Today was by far the most difficult day of riding. The rain was sporadic and light – so it wasn’t a problem. But the headwind was tremendously strong and unforgiving. I spent the entire afternoon pushing against the invisible obstacle…it was awful…yet funny…I mean, knowing that you have another 40km of headwind ahead of you, you have to find the funny side of it – otherwise you just start to go nuts. So I sang…I sang some Queen, some Sublime, some Toto…hehe…it helped…the cows heard me too.
At times, I was in my lowest ‘granny’ gear, on a long flat stretch, pushing into the wind at a whopping 8km/hr. Yup…that was fun…really fun…
I only covered 70km today, but it took me almost 6 hours instead of 4, and the effort that a good day of 120km would take.
But before that – I did have a nice morning. Yohann and I had an early start – fresh orange juice, baguette and jam and then set off. Yohann was keen to show me the Marais, a beautiful area of canals and nature. There were great bicycle tracks, and although wet, it was really fun cycling to start the day. This also highlights one of the great benefits of Couchsurfing…through meeting people I would never normally come in contact with, I am able to see places I would never normally visit.
Yohann treated me for lunch in a little restaurant where I was to try the local speciality – white beans with bread, garlic, and ham. Brilliant.
From there we parted ways and I continued into the wind – while he probably enjoyed a tailwind for his ride home.
Yohann was fantastic company and again it was great to spend some time with another cycle tourer and share stories.
Another plus for today was that I hit the 1000km mark for my trip! It should have felt better, but I hit 1000km on a long drab road, doing something like 8.6km/hr into a hurricane…so I stopped, took a picture, sang a little rendition of ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, and carried on.
This evening I am in La Rochelle hosted by another Couchsurfer. It’s nice here. I’m happy to have a chilled out evening to catch up on the blog, answer some emails and get some good rest. Tomorrow I will take the day off of the saddle in order to explore La Rochelle.
Oh yes…and the knee – the pain is gone. I think adjusting the seat height really did the trick.
Another beautiful day in France...
70km Bicycled Today
1030 to Date
2 Comments
well done dude !
I have checked the weather forecast ! rain of course but wind is From the West Northwest ! you will have a chance to compare rain+head wind and rain+tail wind !
hopefully you will have a chance to experience tail wind+sun one day ! for this you might need to travel in summer in the Loire valley
seb
Congratulations on 1000!!!