June 14, 2015
La Coquille, France: The happy toilet cleaner
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HOW ABOUT you? Do the first days of a tour feel no more than escaping the world's gravity? The roads, the towns you pass, are familiar. If you didn't ride them from this direction then you've ridden them from another.
That's how I've felt so far. There have been roads that I've ridden for the first time but I haven't gone far enough to feel that I've left home. I could as easily have turned round and ridden home again Well, I finally feel as though I'm cruising north. There aren't many towns of any size but I'm avoiding them. So I'm happy. As happy as the man in shorts and white T-shirt who was hosing and sweeping the shower block when I got up this morning. We were the only people about and I apologised for leaving dirty footmarks where he had cleaned. It had begun raining during the night and it was still raining now.
"Don't you worry," he said cheerfully. "I like it when it rains."
"Why? Doesn't it just make everything all the dirtier?"
"No!" he said with a laugh that suggested I hadn't seen the logic of the situation. "Think about it. It's cold, so people don't want showers. They won't come out in the rain for a piss unless they have to. And if they leave mud everywhere, well, the rain washes it away, doesn't it?"
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The man who ran the vélorail didn't see it that way. I didn't see him to ask but it was obvious. Nobody wants the supposed fun of pedalling a truck along a rail line when it's tipping down.
"Become a train conductor... of a train with pedals!" the signs urged. They explained that someone had bought the 17km of track from Thiviers to Excideuil and, wondering what to do with them, fitted out trucks with seats, pedals and chains. The last train ran in 1991 and the first vélorail in 2012.
The problem wasn't just clearing the overgrown track or manufacturing the pedal cars. No, the problem was that people could only go one way at a time. There was, still is, only a single track, which means all the happy pedallers have to leave at the same time and ride at the same speed and stop for the same length of time. Everyone has to wait for the latecomers and pedal at the speed of the slowest... or the fastest, depending on where you are in the line. No stopping off to pick daisies.
Not that that troubled anybody today. The window of the shabby ticket office was open but there was nobody inside. No rush of tourists was expected. The fence gates were locked. Beyond them, a row of pedal trucks that bright paint did little to make appealing. Their chains dripped.
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I picked up a leaflet, a type-design nightmare. It made the most of the opportunity. I couldn't help but think well of the initiative, here and at three dozen similar sites around France. But I bet reality sets in after the first five minutes.
Just as it did on this ride. Well, the first 50 minutes rather than the first five. The sky frowned all day and the rain fell with despondent persistence. I reached La Coquille - The Shell - a village which changed its name after hikers carrying the distinctive shell of pilgrims on the St Jacques de Compostelle route. I found a hotel and didn't regret my indulgence for a second. A short day but a sodden one. But the man cleaning the lavatories was blessing his luck.
Today's ride: 75 km (47 miles)
Total: 265 km (165 miles)
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