tomorrow so it was a successful trip!

I’m in Paris!

The long haul flight was exactly that, a long haul. They are always rough but without them, it’s impossible to experience all that this world has on offer.

I arrived at CDG in Paris to the longest immigration line I have ever seen in the last 10 years. I couldn't quite work out if something had occurred to create such a long line but it didn't matter. I couldn't change it. 

I eventually found my bike box, albeit a little worse for wear and my other luggage without too much trouble. I also found my vehicle transfer after being in the wrong location but the driver was very understanding. 

I arrived at my accommodation for the next two nights, Hotel de la Porte Doree, close to the Bois de Vincennes. The lovely young lady on Reception, Lucile, is a delight and I've had a coffe and piece of fruit while I wait for my room to be ready. After a much needed shower and some well deserved food, I put the bike together quite easily. The only hard bit was pumping up the tyres, injury number one. 

Afterwards I discovered a track pump at the hotel. Sigh! 

I was so exhausted that I decided not to test ride the bike today but wait until tomorrow. Riding on Paris streets even with bike lanes can be challenging let alone when you are sleep deprived.

My room is clean and tidy and the staff are very friendly. I will report back on the GF breakfast tomorrow morning. I have a lot to do tomorrow such as food, fuel, water, SIM 
card, etc. Until then......

Bonne nuit!

The jigsaw puzzle of packing....

It’s always a challenge when travelling with a bike to get everything packed and remain within your baggage allowance. In the past, I’ve perfected the weight limit but that was travelling with a tandem which weighs less than two individual bikes. This time it’s a little tougher trying to get everything under 30kg of check-in and 7kg of carry-on with a solo steel framed bike.

With a lot of help from beautiful friends, I’m almost there! I’m on the cusp of the weight limit and am a little worried that I may have to pay for a little excess baggage. I’ve only ever done this in Australia on a domestic flight and never travelling internationally. The only excess is my cycling shoes following my decision to go with cleats to protect my dodgy right foot. Cycling shoes balance the pressure across my entire foot and not just the ball of my foot. I really like the toeclips and sandshoes option apart from the hot spot on the ball of my foot. I definitely will be using sandshoes and the flat side of my pedals for supermarket trips and ‘non-riding’ days.

So statistics are (before I get to the airport to re-weigh on their non-calibrated scales):
Bike box: 24.5kg
Check in bag: 5.5kg
Carry on bag: 6.5kg
Backpack (AKA handbag): weighs nothing of course. ;-)