At the risk of this turning into a journal more about train travel with bikes than bike traveling, here’s another one.  We can at least keep the entry short though and just give you the gist of it.  And point out that we have no regrets - in fact, deciding to take the train today is one of the best decisions we’ve made lately.  We feel great about it!

To state the obvious: the weather is at best uncertain today and it’s questionable whether we’ll get even our short twenty miles in without getting rained on; and Rachael’s cough is no better.  If anything, it might even be worsening.  Our number one concern is getting her back to health, and a bike ride in the wind and rain doesn’t figure in the treatment regimen.  Were fortunate that there’s a convenient alternative available: the train is the same one we arrived on here on two days ago, and stops only four miles from our hotel in Le Treport.

We give the weather a shot to bend in our favor for several hours but by the time checkout comes it’s looking less favorable and now cessation of the rains has moved out to mid-afternoon.  We commit ourselves to the train option and when there’s a break we bike the half mile to the station, get our tickets, and wait an hour for or train to arrive.  The situation is a little different this time though as all of the bike stalls are occupied.  We get boarded alright but then have to fit our bikes into the aisle, hoping no one will need to get past us before we etch our stop at the end of the line.

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Karen PoretSuch a trooper!
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Two stops later, I hear a commotion and look down the aisle and see a chaotic mob jerkily working its way toward us.  I wish I’d been quick enough to whip the phone out because it’s a crazy, hilarious scene as they gradually jostle themselves forward, leaning back against each other, shoving, bumping into seated passengers.  As they get closer it becomes apparent they’re a group, all wearing backpacks with loose objects hanging down from them, clattering and banging into everything.

And then there is a panic when they see that they we with our bikes in the aisle are between them and their bikes and they needed to crowd past us, get their bikes, and all disembark in a hurry because the train is just arriving at their stop.  We shout at them to slow down and be careful about our bikes as they crowd past, but somehow it all works out.  They make their stop, and our bikes are fine.

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The sky is dark grey when we get off at the Estaples station, four miles from our hotel.  It’s only 1:30 so we’re thinking we’ll stop here for lunch before biking to Le Treport because the weather is still expected to improve in the next hour or so.  Our arrival is on the outermost rack of the station so we use the much appreciated elevator to descend to the underpass, taking it one at a time because that’s all the car will accommodate, and then I call for the up elevator at the other end.  When it arrives, two rather distressed-looking women get off.  

I ride up and am absolutely shocked when the door opens and I face an intense downpour coming down right in front of my nose that must have started just in the minute since we left the other track.  It’s an uncovered space, I can’t see how soon I’d get to cover if I get off, so I push the down button and soon see Rachael’s puzzled expression looking up wondering why I’ve returned.

We turn back to take the middle of the three elevators, because we could see that its platform was at least partly covered.  Almost immediately though there’s a tremendous crash, a huge, frightening thunderclap that reverberates in the tunnel and makes our ears ring.  We are so lucky!  If we’d arrived just a few minutes earlier we’d have been out on our bikes in that.

The cover on the platform offers some shelter if we stand right next to the elevator, but not much.  Now that we have time to think and look around we can see the short route we’d take from the other elevator to get into the station itself, so when we see the rain slackening we make a dash for it and rebase ourselves, staying in the station for the next hour as we watch flashes of lightning, listen to thunder, and watch the rain come down in sheets.

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While we’re waiting I check the weather app.  The forecast has changed for the worse, and it now predicts heavy rain for the next three hours.  Boy do we feel good about our decision to take the train, but we’re not so enthusiastic about just sitting in this station for the next three hours.  When we see a break finally come I convince Rachael that we should take it and go find a nearby restaurant - there’s one allegedly open for another hour only a few hundred yards away - and have lunch while we wait for this chaos to pass.

We’re too late.  We get turned away by the restaurant, which is just shutting down for the afternoon.  with no confidence we’re doing the right thing we decide to ride the window as far as it will take us and find someplace to shelter again if the rains resume.  And, miraculously, they don’t resume - not in the time it takes to bike to our hotel, and not for the rest of the day. 

All the excitement and exposure takes its toll on Rachael though.  Her cough is worse again, and while we wait for dinner I head to the pharmacy for some daytime cough medicine, something she can take during the day without getting knocked out for a few hours.  It helps, and she’s fine a few hours later when we walk to a nearby restaurant.  The meal is good, the wine is fine, but the dessert is sublime.  In a fortuitous miscommunication we end up with two rather than the one we’d meant to share, which suits us both just fine.

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