The day dawned fair, if anything too fair, with afternoon temperatures forecast to be in the high 20’s. I had to get to the ferry in Portsmouth that leaves at 2130 and docks in Ouistreham, the seaport of Caen, at 0645 the following morning. So no great hurry to start and I dealt with a few admin issues before strapping the panniers to the Boardman 8.9E adv, checking carefully that this year I had a passport and it was in date. I’d packed my bags a few days previously making use of the spreadsheet that has helped me for the last couple of years so am confident that I have all the essentials. I said goodbye to the nearest and dearest and was on my way on the dot of 12. The drivetrain of the bike has been completely rebuilt following an incident where the derailleur fell off and was mashed by the back wheel. But this was something of a trial journey and unfortunately the indexing of the gears was awry and I was having trouble getting into the lowest gear. Eventually I stopped and rang chief mechanic Rob to check which way to turn the adjuster. It’s better but still not spot on and I shall have to do a bit of fettling when I ride from the ferry to Caen train station tomorrow. I’ve got plenty of time as my train doesn’t leave until 1128. Hopefully I can get it right before the major climbs in the Pyrenees.
This is my fifth attempt at the journey to and from Portsmouth. I went to and from in 2015 when I cycled down to the Med and back, from coming back from Sicily in 2017 and to last year on my slightly ill-fated trip to Berlin. The route is not especially hilly but it is almost 80 miles which in temperatures up to 26 degrees made for an enervating journey. I made reasonable time and was passing Salisbury Cathedral at about three o’clock.
I stopped to take an unusual photo of the west door with the magnificent spire, the tallest in Britain, barely visible above it. The Close was busy with tourists and I weaved my way past walkers who weren’t really paying attention, blipping the bell in warning.
Onwards over the downs towards Southampton, not much traffic on these back roads until I joined the main road at Romsey. There’s a neat little cycle path that misses the centre of the town but after that it’s main roads all the way through Southampton until joining the A27 that takes you all the way to the ferry terminal. I was able to avoid the queues of traffic by taking to the pavement, some of it shared cycle path, some illegal but I try to be sensible and give way to walkers. Anyway it saved a good deal of waiting and I was at Lidl four miles from my destination by 6.45pm for much needed supplies as I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Lights on for the last few miles and I dropped into the Terminal building to make use of their power points to recharge phone and Garmin for an hour or so before boarding. I didn’t bother with the bike battery as I’d only used about 50% and I’m unlikely to use any tomorrow on the 10 mile trip to catch the train in Caen and 4 miles between Parisian stations. That can wait until I’m in my hotel in Toulouse.. Now I’m on board I find charging points freely available, a bonus from last year.
I jumped the car queue to check in and joined several other cyclists as we were corralled ready to board before the main traffic. Traffic was held up as police painstakingly searched all vehicles looking for an escaped prisoner. They didn’t seem to think that I was hiding him in my panniers and waved me and several other cyclists through
I’m not over impressed by the way the bikes are lashed together and I trust that I’ll still have a working derailleur when I collect it in the morning. There must be at least 30 bikes on board, many more than I have seen in the past. Hopefully I’ll get some sleep but the seats aren’t especially comfortable so at best it’ll be a bit of a doze. At least this year I’m on the overnight ferry and not sleeping on the streets.
The ferry docked at 0645 local time leaving me with over four hours to kill before the train from Caen to Paris. I had toyed with the idea of trying to catch the 0758, giving me a bit of time in Paris but I’m very glad that I didn’t because, unlike previous years (probably because there were so many of us) cyclists were last off and by the time I’d got through border patrol I wouldn’t have stood a hope in hell of making it. The morning was foggily wet and my glasses were soon covered in water. I could scarcely see Pegasus Bridge 50 metres from the excellent cycle track that joins Ouistreham to Caen but by the time I passed under the motorway Bridge over the Orne, nicely decorated with graffiti,
the sun had started to break through and by the time I reached the station it was a cloudless sky with the temperature rising fast.
I had a cup of coffee, most of which I managed to spill all over the floor, and a pain au raisin and then set about sorting out the indexing for the gears. It was a long slow process adjusting quarter turn by quarter turn, made even more difficult by the panniers which made mounting and dismounting difficult but I seem to have managed it. There may still be some tweaking to do tomorrow but I’ve got all day to cycle 68 not very taxing miles. I sat in the waiting hall, people watching until 1145 came round and I made my way down under the main station by way of lifts to Quai G where I boarded the non stop train to Paris. The rolling stock looks new, built by Canadian firm Bombardier and all the trains that I saw were double deckers. Bikes travel free and having hung it up by its front wheel I went upstairs and enjoyed the Norman countryside, heavily wooded and green as we made our way east. Once we reached the Seine the scenery deteriorated to industrial mishmash and rail yards, no different, I suppose, from any other conurbation,