It’s all in the preparation. Or maybe not.

Just over a week ago I was sat at home contemplating and planning this summer’s cycle tour. Just over eighteen hundred kilometres in western France taking in stretches of the Vélo Francette, the Velodysee, the Velomaritime and a week and a half on Île de Re. I couldn’t wait. 

The excellent weather we enjoyed at home throughout the late spring and early summer had offered up many opportunities for training rides to prepare for such an adventure and we had taken advantage of none of them. Suffice to say as I sat there on the sofa watching the Tour de France, I knew that I at least was undercooked and poorly prepared for what lay ahead. There were excuses, there always are. We both caught Covid around two weeks before the event and we moved out of our house over a period of about a week and half immediately before departure. However, we’d had ample time and opportunity to get ourselves in condition for day after day of one hundred kilometre rides but for some reason or another we chose not to.

So it was in this physical and mental state that we found ourselves in Portsmouth waiting to board the ferry to Caen. Boarding a ferry on a bike is great because you get to ride on before anyone else and after disposing of your bike and the panniers you get to the bar and have it to yourself. We had eaten well on route to Portsmouth with Catrin and Tom so there was no need to eat in the restaurant. Tom’s mum had kindly allowed us to park our car on her drive in Trowbridge while we were away and we visited the farm shop and restaurant in Bradford on Avon that does really good wood fired pizzas. Really good! We also stocked up there for a picnic in Portsmouth before we boarded the Ferry. The curried scotch egg is incredible as is the sausage roll. We bought a particularly smelly soft cheese which I did try and can still smell on my hands some five showers later. I don’t recommend it. Anyway, after a couple of beers on deck we headed for the cabin and bed.

In the morning Brittany Ferries wake you with something that is almost, but not quite completely unlike music. It is nothing but a nasty racket although I suppose it serves a purpose for them in that there is no way you can lie in bed through that noise. It makes you vacate your cabin so they can get it clean. So we got up, vacated the cabin, found our bikes on deck seven and waited for the nice man to come along and release them. It took a while. When our bikes were finally available to us, I noticed that mine had a puncture in the front wheel. On inspection it had been caused by a tiny piece of glass. On further inspection I was relieved to find that the tyre was only flat at the bottom and I rejoiced in this fact as I had fixed countless punctures of this kind in  the past. Phew! I pushed the bike out of the ferry onto the ramp and turned the bike over to see to the tyre. Fortunately, Paula was on hand to offer advice, encouragement and helpful questions:

Are we allowed to stop here? Do you know what you’re doing? What if they want to move the ship? Have you done this before? Is that how you’re supposed to do it? Will that footbridge come down on our heads if the Ferry goes? How do you know that goes goes there? Is it supposed to do that? What if this doesn’t work? And so on.

Thankfully, Paula has never shown any inclination or urge to become a theatre nurse. Heart surgeons around the the world can heave a huge sigh of relief. So can tree surgeons for that matter.

Thus we started day 1 of our cycle tour, Summer 2022.