Well, I was right about one thing, Nevers is bigger than Gien. But to tell you the truth there isn’t a whole hell of a lot more going on here than there was in Gien.
After checking in to the urban Saint Bernadette Convent, I ran into a cyclist named, Bharti. We talked about the EuroVelo6 route and kept chatting straight through to dinner.
I recommend staying at the convent. It has all sorts of ornate prayer rooms and courtyards, a filling and inexpensive dinner and breakfast, plus the price is right.
Tonight’s digs
I had to eat some meat tonight. After many miles of riding and no vegetarian option, I decided that it was more important for me to take in calories than it was to avoid the already served meat. But after a few bites of the beef Bharti could tell I was struggling and encouraged me to just ask if I could have more couscous. Good idea! I asked and the server kindly brought out a huge bowl of the stuff.
French flan with Bharti
Bharti was a fascinating person. She works for nine years then takes one off with her husband and daughter to travel the world. She’s repeated this cycle at least twice.
Nuclear powered EV6 signage
Bharti and I will ride together to Bourbon-Lancy tomorrow. She tells me they have thermal baths there. That’s just what my saddle-sore sit bones need.
P.S. There’s an arboretum on today’s route. If you call ahead you can get a tour from the grounds-lady. Or, if you luck out as I did, you can tag along with a random group of strangers.
P.P.S. The signage at the below bridge is utterly inscrutable. I spent a good 25 minutes taking wrong routes in the rain. It’s possible that this says more about my sense of direction than it does about the signage. Nevertheless, good luck figuring it out.
Last night was much colder and wetter than I expected it would be. Not much sleep was had. But I’m glad I experienced camping in the cold. The worst-case scenario of a went tent and cold sleeping bag is, in fact, no real problem at all.
Nice campsite, but good god was I cold
The ride from Orleans to Gien was scenic. Gien itself is no bueno. Everything is closed. There isn’t much here that could be open, to begin with. The hotel I’m staying at is dry, which at this point is all I care about. I dried my tent then walked into Gien. Not a whole lot there, but I got a falafel wrap, sat, and read on the river for a bit.
Gien up close
Tomorrow is on to Nevers, which seems like it has more going on.
Chateau Chambord is situated within a massive nature preserve. Riding up to the chateau was pretty cool. The white castle-like building appears out of a wooded forest. A small farmer’s market was set up on the grounds.
A Breakfast of Peons
Helmet head at Chambord
The Green Machine posing scandalously
After tooling around the chateau grounds, meeting a nature photographer out in the preserve, and asking why they were flying the American flag (some conference is on), I went over to the market and bought a pastry, some goat cheese and strawberries in anticipation of dinner and dessert at tonight’s campsite, which is just past Orleans.
The ride to Orleans felt long with intermittent rain, a tender knee, and the lingering thought that I miss talking to fluent English speakers. I’ve even found myself listening to whatever downloaded podcasts I could. Currently Bon Apetit Foodcast: Steaming Chicken Breasts…skin on or skin off? I’ll soon know.
The chèvre guy!
Chambord’s bounty
Pullup challenge at Orleans
Pullup challenge at camp
A doctor who recently moved from Paris & invited me to eat some cherries
This leg takes you through a cherry town
Getting unlost (found?) while trying to explore this nuclear plant
I biked a kilometer out of camp to a bakery where I bought a delicious baguette to go along with my cheese and, how shall I put this, my fresh strawberries turned coulis. Fantastic!
This morning brought with it a clear head and a cloudy sky. I found an open bike shop and ventured out into the pouring rain with The Green Machine to fix its flat. Twenty minutes and two saturated shoes later I arrived at the shop. An hour wait they told me. There went my dreams of an early start.
Flat Tire, meet Pouring Rain
I left the shop on foot in search of a dry place to get a quick coffee and breakfast. A Starbucks was nearby so I ordered a croissant and an Americano.
