Wow – that was a long way.

A whisker short of a tyre-busting 3,000 miles! I hadn’t intended to but I completely circled France and tasted a bit of most of it. I missed the bottom and top left corners and thankfully didn’t stray too far into the middle.

In fact I don’t think I’ve included the run down to Folkestone via Heathrow on the day before I hit the Chunnel… so never mind about the whisker – 3,000+

DAY 1: Calais to Troyes

First French bit – great run on the Autoroutes and impressed by the stopping areas and services. Disaster strikes when I arrive at my Air BnB booking without connectivity. Almost book in to IBIS. Never actually meet host.

Discover that you can have too much calzone.

Adopt the correct road attitude.

DAY 2: Troyes to Chambery

More Autoroutes but ditched sat nav route for a run past Geneva and touching the bottom of the alps.

Lost my bloody glasses but found Maurice! Explored the historic city, bought some regulation straight bananas in the market and planned a hair-raising alpine pass ride to Italia.

Saw an infeasibly large TV and failed to get a slice of the triple layered chocolate cake that Maurice’s wife baked for work the next day before they set off around the World.

DAY 3: C to Susa

Maurice calls the cops and I run for the hills via the tunnel. Proper snow covered mountains and a scorching day in the Italian alps. Francesco shows me the town and record breaking pizzas.

Find an open pass back to France and forget about going to Turin.

 

DAY 4: Susa to Seranon

Border patrol – French security on high alert.

Skiers, more snow covered mountains, river-bottomed gorges, wobble-bottomed motorcycle maniacs and the twistiest roads – not a single Autoroute.

Accountants and whores; swayed by a local on a broken Triumph.

If I knew then what I know now I think I may have played here for longer before turning north again.

DAY 5: Seranon to Montpellier

More great twisties surprise me at the lower end of Route Napoleon but then get lost and have a rubbish ride to Pont du Gard. More rubbish riding to Montpellier and meaty disappointment for dinner. The bad-planning gremlin got me but I blame the Triumph guy.

DAY 6: Montpellier to Carcassonne

A day of two halves: brilliant ride out to the Millau bridge and for a bit after it; but then succumb to sat nav madness in a panic about it getting late. A late afternoon on unnecessary Autoroutes heading too far south! Soon regretting the wild dream of the Pyrenees and cold sweats when I realise how far north I have to go. That reminds me to book the train back.

DAY 7: Carcassonne to Bordeaux

Annoying day and a long mostly dull slog north; but I see the sea, find Jesus and relax without WIFI in a wholly French immersion experience.

Big flat France. Rubbish. Note to self – avoid next time.

Coffee served in a massive bowl.

 

DAY 8: Bordeaux to Alencon

Countryside flat and dull again but off the Autoroute for most of the way. Big long run just to get north really and open up the opportunity for some time at the top of France before having to return.

Host is racing at Le Mans and plan for the Normandy landing beaches and a very long route the next day.

I’m here to ride man.

DAY 9: Alencon to the Somme via Normandy

Woah – the longest run yet but oh boy so glad I made the effort.

Northern Edge plus Eastern Edge is what makes France worth popping in to. I will reserve judgement on the Southern edge once I’ve tried it properly.

Hosts are definitely swingers and Marcel enters the scene.

DAY 10: The Somme, more Somme and all the way Home

Marcel gives me a treat and the swingers make me a packed lunch before I set off on the longest journey of the whole trip: all the way home.

That was a Fantastic Voyage.

Marcel is a fan of the Great War: an attitude best expressed 100 years after the fact no doubt. He started off interested in the sequel and spending much more time where I was exploring the day before: but now he’s hooked on the original.

As you can see from his pic, he’s also a paramilitary fan of recreational drugs although he won’t rub your nose in them. I wont judge him, he’s from the Netherlands.

It all started when Marcel said he’d show me around Lochnagar crater: he has been a volunteer there for some years now restoring the place and killing rabbits (who are damaging the crater through their audacious habits of living , digging and procreating – which just makes things worse) with a small knife he keeps in his hat.

The crater is left over from Mine Warfare – a cheeky tactic developed here in the Somme campaign whereby one silently tunnels deep under one’s enemy’s fortified position to create a cave. Fill this cave with over twenty tonnes of explosives and blow the shit out of your unsuspecting victims before sending your troops over the edge to occupy the smoking crater. A hollow victory when it works well but it is quickly apparent that any victory in this battle needs to be cherished. It does go wrong though – as we will see in a bit.

