I didn’t get a very good night’s sleep, probably with the thought of the very last day of the ride coming up. It was also a rainy night with occasional flashes of lightning in the distance, and the rain pattering steadily on the van roof kept me awake.
I got up at 7:00 in order to get an early start. After the storm the air was fresher and there was actually blue in the sky, a change after yesterday’s incessant grey. I set off south down along the not quite awake seafront of St Pierre. Dodging the puddles, I headed through the slightly ritzier Narbonne Plage, past the miles of end of season, the dozens of almost closed campsites and fun parks. Thjere was good cycle provision here, being a tourist area, and I found that I was on VR8, that runs along the Mediterranean coast.
After 10 miles I turned off to take a route through the little island village of Gruissan. I stopped for coffee and pain aux chocolat, and hoped that this would help me to feel a bit more relaxed about the ride ahead. It should be very straightforward and flat for the first 60 miles, but after that I would have to follow some Pyrenean roads to get to Cerbere. That was some way ahead, but the concerns about it stayed with me all day long.
I picked my way through the narrow back streets and out onto the causeway crossing the salt marshes which linked Gruissan with the mainland to the west. This gave me the first sight of the Pyrenees away to the south, jagged peaks slowly lowering themselves as they dipped into the Mediterranean at my destination. At the end of the causeway the road crossed the Canal du Pas des Tours, which in former times linked the city of Narbonne with the sea. The canal runs through the middle of a sandbar known as the Ile de Saint Lucie, and is a nature reserve. Along the side of the canal runs VR8, mostly a reasonably good gravel track, but some stretches with lumps of concrete that make for bumpy riding. This made for a simple 5 or 6 miles of cycling, but called for constant vigilance to avoid holes and bumps. I was glad of my puncture-resistant Continental Gatorskin tyres, and I got to the end of the track at the harbour town of Port la Nouvelle without incident.
This was a strange place. Obviously a historic port and with small, single story quaint cottages, but over these loomed flyovers bringing articulated lorries into the port, and behind the cottages was a high-speed electric railway line. From there I followed the D709, which was a newly resurfaced flat road heading across the marshes, and kept up a good speed until I turned off to follow a much bumpier backroad which wound its way through vineyards until it turned me out onto the extremely busy D627. Because the stretch of the coast is essentially a long sandbar with lagoons behind, there was no option other than to pedal doggedly along the marked cycle space on the side of the road. Although of a generous width, this did not protect much against the blast from passing lorries and the constant noise. After several miles of that I turned off and took the road through the village of Leucate, which offered some 10 or 15 minutes of relief. I then had to rejoin the main road, but after a mile or so noticed that this new road lay alongside the unused old road, so I jumped off the bike, lifted it over the crash barriers, negotiated a ditch and cycled the next 3 or 4 miles along my own private road. Eventually that wound out as it faded back into the new road, but I then saw that a cycle path had appeared on the opposite side of the main road, so I jumped over the crash barriers again, waited for a gap in both lines of traffic and ran across to the cycle path.
I was now approaching a long line of holiday resorts which would stretch all the way to the Spanish coast. The cycle path I was now on took me into Port Leucate, and I could then follow the seafront road through the endless line of closed pizza restaurants, bars and frite sellers, and the occasional pensioner enjoying the post-summer peace and quiet. Eventually I found a path which led to the beach, and I sat on a rock overlooking the completely empty beach to eat my lunch.
Back on the bike and continuing to head south, I spent the next few hours alternately cycling along the very busy D81 and D914, or, when I could find the signs to it, the much pleasanter VR8 cycle path. The signs to these were rather small and access to the paths was often not clear, so I would be following the road signs to the next town and would end up on the cycle lane on the main road. After one particularly noisy and unpleasant stretch coming into Canet Plage I pulled off to see if I could find the cycle path, and was greeted by a large local chap on a bicycle asking if I had a problem. I explained that I was trying to get to St Cyprien, and recognising that I was English he exclaimed, “Ah. Long live the King!” I was continually surprised at how much French people seem to have taken in about the transition in our monarchy. Anyway, he said to follow him so we cycled back through some complicated unfinished roadworks and he showed me the road to Sainte Marie, from where I had just come. Suddenly, he realised that he was pointing me in completely the wrong direction, and leaned towards me to apologise profusely, at which point I could smell the beer on his breath and realise that he was not necessarily the most reliable informant. However, he then explained how to go back the way we had come and to go around various roundabouts and go down various roads in industrial estates and there I would find the cycle path. As I pedalled away he continued to apologise profusely about having taken me out of my way.
The directions worked, and I was soon speeding on to St Cyprien along an excellent cycle path beside the busy main road, and then on further south to Argeles Plage. By now I had done about 60 miles, and I felt that I was going very well, but the most complicated parts of the ride were still ahead. I could see from the map that I needed to take the D914 which bypassed Collioure and carried onto my final destination, but when I climbed the hill to join this road I found that it was prohibited to bicycles, so I had to instead follow the winding and rather bumpy corniche road into Collioure. Before descending into the village I took a turning signposted to the next town of Port Vendres which meant more climbing back up to the D914. But again I found that this stretch of the road was still prohibited, so I cruised down the hill into Collioure harbour and took the corniche road around to Port Vendres, then began the long climb up the hill to the main road, hoping that by now it was open to mere bicycles. Fortunately it was.
Now, after 60 miles of barely ascending a few feet, I was on a road that went up and down constantly, as it picked its way through the rocks and valleys of the coastal Pyrenees. A series of hairpin bends took me down into Banyuls sur Mer, and there was then a long, hot climb out the village before I started the somewhat more gentle descent into my final destination, Cerbere. This is the last village in France before the Spanish border, and I had decided that this would mark the end of my cross France adventure. I stopped at the town boundary to take a photograph of the name, and sent messages back to my various followers to show them that I had made it.
As I turned the final bend and started the descent into the
harbour, a strong feeling of emotion came over me at having crossed the entire
country and the adventure was now coming to an end. I met Helen in the harbour
car park, and we cross the road to sit at a café where I drank a large cold
beer, probably the best beer I had ever had. 84 miles in the day.
I loaded the bike onto the back of the van and we drove back to the campsite, where I collapsed in a camping chair, ate nuts and emptied another bottle of beer. 930 miles across France with only one small mechanical incident and no punctures. I lent the bike against a tree and as the sky and sea turned pink in the sunset I gathered together all of my various bits and pieces to pack them in the van. I took a last look at the bike and found that the front tyre was soft. Somewhere in the last few miles of my journey I had had a puncture. But now, I did not care.
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