The Tours Starbucks is like…every other Starbucks
Soon after sitting down I heard American English and I perked up. A man named James and his wife, Betty-Ann, and I got to talking. With my knee injury, my flat tire, the rain, and my newfound solitude, I was feeling a bit lonely. Talking with James and Betty-Ann was an instant cure. James is a recovering lawyer who coincidentally spent a lot of time in upstate New York too. We talked legal careers, bikes, travel, and laughed about how ashamed we were to be at a Starbucks in France, the world’s capital of cafe culture.
It was time to pick up my bicycle. , I walked back to the bike shop during a brief break in the rain. 15euros later and I was on my way. That is until the bike mechanic gave me a quizzical look, “Where you ride today?”
“Orleans,” I replied.
“You maybe not go today. 70km winds. Very dangerous.”
I thanked him for the heads up and made my way to the train station. With a still-hurting knee and the prospect of torrential winds and rain, I decided to take the short train ride to Blois where I’d recuperate before riding into Orleans.
Detours de Loire is a great shop in Tours, France
Blois is a strange town caught between Tours and Orleans. I found a room in some kind of compound. Not quite a hostel but not a hotel either. The weather is bad. Howling winds. Cafeteria-style dinner. I asked them to pile on the couscous and they certainly did.
Dinner in Blois
Tomorrow I’ll be back in the saddle and riding to Chateau Chambord then Orleans.
(I’ve developed a sort of mantra over the past few days. Anytime negative or anxious thoughts start taking hold I simply remind myself to Leave The Room. Good things happen every time I leave my room.)
Will and I said our goodbyes this morning then parted ways.
Near the end of yesterday’s ride, I felt pain on the outside of my left knee. Today the pain kept me from riding more than five minutes at a time.
I made it to Saumur after what felt like 20 hours of riding. I had planned on riding all the way to Tours today, which is about 115km. But the pain was so bad that I cried mercy in Saumur and jumped at the last sub-100euro hotel in town. To add insult to injury, in the truest sense, one of my three water bottles fell out en route. In the words of Timon, our trio’s down to two.
Today’s ride sucked. But what began as a painful trudge turned into a nice evening. There is a fantastic little place in Saumur called 1929. I walked in and immediately heard, “Take your seat and I will take care of you!” And take care of me they did. I ordered the mushroom pate and an open sandwich with chevre, honey, and walnuts.
We packed up the campsite in Ancenis and set our sights on Angers. The weather was overcast and damp after overnight rain. Will and I set a leisurely pace riding through green wetlands.
We stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant and had the prix-fixe menu and some espresso. I’ll never turn down white asparagus. Apparently it’s just regular asparagus grown underground?
A couple of breakfast beers too…
After a patisserie pit stop ( I had the most decadent almond croissant), we made it to Angers.
There is a great bar along the Loire on the way into Angers. Will and I stopped there and shared—you guessed it—another bottle of wine. It started to sink in that Will was leaving the next morning. I ignored any sadness and just dig into the fun we were having.
Bike path bar at Angers
We buzzedly made it to our hotel, dropped off our bikes, and ventured out for some food. Within a half a block we got distracted by the Delirium Beer brewhouse. I opted for an 8.5% cherry beer thinking that at that high of an ABV it couldn’t be sweet. I was wrong. No problem though. We happily downed our beers and waxed poetic about all things ethics, relationships, and our grand plans for the future.
The night continued on in this fashion punctuated by a quick stop for falafel wraps.
Will and I were intent on tasting wines today. We detoured anytime we saw what looked like an open winery.
Our first detour was a town up on top of a massive hill. An unassuming house with a sign that read “Vigneron” caught our attention so we stopped. Will knocked on the door and asked in his very broken French if we could taste some wine. To our surprise, she said yes and led us into a cellar with seven or eight large wine drums.
Sunscreen and Wine
The owner generously let us try as many wines as we wished. Will stuck to the reds but since we were in the Loire Valley, I gave her white wines a try. First up: a Muscadet. Delicious. Almost effervescent. We progressed like this tasting a few others until we reached her sparkling wine. I’m not exaggerating when I say that this was the best sparkling wine I’ve ever tasted. I can’t image a bona fide champagne that could outdo it. We bought two bottles at something like 2eur apiece.