Lochnagar is where one of 19 – or rather 18 as you will read later – huge mines were set to go off at exactly 7:30 am on the  1st of June 1916: ending a week of continuous (literally continuous day and night without stopping) heavy artillery bombardment of the entire patch (a softening up tactic) and signalling the infantry attack. Whistles blew and over the top went thousands.

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There’s only three of these mine craters left. After the war the poor bastards that came back to the pile of muddy rocks that used to be their family homes returned to farming. Huge holes tend to get in the way of your spuds so they all got filled in. This crater was spotted all overgrown by a Brit called Richard Denning and to protect what he thought might be the only one left he bought the land off the farmer and set about clearing and preserving it – hence the volunteering work that Marcel (and my hosts) were involved with. Here it lies – free to visit, although sneaky local coach tour operators charge to show it off. This is what 25 tonnes of explosive does (seen 100 years later).

Then we’re off and whilst Marcel is an excellent tale-teller of what went on around these parts he’s the shittiest driver I’ve ever had the misfortune to travel with. Perhaps he’s hoping to get rabbits but actually I think it’s more by luck than judgement that he sticks to the road and we do not become just another statistic in the carnage that took place here. I have to assume that the road from his house to the B&B was built by the Romans who at that time had not invented the lateral displacement speed restriction – or “bend” if you’re not a transport planner.

Another astonishing innovation of the British Army back then was to build their regiments based on where the soldiers were recruited from – so all the volunteers from a town in say, Devonshire, all went into the same happy band to fight alongside their mates and would then be called the Devonshires, for example.

Whilst this was OK up to a point with all pals together and that – there was a downside.

Our next point of call was the Devonshires’ cemetery. Where at a rough count at least 150 men were buried at the place where they exited their trench and carried out their orders:  to take the fortified German trenches up on the top of the hill in front of them at Marmetz, just past the machine gun post. Eventually the British Army won that one, but Exeter lost significantly.

We practically drove into the foyer of the Somme museum before ending up in a preserved trench that the Canadian government had the forethought to buy and preserve at the site where they suffered even more than the Devonshires. The pics below show what’s left of the trenches and loads of holes left over from the shelling – remember this is 100 years later. It was close to here that the Hawthorn Ridge crater was within sight.

I say sight – it is completely overgrown and just looks like a little wood on a rise amongst a bunch of fields. There is a famous film (silent) – shot for propaganda purposes – of the preparations for and launch of the Battle and it was shot here. 25:30 into the film and it announces the morning of the Battle. A minute or so later there’s footage of soldiers waiting around in the trench before the battle – this is “sunken road” and Marcel smashed into this place where we stumbled out of his car and looked around (see Marcel in sunken road below) and up on to the ridge above us where the wood is, where once stood the Hawthorn Ridge redoubt (the woods up the hill in the pic – that’s what the soldiers had to get to).

28:05 shows the mine going off – 18 tonnes of explosive. It went off at 7:20 am – ten minutes early. This provided a handy hint to the Germans that an attack was imminent and so just in case they set up along the edge of the smoking crater with machine guns. Ten minutes later whistles blew and yes, you guessed it.

We just have time to walk up the hill and into the woods where finally we can see that there is a crater like Lochnagar hidden in there – wow!

Then we go field walking  – across a mud field that has been prepared for sowing but not yet ploughed. It has not rained for a bit as you can see but Marcel says when it’s wet it sticks to everything and just builds up on your boots. The Somme mud.

This is a field that has been ploughed over a couple of times a year at least for a hundred years and after all that you can just walk over it and it is scattered with bits of metal designed to shred the poor bastards that found themselves here. It’s everywhere and it just shows how intense and prolonged the shelling was. Fat lumps of shell casings, bullets, lead shrapnel balls. This is a pic of the soil in the field and pretty much in the centre (slightly to the right) is one of the shrapnel balls looking out at you like little grey marble-sized  eyeball. Three hundred of these in an explosive shell. Holy shit.

Marcel found three vertebrae here a couple days before. He has ten hand grenades at home – he uses a hire car when he visits. The farmers still push the unexploded shells to the side of the field and if they turn up any significant proportion of a body (like 50% or something) then everything stops and the war graves people come out and take care of things.

This place is just astonishing.

Marcel “drives” me back to the B&B and have to shoot straight off – I have to say field walking is addictive and Marcel had to drag me away.

