August is finished off in style with a last minute planned trip to ride across Normandy. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do and as 2 of my interests are travel and cycling then I just thought why not combine the two?
Set sail for Cherbourg early on Sunday morning from Poole. By the time I arrived there it was mid afternoon so I stayed local that day and just mooched around Cherbourg with a view to doing the main rides the day after.
Monday was the biggie- an 85 miler from Cherbourg to Caen, the plan being to visit Sainte-Mere Eglise (one of if not the first French towns to be liberated), the very humbling American Cemetery and Omaha Beach and Bayeux. It was an eventful day aside from these sights to behold- just three miles into the ride the heavens opened (only for an hour) and then my cleat decided to detach itself from my shoe which I didn’t know how to release from the pedal at that time. It was still rideable so I cracked on to Caen regardless with a view to finding a
Decathlon where I could get it fixed. Turns out the tension on the pedal itself was far too tight causing the cleat bolts to loosen rather than shear. To compound the misery I was stung multiple times by a wasp! 🤦♂️🐝
Tuesday saw me ride from Caen to Le Havre by way of the humbling Pegasus Bridge, the seaside towns of Houlgate and Trouville-sur-Mer climbing out of there and then down into the stunning town of Honfleur. Then I did quite possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever done on a bike- I rode over the Pont de Normandie, a 2.1km long suspension bridge with a “cycle lane” no wider than a metre and no buffer against lorries thundering past! Never again.
Wednesday was a rather unremarkable journey as I made my way from Le Havre to Rouen, the first 20 miles were pan flat with nothing to look at but trees and a motorway. It was nice however to ride right along the banks of the Seine in places which somewhat broke up the boredom. This route was obviously saving the best til last as Rouen is just stunning, with little rickety streets very reminiscent of The Shambles in York. Getting back to the digs was anything but flat however, a 3 mile trip and “just” 525 feet of climbing!!
Thursday was travel home day and so I set off early from Rouen heading due north for 30 odd miles to the port of Dieppe. Again nothing remarkable about this journey, a couple of good climbs maybe? 🤷♂️
In an ideal world I’d have probably got a train from Dieppe back to Cherbourg where I could sail back to Poole where I was parked, but time constraints and crossings didn’t really allow for this. So I sailed to Newhaven with a view to getting a train back to Poole instead. As is typical of our trains here in the UK, that wasn’t easy to plan (thanks Brighton!) and so I had to ride 21 miles over to Worthing (in a torrent of rainfall no less) in order to achieve this.
A superb trip, around 237 miles in 4 days including the washout along the south coast of England, beautiful scenery, very humbling to see, definitely a bucket list item ticked off for sure.
View: https://youtu.be/RLAk1_RHfgI?feature=shared