Le Loire
With all this biking and drinking we started getting hungry. Just our luck then that a small canteen was open and serving a 12eur three-course lunch with a salad buffet. We’ll take two, please. I paired my lunch with a refreshing rosé. Will went with the house red.
Then it was onward over rolling hills paired with occasional Loire River sightings to the next winery where we met a cool young guy working at his parent’s winery who was eager to talk to us about their wines and California.
Will and I pedaled until we ran into a campsite outside of a fishing town called Ancenis. We took our time getting the campsite set up as our hunger grew. Once settled, we walked into Ancenis for something to eat. Every single restaurant was closed or closing. Every. Single. One. So it was back to the campsite cursing the wretched town of Ancenis every step of the way.
That’s France for you
The campground had a plot for cyclists
We finished the night with handfuls of the trail mix I made for the trip and washed it down with sparkling wine straight from the bottle. A fitting end to a nutty day. As I said to Will: today was the best bike ride of my life. What’s better than riding bikes, eating food, and drinking wine with a best friend? Not much.
I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you about my pullup challenge. I love pullups. Everything about them. The skill they take to be done right. Their simplicity. The endorphin rush afterward. Just everything about them. This love has compelled me to challenge myself to do at least 8 pullups on every pullup bar I pass on this trip. Tonight I found my first pullup bar hidden behind some bushes at the campsite. What a privilege!
Once I made it to the hotel in Nantes, I went to the hotel bar to fill up my water bottle. Nobody was around so I reached over the bar to help myself. A big no-no. The attendant whipped around the corner and curtly said, “If you need water, why don’t you just ask.” Fair enough. She dutifully filled up my water bottle four or five times over the next 16 hours and, I think, regretted the water rule.
Falafel and (hotel) water…
I finally met up with will after a couple of falafel wraps and about 30 minutes getting lost trying to find him. What a reunion. We sat down to a bottle of wine, Will ordered his signature two entrees and we enjoyed the hell out of each other’s company.
We called the night early so we’d be ready to ride the next morning.
Pont Saint Nazaire and Saint Nazaire are two very different places. I wanted to start this trip at the EuroVelo 6’s origin. So when I read that the EV6 begins at Pont Saint Nazaire, I assumed that Saint Nazaire is where I should go. But it turns out that Pont Saint Nazaire is actually the Saint Nazaire Bridge. It’s not Point Saint Nazaire, as my English speaking brain assumed.
It wasn’t until the train ride into Saint Nazaire that I learned that the EV6 starts in Saint Brevins at the foot of Pont Saint Nazaire, not in Saint Nazaire at all.
By the time I’d realized my mistake it was too late to change plans. I snagged the actual last room in Saint Nazaire then mentally prepared to cross The Hell Bridge the next morning.
Hotel views of Saint Nazaire, which is 100% not the same thing as Pont Saint Nazaire…
The bridge is massive. Photos do not do it justice.
An unjust photo of The Hell Bridge
The hotel proprietor brought my bike from whatever dark pit he had tossed it into the night before. I was so excited to get started. I had everything dialed in – bags attached, sunscreen applied, adrenaline pumping. Off I….oh no. Instead of propelling my bike forward with my first push of the pedal, I spun out and nearly fell over.
The hotel owner had completely screwed up my front derailleur when he overhead hurled my bike the night before. ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘I wanted this trip to be about self-reliance so here is my chance!’ My enthusiasm waned and f-bombs flew at the goddamned (out of earshot) hotelier as I struggled to fix my cable. I got the derailleur to good enough — I couldn’t shift into first gear but I was finally ready to head out.
I biked up to the bridge still not sure that I wanted to ride over it. A friendly French fellow sensed my apprehension and pointed me toward where I was going. He showed me a shuttle that takes cyclists across The Hell Bridge. Lucky for me the bus left nine minutes earlier and another one wouldn’t arrive for at least 51 more. ‘Do or die time,’ I thought, ‘or is it do and die?’