It’s an hour and a half now to Calais tunnel where they insist I take my sunglasses off (not my helmet) at the passport check – then I’m directed to a waiting pen. Here I find the four amateurs from Carcassonne heading home! They are of Eastern European origin (as you can tell from their nonchalant – almost layabout – demeanour; no doubt heading back to finish the building jobs their clients are waiting on.

Then before you know it I’m back on British soil and driving on bumpy crowded and bad tempered roads again. Another long slog back north now but at least I can look forward to a delicious French packed lunch that my hosts prepared for me before I left! Delicious.

Folkestone to Nottingham seemed about the longest leg of the journey.

Well this was gonna be a long drive – motorway run to get to the beaches as soon as I could then the coast roads and time to look around… and I am soooo glad I took this detour!

In all honesty the scale of what went on here is absolutely overwhelming.

The above is not one of my own creation but I like it – sounds a little bit Dick Emery. I wasn’t really sure what to expect but the whole coastline is fascinating and filled with incredible stuff:

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That pill box was a piece of work and whilst I was nosing around some yanks came through with a guide: this place is massive for the yanks and to be fair, they did come over and win the war for us.

The guide was explaining how a shell from a boat about a 1,000 feet out came in straight through the front slit – you can see where it clipped to top edge. It ripped though the gun surround (you can see the hole from the inside pic), it ricocheted  of the inside wall and blasted out the back door tearing a great lump out of the back as it did so (you can see that too!). Until that point it was being attacked by the boys on the beach and it’s riddled with bullet holes.

These pics are all from Omaha Beach, I’m hungry and I want to do a wee blog from this place so L’Omaha diner with it’s Moules Moulinaire on the specials board and free WIFI yells at me. I double check the WIFI availability with the waitress and sit down reassured that I’m gonna have one of my favourite dishes and get on line.

Cheating bastards – I hope the WIFI was better quality when our fine boys landed here and fought up the beach or they’d be really pissed off. The signal was weaker than a milky cup of tea down the bowls club. And the mussels were distinctly sub-standard.

My only consolation was sitting on the next table to a yank couple who were visibly terrified at being in a country that didn’t speak American.

Off up the road and I’m confronted by the Overlord Museum. I didn’t even know it was here and as I got up to it I could see the car park was almost empty – I had to go in, to hell with the time.

For the first time ever I was excited when I got the gift shop at the end! Overlord Museum carrier bag bulging – I stuff it in my rucksack and I check the time. OMG I have got bloody miles to go! Inspired I set off in a liberating mood.

It’s a right long slog but two highlights being the bridge over the Seine (these French seem to have got pretty good at bridges) at Le Havre and – now you have to pay attention to this – the flash of a French speed camera a few miles from my B&B in the middle of the Somme Battlefield.

One significant advantage of riding a motorcycle is that if you’re heading towards the speed camera when it flashes at you then you can just think to yourself “Fuck you, my number plates on the back!” and “So long sucker!”.

My final station stop turns out to be more homely than any of the other stops: my new hosts are really welcoming and it really was like being invited into their own home. It was their own home – it did cross my mind that they were swingers. They could be.

David was delighted I was riding a Kawasaki and not a BMW GS Mobility Scooter like every other British touring biker and his wife Julie cooked up a four course dinner that was absolutely delicious and they joined me and the other guests – a couple Trevor and his wife (who was not well) and Marcel form the Netherlands (who turned out to be a hero) – at the dinner table and poured copious and delicious wines whilst we all debated Brexit; the engineering, infrastructure and skills decline of Britannia; crazy rules of the road in France and the rip off that is the two breathalyser sticks we all buy to go there (but don’t bloody need); Trump; trumping; Airfix models; magic mushrooms (courtesy of Marcel from the Netherlands) and eating the cheese course before the sweet.

Everyone present, except me as it turns out, is an expert on the Battle of the Somme and that’s why thy’re all here. We couldn’t be closer to the heart of what went on: the German font line trench ran through the garden. One place I was aware of was literally around the corner – the Lachnagar Crater.

As a set up for my next blog and my last day in France, Marcel offers to show me around and find a place to go “field walking” – no not a mushroom hunt. That night I reschedule my Chunnel crossing to 14:30 to give me time to find out from Marcel what it’s all about.

 

Heading north up the left hand side of France is not really filled with thrills and spills. My penultimate resting point is just outside Alencon just up the road from Le Mans.

