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!