Day 4 – St Pere en Retz to Les Sables d’Olonne

A hot night, but eventually cools enough so that I can sleep, and get up at 7:30. Some routine maintenance to do on the bicycle, adjusting the front shifter cable and pumping up the tyres, and then get on the road again by about 9:30.

Another beautiful morning, and the roads are very quiet. In the first village, St Pere en Retz, I stop several times to work out directions, and each time seem to cause some sort of traffic hold-up or confusion, so pleased when I find my way out and head south on the D97. With about 10 miles completed I come to the tiny village of Le Clion sur Mer (actually about 2 miles from the sea) where it is time for the morning coffee, alongside the usual locals chatting over espressos.

Onwards again, and suddenly I turn the corner and there is the sea. I now pass through a seaside holiday town La Berniere en Retz, full of the typical bustle of such places, somewhat of a shock after the emptiness and peacefulness of the countryside so far. I find a sign for the Velocean cycle route, which follows a small country road bordering the Baie de Bourguin. 

 Along the Velocean at La Berniere

Now, for about an hour I pedal along completely flat roads, zigzagging through salt marshes, some huge ploughed fields, some fields with dried grass where cows or horses struggle to find grazing. It is truly a surreal piece of riding, but unfortunately the now steady southerly and hot dry wind keeps reminding me of the hard work.

At noon I stop for a sandwich in the village of Bouin, which must be just a few feet above the rest of the marshes, then on again. It is now about 31°, and with the wind it is hard going, but eventually I reach the resort town of St Jean de Monts, where I cycle up to the corniche and find the wind much cooler. The Vendee coast south of St Jean is more or less an endless series of small towns and villages dedicated to summer pleasures, huge beaches, dozens of campsites, long blocks of holiday apartments, and dedicated VR45 cycle paths all the way. The quality of these varies: some are good quality gravel (not ideal for my 28 mm tyres) and some are surfaced, although here you have to look out for tree roots pushing up the path, creating serious trip hazards. By about 3 o’clock I pass through St Hilaire de Riez, where I enjoyed a camping holiday with my children many years ago. I stop to look at the beach where we swam and dug holes probably 25 years ago.

What is surprising is how empty places along the coast are. Although it is still August, the traditional holiday season in France finished last week, and while beaches and campsites a few weeks ago would have been packed, now everyone has gone back to work. The beaches are empty, and the campsites are starting to pack up for the winter. And yet it is still hot and sunny, all difficult for a Brit to understand.

Where there is not commercial development, pine forests lie along the entire coast, and the road makes its way through these down to the tourist mega city of Les Sables d’Olonne. However, Helen in the support van has found a delightful, simple and almost empty campsite just north of the city, one with the great name of Camping Amite Nature. 62 miles done today, and only 400 feet of ascending, so when I climb off the bike I feel more or less a normal human being.

Today has been hard work, but having turned the corner and crossed the Loire, and having completed four days of cycling I now actually think I can complete this journey. I realise that up until now I had been thinking that I had barely even started and that the whole journey was far too ambitious.

We decided that spending two nights here would be a good idea, with a chance to relax together and my legs to recover a little. So it will be Thursday before I set off for La Rochelle.

 

This ride is to raise money for the work of World Bicycle Relief. Please make a donation now!

Day 3 – Erdevan to St Nazaire

Another beautiful calm morning and I manage to get off by 9:30. All is quiet at first but then I join the D22 to Auray and find that France has woken up – the zombie apocalypse had not carried everyone off, rather they are all going to Auray, including quite a few articulated lorries blasting past me to start their week.

Auray is a smallish town, but I have to navigate through to the other side, while negotiating rush hour traffic all driving on the right. All goes well until I come to a roundabout where as I head for the 2^nd exit an old chap on a e-bike cuts me up by nipping around me to take the 1^st exit, muttering something to me as he goes. I then get confused as to where there are or are not bike lanes, by now a familiar problem.

