Cycle Europe 2008

Day 58: 15th August. Marseille - Aubignan. 82 miles

Day 59: 16th August. Aubignan - Valence. 72 miles

Day 60: 17th August. Valence - Tencin. 84 miles

Hello from Tencin, a tiny village about 19 miles north of Grenoble. In only 3 days, we’d managed to ride over 230 miles but our final days ride was curtailed by a nasty accident I suffered, hence the delay in the blog. The doctor’s suspected prognosis of a fractured pelvis luckily proved wrong but with severe brusing and internal muscle damage, I’ve been laid up for 4 days now and although the advice has been to rest for 3 weeks, I hope to ride to Geneva on schedule on Monday. Time will tell!

Enjoy the blog, even though it is slightly flat due to the events of the last few days. Cheers, Jon.

Day 58: 15th August. Marseille - Aubignan. 82 miles

With my friend John Skivington having joined us, it was very strange to leave the IBIS hotel as a trio. It was the first time, since Carsten and Mark joined us in Germany, that we’d had anyone with us but John is great company and I knew we’d benefit from him being around.

John looks exactly the same as us with his bike and panniers. I’ve ridden with him before many times but he has always been on his racing bike so it was odd to see him with as much luggage as we have. The only difference was the cleanliness, it all looked as if it had just been bought!

Marseille is obviously at sea level but by lunchtime I knew it was also surrounded by hills. About 20 minutes into the ride I was a bit surprised by the gusty breeze as we climbed through a northern Marseille suburb but as time went by it seemed to increase, heading directly into our faces. We seemed to climb and climb until the urbanisation stopped and we found ourselves on a pig of a road running adjacent to a motorway. The headwind was obviously here to stay, making the poplar trees that surrounded bow subserviently. I was so annoyed that of all days, the mistral (the wind) had appeared today. Marco and I are used to chatting when we ride and yet with this wind (the gusts of which regularly reached 45mph over the next 2 days) talking was impossible as we were mainly out of the saddle straining against the mistral as it swept down from the Alps. Marco is about 5ft 7; (1,69m) and with John about 5ft 4; (1,63m) and both under 75 kg, they are made for riding. I’m the leanest I’ve been and feel the fittest for riding too but I’m still carrying about 12 kg more through my body weight and throughout the day they were a few minutes ahead of me, slightly more on hills. In the afternoon, this allowed me to get the Ipod out and use music to get me over hills and drive my legs against the invisble natural hurdel that had been put in our way.

With John now adding to our daily kitty, the 38€ for 6 sandwiches and 6 drinks for lunch at the only cafe open was just affordable. The weary day continued and at about 6pm, I felt as if we’d ridden to Dieppe already. A huge but awful pizza had to suffice for dinner and then, having found our first choice of campsite full we eventually rode a further 5km to Aubignan where we had to do a double take when told the cost was 12€ - for all 3 of us! Campsite Aubignan - you get the vote as possibly the best value for money so far. Free showers, fair price AND the lady at reception pretended to understand my French

Day 59: 16th August. Aubignan - Valence. 72 miles.

Introducing John to the al fresco eating that is ‘petit dejeuner’ on supermarket car parks was interesting. He seemed to pick it up very quickly and was soon dodging the spit and verbal insults from the french shoppers. (Nothing could be further from the truth as the reaction is often a cheery “bon appetit”).

The road to Valance was a long one and unfortunately the powerful mistral again returned battling against it for the second day running.

Having John along has bought a new element to the ride. From the first minute I began to see things from his perspective. For Marco and I many things have become over familiar. The heat in Marseille was the first thing John mentioned. Obviously he had enjoyed the humid rush of warm air that envelops you as you reach the entrance to the plane having arrived in a hot climate. I’d forgotten it was hot and humid and when I looked through John’s eyes it must’ve been great to be riding to the IBIS on the first night at 8pm in 26 degree heat surrounded by palm trees having left the wet and cool UK a few hours earlier.

On the ride today John was constantly pointing out the mountains , the views and the vegetation which we’d become a bit accustomed to. It was useful to have this reminder as soon I’d be flying through the night on a plane somewhere and would miss this hugely and shouldn’t take it for granted. I did have to smile though as John called for a stop. He dismounted and wandered camera in hand into a field only to return triumphantly a few minutes later proclaiming he had taken a photo of “the perfect vine”. It did look green, I agree, and yes it had green grapes on it but to me it looked like the other 2 million we ridden by that day.

