September 19, 2021
Plurien to Binic
I haven't been naming campgrounds as we've gone along, but I have to make an exception here. If your touring brings you to the area, I recommend Camping Les Salines near Plurien. Good prices, very friendly staff, and nice facilities. I think it's family run, so you get to support the local economy as well. We got in to camp early enough to do a load of laundry, and oh what a treat it is to know that everything in your clothes pannier is clean!
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The rain that was supposed to dampen us overnight never materialized. Instead, we got a dose of moderate winds. The noise wasn't conducive to sleep, but we rested pretty well, and for the first time ever, when we broke camp, the tent, fly, and ground cover were all dry as a bone. That's always nice.
Today was pretty hilly. I think the next three days are going to be, too. That's why I'm keeping us at 60-70km per day. It seems to be a pretty good pace. Honestly, it seems like there's always something slowing us down. The wind seems to originate from the west, so we are often facing a headwind. The unpaved surfaces shave about 15% off our speed, sometimes more. During the long stretches of rail trail, anti-motor-vehicle barriers that appear at every road crossing killed our momentum. Last, and certainly not least, we ourselves are getting slower. I was estimating 500km/week (300 miles), but I think 400km is more realistic.
We had some marvelous views, but I think the most impressive moments were two trestle crossings. Here's the first one:
There was a sign explaining the history of each trestle. I should've snapped photos for later translation. I got the gist of them, anyway. One was a tourist trolley. This one, I believe, was a standard passenger line.
We avoided the Sunday Trap today, and it was interesting. Sunyoung noticed that the little Carrefour Contact (Carrefours seem to come in a variety of names, shapes, and sizes) had no freshly-baked bread. I noticed that the boulangerie across the way had a long line going out the door. There seemed to be a connection here. We decided to get bread in the next town. It had a line too. It wasn't as long, and as it turns out, it moves very quickly. It seems to be designed so that everyone can get their bread fix, and the staff still get to spend Sunday afternoons with their families! Sunyoung got an incredible whole wheat seeded baguette, which I strapped to my cargo net.
Trekking and biking are very popular around here, and since people are so welcoming and deferential towards us long-haul truckers, their presence on the trails is a positive experience rather than an annoyance. We get to practice pronouncing bonjour correctly, and they get to guess where we're from when they hear our funny accents. Today the baguette got me a lot of attention. I heard a lot of enthusiastic "blah blah blah baguette!" from the people we passed. One stereotype that's absolutely true is that French people love baguettes, and they walk around with them all the time. We even see them sticking out of bikers' panniers, and all of a sudden saying pannier (I Anglicize it as pan-yer myself, while Sunyoung fell into the habit of pronouncing it pan-ear) doesn't make us sound like bike touring snobs.
We find ourselves at Binic tonight, as originally planned. We could've gone further, but our calves and/or quads were complaining every time we encountered even a mild climb, so we knew it was time to call it quits for the day. We treated our bikes to a nice chain lubrication and gunk cleaning session. They're holding up real well, even with all this off-roading activity. Speaking of which, I've decided that Rocinante isn't a good name for my bike. If I'm Quixote, that makes Sunyoung Sancho Panza, and I don't think that makes a lot of sense. Maybe there's a French literary reference I can draw from for inspiration? Let me sleep on that.
Today's ride: 62 km (39 miles)
Total: 751 km (466 miles)
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3 years ago
3 years ago
3 years ago
A variant of this game is deciphering what oncoming cyclists are saying to you, country by country, and then daring to pronounce whatever it is!
3 years ago
And yes, Decathlon calls all their panniers "sacoches"! When they use panier, it's for a mesh bicycle basket. And goodness me, there is only one "n" in panier. Hell with it, they will always be panniers to us!
3 years ago
Pannier = "sacoche"
https://www.probikeshop.fr/accessoires/bagagerie-sacoches-c322.html
Backet = "panier"
https://www.probikeshop.fr/accessoires/bagagerie-paniers-c10758.html
3 years ago
Probikeshop wonderfully offer their site in six languages, and it seems quite native, rather than machine translated!
Anyway, according to this new "highest authority available", you are quite right. "Pannier" is a purely English word, meaning something like the Ortlieb Sport Roller. One the other hand in French, "panier" for bikes is a (usually front) basket, good for your daily "pain", while the Sport Roller would be a "sacoche". "Sacoche" however also includes stuff like fanny packs on Probikeshop, making it inaccurate in cycling terms.
p.s. For the record, as one passes through the various countries, an English "pannier" is a German "radtache" and a Spanish "alforja" (although "alforja" is really a "saddlebag", and probably also fits on your Spanish horse -my head hurts!)
3 years ago