I then cross  a long bridge spanning one of the rivers flowing into the Golfe and stop in the village of Le Bono for my morning coffee. Then onwards towards Vannes, guess a route through the narrow streets and emerge on the harbour front, very pleasant place indeed, classic French architecture, tree-bordered paths along the quayside, yachts clinking in the sunshine. Good place for the sandwich. 

Sandwich in Vannes harbour

I set off in what I think is the right direction but pleased to come across a VR45 sign on the edge of town and off again. I find myself on a nasty main road but a VR45 sign takes me down a short track and on to a quiet back road that parallels the main road for some miles, which is very pleasant riding.

It's now hitting about 30°, and I need to stop so pull into a field and lie on the grass under some oak trees, gazing at vapour trails and watching how the wind makes the leaves on trees around me shimmer, as in an Impressionist painting.

By 3 o’clock in the afternoon I am nearly out of water, and there are no bars or cafés on my route where I can refill my bottles, so I stop at an Intermarche supermarket and buy a 1.5 L bottle, which I almost empty immediately. It reassures me that I will have enough to get to the end of the day. The D47 winds on, and by about 4:30 I come into St Nazaire. Helen has sent me some W3W coordinates, so I work out where they are and navigate through the city, down to the docks where the refurbishment of some enormous passenger liners is underway. Some glitches meeting up with Helen due to the inconsistencies of how the W3W app works, but eventually we find each other.

At this point I have to cheat a little. To cross the Loire from St Nazaire means crossing a long suspension bridge with a steep ascent and descent and token bicycle lanes. It is described as dangerous for bicycles, so the bike goes on the back of the van and we drive over, then continue for a couple of miles until we find our stopping place for the night.

That was a long day, 72 miles, and while only 1120 feet of ascending, I was cycling into a steady easterly headwind all day and it was hot, very hot. But I have turned the corner and am now heading south.

This ride is to raise money for the work of World Bicycle Relief. Please make a donation now!

 

Day 2 – Le Cloitre Pleyben to Erdevan

I get an earlier start today in order to take advantage of the cooler morning, and it’s a beautiful calm morning indeed: the adjective for it seem to be ‘benign’. I cycle for an hour along empty rods through lush valleys and end up in Chateauneuf de Faou where I stop for a café in the village square. The bar tabac is stereotypically French, with half a dozen old French chaps sitting at the bar, expressos in front of them and the definite smell of cigarette smoke.

Onwards and the road drops steeply to the River Aulne and then climbs fairly steeply, levelling a little but still a long climb for several miles until I reach a road which runs along the so-called Montagnes Noires. Fabulous views, and empty roads. In fact empty everywhere – by the end of the day I will feel  like I’m cycling through some post-apocalyptic film set. Is it just because it’s Sunday?

After that the roads start to drop gently towards the coast, with my road following (sometimes) the Rver Isole, but sometimes heaving itself over some hills, so while it’s generally downhill there is work to be done. My route turns south-east through Quimperle and on towards Lorient, and I’m back to the up and down of crossing river mouths. It’s also getting hotter and by mid afternoon it is in the mid 20s and I’m running out of water. And being Sunday afternoon in the post-apocalypse, nowhere at all is open.

Navigation continues to baffle me, and I yearn for the exactiture and consistency of OS maps. Several times I have to assume that a road will connect two villages even though the Michelin map has airily dismissed it. Then road numbers change as I cross into a new department, making following signs ever uncertain.

Over 50miles done and Helen sends me a What3 Words message which I duly translate and put into my GPS. 5 miles to go, which is a relief as I’m out of water and increasingly tired. I navigate to an empty stretch of road with definitely no Rosie the van. Phone calls follow and I check the van tracker to find that Helen and the van are 2 miles away. Somehow W3W had calculated completely the wrong location and sent me right up the sentier du jardin.

At just after 5:30 I roll into the camping field, hot and parched. 68 miles done today and 126 miles under the wheel now.

This ride is to raise money for the work of World Bicycle Relief. Please make a donation now!