I spilt the route between motorway and smaller road and whilst it was pleasant there are really no highlights beyond almost peeing myself because I waited too long to stop.

Finding this place was also a challenge – fortunately I had tried to put the address into my sat nav that morning for just such an emergency but the address could not be found – I ended up finding it on google maps and using the northings and eastings as coordinates. I knew I was close but I ended up at the mouth of a narrow track near some houses and not wanting to get stuck in anything tricky on my two wheels I stopped and got off to check my bearings. Two yokels who hadn’t seen motorised vehicles before came gawping and I asked them about the place I was looking for.

Whilst they both agreed that they know where they currently resided neither recognised the B&B. Then, in a flash of inspiration one of them murmured and gesticulated up that very track. Both became excited and I took from this that it would be a good idea to get away from them and try the track.

Sure enough, as I rounded the bend the whole family were stood outside waving at me. Again – not a word of Ingerlish between them: I don’t know what they’re playing at.

I think I had more French than they had English but we still communicated astoundingly well. God really did a rubbish job when he destroyed the Tower of Babel: waste of time if you ask me. The B&B was – yet again – beautiful, a converted stable or something and the chap asked me in a combined mime and speak action whether I was here for the racing> I guessed he meant Le Mans and I discovered that this coming weekend was the Le Mons motorcycle racing! He beckoned me into a second shed and sitting in there was a 600cc bike that he was racing there!

 

 

 

 

 

We agreed a breakfast time and with an excellent WIFI I could not only do a little blogging but I could look at the journey for tomorrow: the last tour day before heading for Calais.

Then I spot, just above Caen (look at the bleeding map) that there’s Normandy: the D-Day landing beaches, Utah, Omaha, Oklahoma – no that last one is a musical. It’s a fairly massive detour but what the heck – I’m here to ride! You will now remember the prior warning I sent.

Brekkie was a tasty affair but snaffling anything but jam was simply not feasible. The whole family came out again to see me off.

We’re up to the 11th April now and the Carcassonne morning is cold, grey, cloudy and with a misty rain in the air. It doesn’t help my mood especially when I see the poor snaffling environment of the breakfast room. I force myself to eat Frosties with yoghurt before loading up, wrapping up and hitting the motorway that I’d travelled in the opposite direction in yesterday.

Past Toulouse and I’m in new territory again heading for Bordeaux and the sun’s come back out – looks like it might be another scorcher. It is pretty uninteresting so nothing for the helmet cam. To make up for that here’s a couple of clips from yesterday’s run: one and two – and here’s a flash back to where I emerged form the tunnel in the Alps into (and I think you’ll agree) a rather tired looking Italian road. The Alps remain fresh as ever.

Just before Bordeaux I stop to get the “map” out – well the atlas anyway. Here I decide I simply have to break off and see some smaller roads and I spot the west coast roads just south of La Rochelle – I could have a play around there before heading inland due east to the little place I was staying that night: Saint-Hilaire-de-Villefranche. It is on this exploration that I practically ran into Jesus himself.

 

And for anyone thinking it might be interesting to drive through the Bordeaux region then just put your bleeding foot down – there aren’t any bends and the there’s only grapes and that.

Well I must say that the B&B I have booked is amongst the Frenchiest yet. No one there can speak any Ingerlish and so my cunning lingual skills are really put to the test.

The place is lovely and they’re very friendly with the longest WIFI code imaginable. WIFI is an important element of my choice of accommodation because not only do I need to undertake meticulous planning but my blogs require the hook up. So I am initially dismayed and with a distinct feeling of being cheated when the connectivity from within my suite of rooms – for it is so – is non-existent. I try in vain and it is getting late and I just don’t feel like the translation battle it will inevitably become to raise the issue with my host. Instead I settle down to blog offline with the intention (as it turned out a well placed and successful intention) to upload it quickly in the morning from the front garden where the signal was so strong earlier.

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It made for a relaxing evening and I was also reassured by the fact that I have booked ahead this time. I knew where I needed to be the following night already and in the morning I will decide my route, including my off-pistes.

It made for a good night’s sleep – not least because one of the reviews for this place raved about the breakfast: I must take a bag with me in the morning.

Waiting for me on the breakfast table was a large bowl – a good sign I thought, obviously a multiple-coursed breakfast. I accepted the offer of coffee at which point it was poured into my bloody bowl – apparently this French breed slurp their coffee from large bowls. Now of course a large Americano in Starbucks comes in a bathtub-sized container that at least has a handle – even if it’s too heavy to lift. I mime picking it up with my hands and drinking from it directly to my elderly host and he encourages me to do so – no need for a straw.

