August 27, 2011
The Green Route.
The crossing of the English channel and putting my watch forward an hour to Central European Time means nothing to my body-clock as I wake-up at the same time with the coming day no matter what time is shown on my watch. Nor does the day of the week mean much, each day is alike on my cycle-tour, the weekend day of rest is whenever a place of interest or a place to fix the bike usually a city is reached.
As I cycled forth on this Summer's morning there remained sixty-five kilometres to Rennes where I hoped to repair or find a new gear-hanger for the bike but, insomuch that it was sixty five kilometres via the direct route, it was much more following the green cycle route. Furthermore it meant much getting lost and hoping that the place written on the green sign at the many crossing of paths could be found on the map and was in the direction of Rennes. Basically I could have done with a map of two kilometres to one centimetre rather than a map for the whole of France like the one Is using. Is expecting therefore a slow day and not to be reaching Rennes till evening.
"Are we human? Or are we dancers?" by a band called "The Killers", a lyric of intrigue played on the headphones as I cycled along the brown grit-surfaced cycle-path which meandered between hedgerows and overhanging trees, linking up villages, passing fields of maize and stubble interspersed with woodland. Then while cycling up a short incline the front-wheel suddenly goes swish in a whirling hiss, the rim abruptly bumping on the ground on the soft deflating tyre. Though with yesterday's three blow-outs Is very much resigned to more trouble today anyway. I had already pumped-up the back-wheel twice due to a slow puncture. And moreover I had no more spare inner-tubes and limited patches left. I patched the large hole, the result of this latest blow-out as best I could, pumped up the wheel and rode on now with a slow punctures both front and rear. I was going to have to find a bike-shop in the next town indicated on the green sign which was Meen Grand, only a few kilometres ahead at this point.
Riding in to Meen Grand, I saw that it was a big place, big enough to have a reasonable bike-shop, Is thinking though that it may take all morning finding that bike-shop; something I didn't much relish, however, following the green route sign I turned right before the Town Centre and saw a bike-shop straightaway. It was a superstore type bike-shop and just on the point of braking to a halt out front, there came a sudden swish and rush of air hissing out of the front tyre. It was well it happened here.
Inside I past the expensive monoscope racing bikes on display; past rows of cheaper racing bikes and then children's bikes as I made my way over to the accessories when the shop assistant approached. I said bonjour but he made no response. The other word I had amongst my limited vocabulary which may have been useful in the circumstances was VeloToutTerrain (VTT). The assistant then said after a moment scrutinizing me "you no speak French" and continued to speak in a few words of broken English. I picked up two inner-tubes and then went about looking at new tyres too, something narrower and more suited to touring. He handed up a folding tyre, but as it was too lightweight for touring, I gestured in sign-language a mighty force to demonstrate the stress the tyre Is looking for would need to withstand. So he moved along to a black tube of non-folding tyres hung from a rail up near the ceiling. They were a lot of cheap tyres but for Michelin Cross Countrys hidden amongst them. I pointed and he took one down using a pole, though needing two, I put up two fingers to a jolted response from him.
Back outside the shop I fitted the new tyres together with the inner-tubes. I binned the most worn of the two old tyres keeping the other as a spare and packing everything back on the trailer ready to go on, I felt confident that there wouldn't be any more punctures, for awhile anyway.
I followed the green route signs onwards through the streets of Meen Grand until I came to a street corner where I didn't see a green sign for the way onwards, so I followed the roadsigns for Rennes instead, but leaving town straightaway found myself on a busy road without a shoulder. It felt dangerous with cars passing fast and close. Then after a short distance just as I despaired continuing any further on this road, I came to a turnoff and saw the familiar green route sign again.
Cycling onwards along quiet country lanes where seemingly at every crossroads the green sign pointed right or left never straight on having the effect of me thinking Is cycling round in circles much of the time. I past through many hamlets of a church and a few houses, places too small to appear on the map. The only traffic on these narrow roads was the occasional tractor and it being a Saturday most of them had small children riding alongside the driver looking out curiously at me as they past.
At lunch sitting on a wide grass verge on the edge of a hayfield, my lighter refused to work so I couldn't boil water to make tea, so I made do with water. I ate what remained of yesterday's bread spread with cream cheese and enjoyed the warming sunshine but, dark clouds were moving in and soon the sun was gone. I hurriedly finishing off and had everything put back in the bag just as Is pelted by big drops of rain. I cycled hurrily along the road to a high overhanging hedge where I took shelter and sat waiting it out looking out at the rain coming down hard and bouncing off the road until it moved on leaving a drizzle in it's wake. Riding on, the road was covered in puddles, the sky murky and off to the east a dark band of rain bore down on low hills. I freewheeled down a hill in the rain and saw six cyclists approaching riding abreast at the bottom of the climb but then stringing out as the hill sorted them by fitness. They were all dressed for a warm sunny day but with soaked clear plastic capes pulled over and had very wet dripping hair with a grimace on their face as I met each singularly.
As I rode the afternoon out through the rain and then later, the brightening skies, I still didn't have too much idea of where I was. I looked anxiously at the green route signs for a place big enough to be on the map until I did see a sign to Becheral which was on the map and from there I cycled on the D220 to the main road leading in to Rennes.
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