August 1, 2017
Day Twelve, August 1: Bayeux to Equemauville
When I woke up in the hotel in Bayeux I had 150 miles to go to my planned end-point of Giverny, with three days to do it. In my original plan, I had hoped to ride from Giverny into Paris as well, but with the lost time to the broken spoke I had to adjust my endpoint. Fifty miles a day is somewhat ambitious, and it meant no slacking off or taking long breaks to admire the scenery or sit through lengthy multicourse meals. Since I was staying in a hotel, I took full advantage of the breakfast bar, gorging myself on croissants and scrambled eggs before setting off. Because I gone to sleep so early, even though I’ve slept for 11 hours, I was one of the earlier starts I had.
The day was mostly on rural roads that were emblematic of why I love bike touring in France: their only purpose seemed to be for farmers to get to their fields. Despite despite that they mostly appeared to have been paved recently: the tarmac flawless, smooth as the autobahn. Maybe two cars would pass me in an hour.
Because I was trying to make as much distance as possible, I stopped eating at restaurants as much and started stopping at grocery stores and buying ready-to-eat foods. Initially, I felt a little bit like I was doing it wrong: five come all the way to France, wouldn’t I want to eat the best French food? Surely that would not be in the grocery stores. But French grocery stores, even the big ones, have their own charms.
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Each cookie aisle was a wonderland of new confections: LU Pims in a wide assortment of fruit flavors (although orange remains my favorite) and Bonne Maman hazelnut chocolate chip cookies were particular standouts. I took to keeping my frame bag stuffed with cookies, eating them while pedaling. I felt especially guilty buying a pre-made chicken salad sandwich at a big-box grocery store, in a triangular plastic container: the type the usually get in a vending machine. To my surprise, it was one of the best sandwiches I had on the trip. I also bought a plastic clamshell of coleslaw, because French restaurants will give you a little bit of vegetables but not a lot. I ate the entire thing in one sitting, more than half a pound of coleslaw; it was that good. Apparently if food is a priority for a culture, the improvement in quality extends to all the food, not just the high-end restaurants.
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I skimmed past the northern edge of Caen and went over the remarkable Pegasus drawbridge at Bénouville, named after the emblem worn by British airborne forces, who took and held it during Operation Overlord. After an afternoon of biking through more small roads and villages, I halted in late afternoon at five-star campsite in Équemauville, just south of Le Havre. The next day involved crossing a bridge that was allegedly a bit difficult, so I wanted to do that when I was fresh and awake. The campsite, called “La Briquerie”, was in a field in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by agriculture. But it had a covered pool with a waterslide, bouncy houses and playgrounds for little kids, a crêperie and a full restaurant, tennis courts, a soccer field: the works. This is the sort of place the people came to spend the summer with their kids. Giving me think about how I was looking forward to biking with Suzanne and Maeve, because this would be the sort of place that would be very fun for them. As it was, having biked pretty hard day, I ate dinner at the restaurant, set up my tent, and collapsed. I had a surreal experience using the bathroom in the middle of the night; small things were moving about in the shadows, and eventually I realized that the entire campground was filled with rabbits, dozens and dozens of rabbits.
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