3 punctures, all in different places so not the rim or anything, just bad luck.
I gained a travel companion en route to Paris. We both camped near Dieppe the first night, then we both stayed at the Cyclist Halte in Dampierre-en-bray, so we decided to travel together. It was really nice having a companion for the first half of the trip. They are 64 and have done a lot tours and taught me lots of neat tricks and how people toured before GPS, which saved me a lot of battery in the end. They were using a Brompton folding bike as they came over from Canada (see pictures)
After Paris, I got the train to Calais and cycled the Euro Velo 4 route along the coast back to Paris. I didn’t know the fast trains require bike bags, I thought there were lots of options to get to Calais, but in the end it was one of two regional trains that you can just walk bikes onto, and I had just missed the early one, so got to Calais to late to ride that day. The next day was rainy, and I did my 50 mile quota plus about 30 more to make up for losing time the day before. However the next day was gale strength head winds, I tried my hardest to get to Dieppe so I could make the ferry in the morning, but I just ran out of energy 30 miles short, and had to give in. I booked a ferry for the following day instead and took the last 30 miles at a relaxing pace to recoup.
My rear brake was broken. It failed going down a few hills and I had to foot brake to stop. I could temporarily fix it, but it would stop working again after a while, and I had to keep fiddling with it before going down a big hill. Need to get it fixed at a shop before any more tours.
Arriving in Dieppe:
A view of Normandy on the Avenue Verte:
Gisors:
Camping in Dangu:
Travel companions:
Some cool wall art:
A coastal town view:
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Three flats is kinda crazy with these tires though, that seems really unlucky.
Did you loose money on rebooking the ferry? Anyway, good call, headwind can really suck the life out of you. And the stress of a strict timetable too, good that you still could stay flexible.
The photos look really great, it is an area that i have never really been to. Need to go at some point. Also so cool that you met the travel companion right at the start.
Thanks for sharing!
Love the dangle coke :)
I did, but its only £38 to book same day for that one so not a huge loss all things considered. I recommend visiting, france is great to cycle. The coke was my portable ashtray, wasnt taking any more chances on getting fined 😅
Mind you sharing some tips for riding without GPS.
We have pretty extensive network of bike routes so I used to write the numbers down on paper (start on 404 -> in “town” turn to 5065 -> …) like rally instructions. But with maps even paper ones it is much easier to navigate.
Thank you. Im not used to routes being well signposted where I am outside of the city but france seem to do a great job of it. And theres always copies of the local bike routes at the main tourism offices in town. I think I will avoid gps as much as I can get away in the future, it was really nice not to worry about battdry management
I thought this was the bike going rouge around Europe by itself
