Day 3 – Water Sports

Visualise sitting in your front room with a warm cup of tea, a gale blowing outside and the rain beating against the window with a thud. How crazy would it be to see a group of 10 colourful cyclists steaming passed the door??

The day started with an early morn in the desire to minimise the rain damage, and uncannily managed to see us set off in the right direction (well done Garmin....2 out of 3 ain’t bad!!)
Here comes the rain again.... we had all kind of rain to quote Forest Gump and it got everywhere. Wet and freezing cold we were relying on our Garmin to lead the way with absolute precision, when we rode along a perfectly good road which in a perfectly good French way, appeared to be closed by a barrier for no good reason... Until our trusty French linguist pointed out the two signs “Tirs en cour” and “danger de morte”!! This we were assured meant that if we crossed the barrier we were at danger of eating lead! In true Brit fashion we firstly looked for an alternative route from our trusty Garmin before thinking we must surely be able to cross.. Freezing and shivering and not wishing to ruled by French bureaucracy we noticed that the barrier was due to be lifted in 2 minutes. 2 minutes passed and hyperthermia set in, with no desire to freeze to death we thought we best take our chances with the bullets! Cruising though the “so called” shooting area we got to the barrier on the other side and were met by the startled looks of the conformist road users and the sound of a fully armoured tank steaming towards the barrier with two soldiers hanging and screaming at us in what we thought to be good wishes!!! Little did we know that out trust linguist was now assuring us that we needed to peddle like mad away from them as we had just cycled through a military shooting range and may have upset them ever so slightly!! Luckily true to form the French aim and military commitment was true to form.....we survived!!!

Continuing towards our destination the rain remained relentless but we pushed on valiantly, with Mr “Ray Mears” Jones using a deeply unpleasant survival technique. He urinated on his feet in order to warm them up. Miska who had to share a room with his shoes was not impressed.

We arrived in Tours, greeted by more rain and thunder; 90 miles completed and according to Garmin at the Hotel (lost again we rode around for a further 5 miles but we’re pleased to arrive at the hotel before dark!)