Valence was a welcome relief and we were so lucky to see a sign to a campsite as the map I had didn’t have any marked. At 22€ it was fine, although a bit deserted. Increasingly, I’m getting a sense of the end of the season here. Apparently, inclement weather in the north of France is forcing people down here but today the site was quiet and a few early autumn leaves fell around our three tents. A local supermarket cafe supplied dinner and after a hard ride, bed came early.

Day 60: 17th August. Valence - Tencin. 84 miles

The first the thing I did as my eyes opened was listen. Was the mistral to appear for the third day in a row? The answer was no. The leaves at the very top of the trees surrounding our plot fluttered but nothing else stirred. However, there was another issue - rain. By the time we had returned to the previous nights cafe for breakfast, it had started to pour down in buckets. The enforced extra croissant was welcome but we wanted to reach Grenoble and that was a further 80 miles away so regardless of the rain we set off.

Apart from meeting a slightly mad cyclist whilst having lunch on the pavement, it was a largely uneventful day - until Grenoble that is. We’d been unsuccessful in finding a campsite to the south so anticipated riding through the town in hope of finding one on the north side. I was about 20 metres ahead of John and Marco and was on the down slope of a bridge that crossed a river in the centre of town. I was on the road pedalling fast, somewhere between 15 and 20 mph. I’d seen the cycle path earlier and there it was again to the right, running about 2 metres parallel to the road and an exit from the road on to it coming up. I made a decision in a split second - unfortunately it was the wrong one. I was going too fast and didn’t have sufficient time to turn into the exit. I hit the small curb at too acute an angle and was already off balance, 20 kg of pannier weight tipping the bike and me to the left. Marco later said that the last picture he remembers of me, was me sitting on the bike as normal but parallel to road about a meter off the ground. To me it was a blur of noise, scrapes, pain and lightening thoughts of “this helmet has just taken a huge hit” as well as “it was going to happen at some point and now it’s out of the way” both before I’d even stopped scraping along the tarmac.

I opened my eyes to find John above me and as I was on my knees holding my stomach. As I hobbled to the side of the road to recover, something deep inside me didn’t feel right. No bones were sticking out of me which was a good thing and it quickly became obvious what had taken the brunt of the impact. I had landed square on the left hand side of me and the bike which meant 3 things had taken the force of the impact: firstly my left thigh, secondly the rear left pannier and finally the left hand side of my helemt. When John handed it back to me I got quite emotional bearing in mind the reason we are here. The carbon fibre helmet was smashed, severely dented and split in 4 places, held together only by the internal skeleton of wires that the top of the range brands do. I sat there dazed, breathing hard and unconciously repeating “oh my God, oh my God”. Who knows what the outcome would’ve been without the helmet? The way it slammed onto the road with my weight, the bike’s and the luggage leaves me with no doubt that I’d at least have suffered a serious facial and head injury and I don’t think I need to say too much about what the worst case scenario could’ve been. I’d promised my fireman friend Derry that I’d wear the helmet after an emotional description of a cycling accident he’d attended earlier in the year. This is a promise I may well owe my life to.

I now had to assess the injuries I did have. Surprisingly, there was relatively little grazing. My shoulder, knee and elbow didn’t look too good and I simply couldn’t feel any of my left buttock and thigh but it was deep inside my groin that I was more worried about. 20 minutes later I got back in the saddle. It was mid afternoon and we had to find a campsite. Mounting the bike was agony as was riding and for the next 19 miles, I didn’t exceed 5 mph as I winced in various states of pain heading northwards as John and Marco patiently slowed. Soon I was hurting in my left lower stomach and a quick inspection revealed a rather odd looking swelling which was painful to touch.

When I saw Marco raise his hand and punch the air later that evening to signal a sign for a campsite a huge surge of emotion went through me. I’d not had time to have a proper look at my injuries and everything was hurting. We booked into a campsite in Tencin nestled between a river and a lake and I finally dismounted. Walking 50 metres to the shower was both painful and painfully slow and I decided there and then to call my insurance company in the morning and see a doctor. My tent was put up for me, we ate and then I took 20 minutes to undress and get into the tent swearing too loudly everytime a bolt of pain went through me. I wasn’t in a good way and I was worried about both my health and completing the ride.