FNRttC The Fridays tour 2014

[Agent Hilda]

Am jealous, unbelievably jealous, you know how I love a bit of hail and rain in France.

Going over old ground is one of my real skills, I love it when you slog up a character building hill, get the top all hot and sweaty, and then the boss makes you turn around and go back down again because he 'just wanted to see where it went' or ' thought it might be a shortcut' or ' liked the look of it'.

Another one of my real strengths is laughing hysterically when the maps come out and Gordon says 'perhaps we should have gone down here Simon' pointing at some horrendous precipistic hill (I know that's not a real word but its the best I can think of this am)

I think recce rides are totes amazeballs and the best and thank you for your reports, they are so much better than actual working in my office.

I wish I was there with you but you would find me a bit annoying.

Love as ever your faithful servant Agent H xxxx

 

[dellzeqq]

Within the bounds of propriety, I'm struggling to think how they could abuse the hair dryer.
Please don't enlighten me.

.

don't play the innocent with me, young Andrew. MaccyDs, six in the morning, somewhere east of Morecambe. I'm told the hand dryers have been in therapy ever since.

 

[redfalo]

that was the morning when I was desperately trying to buy new (i.e. dry) socks in this Morecambe shopping mall. unsuccessfully, I may have to add. Since that notorious night, I'm always carrying spare socks, that came to @AKA Bob 's delight on last year's York to Hull expedition ...

thanks for the updates from France, and keep up the good work!

 

[Andrew Br]

don't play the innocent with me, young Andrew. MaccyDs, six in the morning, somewhere east of Morecambe. I'm told the hand dryers have been in therapy ever since.

You've broken the golden rule there DZ; what happens on the ride stays on the ride.

.

 

[mmmmartin]

Totes amazeballs day.
For a couple of hours we saw more birds of prey than cars.

Brilliant day from a routefinding point of view. Headwind still with us. Found a lunch place that will do 24 cyclists, €12 for a warm goats cheese salad with lardons then fillet mignon and chips plus a small pichet of red wine. She is ok with coping with us.
The nav problem is obviously going to be getting in and out of cities but we think we have found ways using the cycle paths by rivers. One coming in to Angers was an absolute utter horrendous disaster with thick slippy slimy ghastly mud and we had to walk before giving up and using a busy road but then after only a few hundred yards we found an old road bypassed by the busy new dual carriageway and followed it straight into the centre on deserted roads, so a result there.
Today was similar to Suffolk, and we think we'll follow the river when we need to avoid hills and leave the river when it gets too windy and use the roads.
As for morning coffee we think Friendly Van Driver can carry pastries and we'll stop for a break mid morning.
Weather better, only rained on several times, only hail twice. Wore the bright yellow Rainlegs.
Comments were passed. This is becoming more like Last of the Summer Wine every day.
PS There was a lot of underwear stuffed into the gutter under Alex & Richie's room at the first hotel. Before they arrived, obvs. Just sayin'.
PS I fell in a ditch. It was funny. I'm told.

 

[srw]

I see we didn't manage to find a decent way in to Angers either.
http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=1&page_id=172246&v=54

And re-reading that tells me that the town that was shut on a Sunday wasn't, as I thought on the way home last week, Perpignan, but Angers.

 

[dellzeqq]

Totes amazeballs day.

crikey! He's gone blonde!

 

[dellzeqq]

And re-reading that tells me that the town that was shut on a Sunday wasn't, as I thought on the way home last week, Perpignan, but Angers.

The map is an extraordinary palimpsest to tell you where you have been, where you are at this present moment, and where you could be, and even in subjective tenses, where you might have been, where you could have been.

 

[mmmmartin]

Cloudless sky. Slept very well. (Calvados helps.) To get out of Angers easily, I have A Cunning Plan.....

 

[srw]

Reading back, I see that getting out of Angers was easy!

 

[mmmmartin]

@srw Excellent link, very helpful. I was going to try to cross the middle of that lake. Now we'll turn right and follow the tarmac.

PS At Pompey on the way out, at the ferry port we approached the booth holding passports and tickets and I said to the lady: "What would you like?" She replied in English with a strong French accent: "A BMW and a house with a swimming pool." It's been that kind of trip.

 

[AlexB]

@srw Excellent link, very helpful. I was going to try to cross the middle of that lake. Now we'll turn right and follow the tarmac.

PS At Pompey on the way out, at the ferry port we approached the booth holding passports and tickets and I said to the lady: "What would you like?" She replied in English with a strong French accent: "A BMW and a house with a swimming pool." It's been that kind of trip.

Pssst. She was Romanian.

 

[mmmmartin]

An interesting day, marked by a quick turn round a car park a couple of times as we struggled to work out where the signs were pointing us.
A not good coffee in a place we won't be visiting on The Real Thing led us to the conclusion that morning breaks would be better arranged with a quick stop for pastries that had been carried in the van. Then we can choose where we want to stop and won't be delayed by tardy service.
In Chateau Gontier we stumbled upon a small cafe run by a genial Portuguese called Alfonso.
The perfect lunch followed. This included steak and chips for us and omelette with chips for gordon, preceded by a lovely salad and followed by a cheese course then a fruit salad and accompanied by a bottle of wine. Sad to say, without our even asking, this was then followed by a second bottle of wine I regret to inform you, as we watched the Giro d'Italia on his tele.
All for €11.40 each. We'll be returning.
Thereafter, we rode forward indomitably as huge clouds rumbled and Thor yapped at our heels.... but we had a song in our hearts.
Life was improved immensely by the discovery that a hill we had just gone down was completely unnecessary and we wondered where @Agent Hilda was when we needed her as we struggled back up the hill.
navigation, eh? Just a matter of being somewhere then going somewhere else. Anyone can do that .... it's so easy.
On arrival at the hotel two of the party discovered their room had only one bed. Again.
A 65k day. 10am start, 5.45 at the hotel. We seem to have spent a couple of hours off the bikes. Somehow. Somewhere.
Forecast tomorrow is sunny and a following wind.
Alas, we might have to break out the suntan lotion. My knees have gone brown.
Er, that's all.

 

[mmmmartin]

Faffage Interdit, as @theclaud once said. Forecast is still for a following wind and sun. A bit of rolling landscape then it's as flat as anything into La Rochelle. We are aiming to get away before 9.50 so are up at 7.30 in the hope that even we can't faff for more than two hours before we get moving.
Pip pip!

 

[srw]

We are aiming to get away before 9.50

Can I just say that you're my kind of holiday guide? None of this pre-breakfast 7am nonsense...