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| Stage 1 - Dieppe to Torcy |
| Hotel and start |
| Wigwams!! |
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| Our hotel - how could you miss it? - Easily! |
| Organised chaos - preparing to start.... |
| .... nearly ready...... |
| Didn't you see the arrows....? |
| It had seemed a good idea at the time. I couldn't make the Friday cycle from Leatherhead to Newhaven, so I opted for the 100 miles around Dieppe instead. I booked my Eurotunnel crossing for 7.30 pm Friday, and left my office a shade after 5.00pm - loads of time - I usually cover the distance to the Shuttle terminal in under an hour. Not tonight though - almost two hours, the journey being plagued with roadworks and traffic queues. I just arrived in time to avoid a penalty, doubling the cost of my ticket. Still, once across I was sure it would be plain sailing (motoring) to Dieppe - I had taken a Michelin route guide and it was just a case of following the street names once in Dieppe, and I would arrive outside my hotel no problem. Not so. 11.00 pm local time found me wandering aimlesssly around Dieppe - street names were not a strong point. I frightened off a local spinster by opening my car door and inviting her to 'm'assister'. God knows what she thought, as to her my driver's seat was the front passenger seat and I was clearly inviting her to participate in something exceptionally untoward - she departed rapidly and silently! My big nose came to the rescue and I followed it with my usual British resolve. Never fails. A few minutes later I was driving along the seafront, and, with good fortune, spotted a sign on a roadside lampost indicating 'Hotel Europe' straight ahead. |
| So, I was sharing a room with these other two blokes. At least they hadn't left me the middle bed - that would have been worrying. As it turned out they were father and son, Tony and Lee, and pretty good company as well (putting Tony's snoring to one side, that is - Canadian sawmill category... ). Anyway, we seemed to grab just about enough sleep to face breakfast and the ensuing marathon on wheels. We seemed a bit too enthusiastic, actually, if you ask me! Outside the hotel cyclists gathered, checking tyre pressures, comparing bikes, nervously joking - the usual sort of thing... |
| Then, in the space of no more than a couple of minutes, we were handed our route guides and maps, and we were off! Straight along the front and then left across town and heading south through a residential district. Another ten minutes and we were in the countryside. That was when I noticed that my tyres were out of true. I had decided to put an extra 10 psi in both tyres before starting off and this had caused them to develop flat spots. So it was a case of stop, deflate, realign, and re-inflate to a lower pressure. It couldn't have taken more than 5 minutes but I lost the main group completely and didn't catch them again until the first checkpoint! |
| Still, even being alone for a while wasn't so bad with the countryside unfolding and that Indian camp over there on the left... Hang on a minute, how come there was an Indian camp just outside Dieppe. Damn great teepees or wigwams or whatever they call them dotted all over the place? I mean it's not the sort of thing we would find in England, and we even speak the same language (as the Canadians). But of c-o-u-r-s-e..., there's French-speaking Canada - Quebec and all that, So there's your answer - but it was still unexpected nevertheless. And, of course, it gave the opportunity to recount that joke - you know, the one about the guy driving down a one-way street the wrong way - 'didn't you see the arrows?' remarked a passer-by. 'Arrows? I didn't even see the Indians!' |
| After using up even more time, stopping to take a photo, it was a case of some hard pedalling, and I managed to catch the group again just as they were about to leave the checkpoint. Just in time, however, to see Jane swap her rather heavy looking Halfords budget jobbie (which was playing up somewhat) for this rather attractive bright red little number, that just happened to be made of carbon fibre and worth about ten times as much as the Apollo! Not a bad deal, eh? Well she seemed pleased enough! |