France, Day 1:

            Resorting to having to sleep in the seats again, I almost felt like I had had a useful nights sleep. We disembarked at 7.30am and were on our way. Well, we made it to security before we realised the bottom screw for my rear rack had disappeared. The thread was damaged and could barely keep another screw in, back to the rescue was captain cable tie. He has certainly got me out of a pickle on a couple of occasions. Job done! Now we were on our way.

            Instantly we were pleased that the rumours were true, smooth Tarmac! The first run was down to Brest. Pretty plain sailing. Roads were good, wide, no real blind bends and the traffic seemed certainly more accommodating. Only thing that miffed us both was that everything was closed, well, other than the Bolougerie at least. We were in Brest before midday anyway, next point was Quimper. We missed the exit to avoid the National Road to Quimper. The traffic passing didn't seem to intense, certainly no worse than cycling on a partially busy dual carriageway, so we decided to get off a few junctions down. It was now Tim chose to have his first puncture. He was just inflating the tyre when a twos vans pull up with lights on and a few men in their hi vis clothes get out. It was at this point we became aware you are not allowed on the Nationals with below and that we were heading towards the main bridge over the estuary and there were no exits before. So we have to put out hands up here an admit we didn't cycle for about 2km as they escorted us over the Pont.

            Frustratingly the only alternative route in this section of the tour was quite fiddly. Something you don't need when you’re trying to achieve a lot of miles as it is time consuming. And when sign posts only show place names that are not even in the atlas you are using, becomes acutely like the Krypton Factor. We lost our way a few times, on one occasion up a long steep hill only to find out an hour later we had to go back into the town. And with thunder storms again, words were expressed. Not to be outdone, my back tyre had a blow out with about an hour left of cycling for the day. This blow out took out the side wall. I had only just bought the tyre for this trip as it is supposed to be near enough indestructible. Mmmm.. I had a spare racing tyre which I had brought with my ability to break front tyres. But the rear has all the weight, 20 stone of it, I wasn’t sure. I decided to put a new inner tube in the 'indestructable' tyre and see what happens. Who knows, the rest of the tyre wall may compensate for the bit that is missing. There was a noticeable bulge, but taking the back breaks off solved noticing that whilst riding!? Anyway at about 9.30 we came across a campsite sign and decided to stop there for the night. We had done 210km at this point. It turned out the site was a mobile home park only. We were there now so found a plot without a mobile home on, so we made it our home for the night.

 

Updated on Jun 20th 2012 at 8:25 AM from the JustGiving API

Last day in France today. Only 90km so a half day of cycling. Touch wood. Its still not too late too donate. The last few days have been tough! Will have a sense of relief when I reach roscoff for the ferry.

Updated on Jun 16th 2012 at 8:39 PM from the JustGiving API

Unfortunately Mr Owens has had to succumb to his injuries on day 4. I'm on my own now for the remainder. Any extra support would be great :)

Updated on Jun 13th 2012 at 11:28 PM from the JustGiving API

Day 1 cont. : two. What can I, we were there till 9.30pm then remembered we had a ferry to catch. Rolling up with all the bikers , only they all had engines we boarded and found some quiet space on the floor to sleep. Expecting going to need it .

Updated on Jun 13th 2012 at 11:23 PM from the JustGiving API

Day 1: final checks made and convincing ourselves that we had packed as light as we could Tim and I set pedalling from Exmouth. We had left at 11am to catch the 11pm ferry 55 miles away in plymouth, plenty of time to poodle down in. Now, what we would like to call seasoned tourers, went for this early start, as we'd know our luck and something catastrophic would occur, to delay our proofread, and if left too late may not be able to solve the problem. However no events occurred other than the soaking we received. The cycle route to Plymouth did disappear on us half way down. And sick of the constant referral to the map, the decision to 'sod it, let's just go down the A38' was made. Good call, was sipping a beer or

 

Thanks for visiting my fundraising page.

I have joined forces with Tim Owens again after our successfull (but rather chilly) maiden tour around the coastline of the south and south west of England last October. This time we'll be taking in the sites around the north of France between the 10th - 20th June, hoping this will eliminate the chill factor.

In the 9 days, not including the cycle to and from plymouth from exmouth to catch the overnight ferry, we have a target of 1500 miles. So that's 160-170 miles a day!!!

We would both be extremely appreciative and thankful of any contributions to show your support of this challenge we have set ourselves.

Any donations recieved will be going towards equipment which is greatly needed for the new sensory room that has newly been made available at Stallcombe House aided by our donations from the previous tour.

Stallcombe House is a community home in East Devon that provide a happy and safe workplace for adults with learning disabilities. Please take a moment to look at their website. The address is www.stallcombehouse.co.uk

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So please dig deep and donate now.