He’s old but he keeps his eyes on me: I eat as much as I can but there’s no way he’s letting me snaffle any of the bread or freshly made “white cake” –  a kind of dense cake loaf thing… not bad when dipped in my vat of coffee.

Two other guests sit with me – neither can be bothered to speak English so I engage them with my extensive vocabulary of French mimes: which I think they liked. The guy opposite me is part way through some kind of enormous stroll. He has a card with him that our host stamps with something that certifies him as an idiot and he tells me he’s already been through Susa in Italy (you’ll remember that’s Francesco’s gig)! He’ll also be covering some of Spain. He’s out for a few months apparently. God – why would he come this way? It was dull enough driving through this part of the country at 100 mph what the heck’s he gonna do on those two doddering plates of meat?

After breakfast I am able to sit in the sunny garden and upload a blog update then I’m off again heading up past Le Mans close to Alencon for my penultimate stop.

 

Another superb food snaffling session fills my lunch bag with treats and meats; the French Riviera sun is beating down from another cloudless sky and I’m packed up and ready to navigate Montpellier to find DocBiker pour le chien and then cross country (no motorways!) to Millau viaduct.

My plan was to use no sat nav and my little post it notes made me proud to arrive outside Doc Biker without a wrong turn! Typical French mechanics can’t speak English but I nevertheless made my requirements abundantly clear suing impeccable French. They did not have what I needed. As it turns out I visit three bike shops during my tour and none of them have oil for an automatic chain oiler like what I have. The chain stays dry. It will have to cope.

Au revoir to the kind Doctor (actually I don’t think he was a real doctor) and I head off north through the city (which looks quite nice actually) to find the D65, D986 and then the funky road that would take me all the way the wonderful D999!

And this was a great drive – but it went up a level when I entered the green patch – the maps helpfully label France with these green bits to show the most interesting places. I got especially  excited on the off piste section I planned that took me north through La Roque to ensure I entered Millau from a good angle to see the bridge I was after.

This place was nestled in a brilliant gorge and it presented a beautiful picnic spot under a bridge by a wide clear stream (the thing responsible I suspect for the gorge in the first place).

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And here’s some helmet footage of the arrival into La Roque and spotting this place.

Whilst basking in this place I was joined by a fly fisherman who you will spot in one of the stills above if you look really closely. He comes here for trout and to escape his English wife who was born in  Rochford, Essex. At first he claimed she died there but after he mimed childbirth I corrected him. Silly man.

After my snaffled lunch I hit the lovely road again towards Millau and before long I was astounded to see the damn thing. Geese it’s enormous.

 

The pics and film are taken from a spot right below the bridge where the French have built its very own visitors centre. It opens later in April according to the sign but that didn’t stop half a dozen disappointed souls turning up to go in and then slinking off again.

One couple from Belgium with whom I had a delightful Brexit conversation with that strayed even to the Trump-Farrage combo we delighted in seeing after the event, had travelled 1000km from where they were staying on holiday to visit the centre. It wasn’t open and as as they say in their part of the world, “Da Rulsh are da rulsh” so they shrugged went off to see if they could find a way up onto the bridge. I though about doing that but time was getting on and I knew I had a fair old run to make before it started getting dark – remember I now only have a pair of sunglasses with the lenses that help me see – Carcassonne was my next station stop. And it was still a long way away.

I planned to stay within the green for as long as possible and work my way south and west to Castres, then due south to Carcassonne. Unfortunately I got carried away on the top section and before I knew it I was almost in Albi, knackered and worried about how long things were going to take. Here the bad planing gremlin caught me by surprise and I turned on my sat nav looking for the place I was going to sleep that night.

Blast – it, I should have got a proper map out and in future I always will. But that little plastic bastard took me this way and I just followed it. Never again.

Later that evening, when I realised the route I’d sat on bored for hours when the direct route south from Albi would have taken no longer and been infinitely more entertaining I was really cross with myself again (like the Cannes/Nice affair).

What really got me annoyed however was realising that in listening to the idiot with the Triumph I’ve ended up at a place in France that couldn’t really be much further away from Calais and I only had 3 days to get back up there! Tomorrow will be the 11th and I needed to be on the train early on the 14th to make it home in good time – I needed to be able to pick up my long lost wife and kids at Heathrow at 7am on the 15th awake and in a car.