Anyway, I decided to conquer the bridge on The Green Machine. The bridge pitches upwards at what felt like an 85° incline, has roughly a 6-inch shoulder, and the fencing comes up to about your kneecaps. Every gust of tailwind from a passing semi-truck would send me swerving towards the “barrier”.
After a long climb and a fast descent, I’d made it!
Hell Bridge Conqueror
I borrowed a pair of calipers and fiddled some more with my derailleur in Saint Brevins then made my way towards Nantes. I was thrilled. I let out an emotional and happy yell once I was on the EV6 route.
This post is the first of many what I’m calling Tripologues. There is a good chance, maybe even a certainty, that you will find most of what’s in these tripologues not just boring in the traditional sense but so tediously detailed and littered with seemingly unnecessary miscellany that your eyes will burn. This is intentional.
I’m writing these tripologues to entertain an audience. On this point, there is no doubt. However, my audience is not you — unless you are the future me. I’m writing tripologues to have something I can look back on that will spark my memory not just of the trip highlights, but of the specifics too. This project is a series of snapshots in time for better or for worse, not what I think the internet will find interesting or worthwhile. Despite this, I hope these tripologues become a resource to future bike tourers on the EuroVelo6 and that they give my friends and family some entertainment.
With that out of the way…
The weeks of planning have passed, the gear research is complete, the anticipation has peaked, and now it is go time.
I decided it’d be more fun to take a boat from Dublin to France than it would be to fly. So I bought a ticket with Dublin Ferries, packed up my bike, and left the apartment to begin this bike tour adventure.
All packed up and ready to roll
Abby’s office is just a 10-minute bike ride away from the Dublin Port so she rode with me to the ferry and saw me off. Despite a few near misses with overzealous semi-truck drivers, we made it to the harbor.
At the ticket counter, I was brusquely told to take myself and my bike up to the front of the line of cars. Abby and I had a somewhat teary-eyed goodbye and off I went.
Once I made it to the front of the hundreds of cars waiting to board, another gentleman told me that, in fact, the Green Machine and I would be the last on.
Bye bye Dublin fog!
A few minutes into waiting a man rode up to me on his fully loaded bike. I was excited to meet a fellow cyclist this early on in the trip and was eager to learn where he was headed. He told me his name was “Paul, Paul O’Keefe.” Paul is cycling along the Camino de Santiago with a massive art piece weighing no less than 20 pounds to “Promote love and peace.” ‘Cool enough,’ I thought. Paul spent years in the Australian wilderness and had the newspaper clippings to prove it. Not to mention, he’s a self-described Irish Mystic.
Both Paul and I reserved reclining chairs for the 23-hour journey. With a chair costing 20-some-odd Euros and a cabin costing over 100eur, it was a no-brainer. But Paul, being the all-experienced traveler he is, let me in on a secret. “Yep, thought so… Shane, you know these padded benches will make a fine place to sleep tonight, I think.” I agreed. So I took my things from my reclining chair and boguarded a nice padded booth for the rest of the night.
The view from my coveted bench
As far as the boat trip went, the water was vast and blue and that’s all I have to say about that. I was more excited to leave Ireland than I was to watch it as I went.
As a fitting parting gift from the city, Dublin ensured that my friend Paul loved to smoke hand-rolled cigarettes. Every 20 minutes or so Paul left for a smoke break and brought me back a sneeze attack. I didn’t mind though; Paul is engaging, excited about his project, and, judging by the pictures of his former girlfriends that he’s shown me, he has a real way with the ladies.
Mr. Paul himself
23 hours later and after being the last to board, I made sure I was the first off the Ferry.
Winding my way to the front of the line to disembark
Off I rode into the city of Cherbourg. A great little northern coastal town with excellent bike lanes and some neat statues. A stop for some green beans, carrots, and cherries was all I had time for. Then it was off to the train station for the next leg of the journey.
The bird has landed…or has the whale beached? Either way, I’m in France.One of Cherbourg’s pieces of public artA journey of 1,000 selfies begins one shot at a time
