Greetings from Le Mans

So here we are in France after an excellent day in the saddle. It all started well enough, the ferry docked at 06:46 and we set off down the canal path from Ouistreham to Caen via Pegasus bridge, famously captured by British paratroopers the night before the D-Day landings in 1944.

Pegasus Bridge Cafe

We got to the bike shop about 45 minutes before it opened and thankfully there was a cafe next door so we settled in with cafe-au-lait and enormous croissants. Soon enough the bike shop was open for business and a small, rather earnest French mechanic examined my banana shaped rear wheel and with an enigmatic smile muttered something about 20 minutes and took my bike off to the back of the shop. One more coffee and the wheel had been rebuilt – beautiful and only 16 Euros; rather less expensive than having to buy a new wheel which is what I’d been expecting.

Now having made a detour to the bike shop, we were of course off our planned route, a route meticulously negotiated and planned by Chris and subsequently loaded into the Garmin ‘sat-nav’ to avoid any confusion. Graham, being a man of a certain age, has an inherent distrust of technology and has a tendency to take any and every opportunity to prove the superiority of his God given homing pigeon instincts. “We are in the wrong place, that bloody computer thing will be confused and will have mislaid it’s satellites” he declared, “I’d better take over” and set off at a breath-taking pace in almost exactly the wrong direction. Chris, Harley and I gave each other a knowing, rather resigned sort of look and mostly out of a sense of idle curiosity, decided to see where the homing pigeon would take us. “you just have to follow the sun” Graham declared, “make a U-turn when possible” replied the sat-nav. An hour and a half, 3 dead-ends, a cabbage field, a derelict cement works and a gaggle of irritated French motorists later, we found ourselves back on the planned route with only a modest 12 miles added to our journey. Better than that “pick your bikes up, I think we should hack our way through that forest” moment that had traumatized us in Italy last year and for which Harley is still receiving therapy, I understand.

Just waiting for the sun...

We headed south along pencil straight, tree-lined roads through sleepy French villages until we arrived at Argentan for lunch. Rather excellent cheese and ham baguettes and tarte-du-fraise to die for set us up for the final 50 miles to the Hotel Au Relais Du Gue De Selle, just outside Le Mans.

Lunch...

It’s the Le Mans 24 hour race this weekend and the hotel carpark was full of exotic motors; Lamborghinis, a selection of Aston Martins and a particularly fine E-Type Jaguar. Whilst the cars were pretty to look at their petrol-head owners were somewhat less so and meant we had to fight through the bar for our well-deserved, ritual gin and tonic.

Supper of excellent steaks and a very pleasant bottle of Croze Hermitage.