The Pyrenees were so close and yet might as well have been in Australia – I simply did not have the time to see them if I want to avoid a gruelling 8 hour + motorway run to get me back north. Oh yes – and I still needed to book the train back!

That bad planning gremlin had made me spend hours getting south that I would now need to re-trace! Bugger. On top of that I am now about to stray off the proper road maps and rely on the Big Atlas. Planning just got low res.

Booking.com helps me find two places that will correct my overshoot – one just north of Bordeaux and the other just north of Le Mans near Alencon. From there a B&B an hour and a half away from Calais that I had contacted last year in early planning was reachable and yes – they had a space and offered a tantalising four-course dinner with a proper Full English! Oh yeah. That place was in the heart of WWI Somme territories and next door to Lochnagar crater. I reckoned I’d just have time to see it before heading off to Calais. I also book my train for 12:30 to ensure I can make the sights and get back to Blighty with plenty of travel time.

So for the nights of the 11th, 12th and 13th my plans looked like this with a mix of motorway and off pistes:

Note that this will mean I’d have completed an almost total circumnavigation of France!

I was not looking forward to retracing my motorway steps back up past Toulouse tomorrow and missing out of the Pyrenees but I had to cover the ground. Gritted teeth and Normandy spirit needed again. Ironically Normandy (or as the French say incorrectly “Normandie”) will come into the story – as those readers with an eye for detail will already have noticed.

As I prepared to have an early night I heard four roaring motorcycles blast through into the car park below… amateurs I thought.

With only a few guests and a fairly decent albeit “continental” breakfast spread there was good snaffle opportunities and I made a very delicious looking meat and cheese baguette with accompanying pastries for my lunch break.

Believe it or not today is the 9th April my fifth day – I’m half way on the run and need to be back on the train at Calais on the 14th: which reminds me I need to book it. But that can wait for today I have a mammoth route planned – back up to Castellane via the super-twisties then across country to visit the Roman Pont du Gard before retiring to Nimes. Wait – just check that booking confirmation and… YES – it booked for the 29th April. Oh shit.

I need to find a new place to sleep tonight and given that fateful conversation with the French idiot with the Triumph the further South the better – all the better to be near those lovely Pyrenees. It takes ages but I find the perfect stop just outside Montpellier which is a mere stepping stone to the Millau bridge and I also find a good spot to to rest over in Carcassonne – which if you remember were both on my list of possible goals: and Carcassonne is a stone’s throw from the Pyrenees!

The trouble is, the time that it’s taken to rearrange my sleeping arrangements and the further away that bed now is, the funky route I’d spent so long planning is looking way too long now! I need to re-route.

Well, the rest of the Route Napoleon would take me gently down now to Cannes/Nice where I could blast a motorway route through to Nimes from which the Pont du Gard was a teeny skip.

Now, prepare yourself for a shit sandwich:

• To my absolute delight, the bottom end of Route Napoleon has some pretty exciting bits still left- clip1
• It took me into the outskirts of Cannes and between Cannes and Nice I get hopelessly lost. It takes me ages to extricate my self from this and get onto the motorway heading in the right direction – by which time I work out that this now dull route will take about as long as my super-exciting initial route.
• The Pont du Gard was lovely and typically Romanly impressive.

Getting to and from the Pont involved the first significant roadworks I’d seen so far and they reminded a bit of the roads at home – and as if that wasn’t bad enough I still had a trek on the motorway to get to Montpellier and I could also hear that my drive chain was getting a bit dry – I like to keep it well oiled.

I was still annoyed with myself for mis-booking and messing up my route earlier in the day: it had cost me a lot of time and meant I’d had a day of mostly really rubbish and uninteresting riding (Nappy excepted).

It was a long and very hot journey that day and I was fairly shattered by the time I crashed in my room at Montpellier. My host suggested two food choices – an Italian with a complimentary starter if I had his card or a meat-
based grill place. Well I wasn’t stupid – I’m not falling for the “free starter” trick – so I went to get meat at the Buffalo Grill.

OMG it was disgusting. The Italian must be running a double bluff.

I got back to my room in time to plan a superb route to the Millau bridge AND plot it via Doc’Biker in Montpellier where I felt sure I could procure some lubrifient pour le chein – automatique. Oh yeah, how do you like me now.

A long day, a very comfy bed and an exciting day of riding planned with an oily chain made for a very good nights sleep.