The Final 60’s Tour

Mayenne to Flers 43 miles Running total 884 miles.

Here is todays route. https://ridewithgps.com/routes/42318376

We wake up to blue skies, but it is chilly as we walk from the hotel across the river to pick up the route again. We walk, because on the side of the bridge we should be cycling on, there are veteran American and French soldiers. They are parading there with flags of both countries decorating a plaque in the centre of the bridge. A ceremony is being held to commemorate an American soldier who defended the bridge in the Second World War. If you want more information on this, please speak to my compatriot.

We manoeuvre our way through Mayenne to join the cycleway, which is another re-purposed, disused railway track. The route is straight, undulating, and great for cycling. With a long day we are very happy cyclists.

On reaching a small village, we came across a section of railway track where they run a Velo Rail. This is where you can hand pump a contraption along the rails. Sadly it’s not operating today. The rails are overgrown, so I suspect it has not operated yet this year.

Further along the cycleway after 10 miles, we divert into a small town for coffee and homemade apple cake. The cake was my compatriots idea, but it was nice.

After a further 13 miles riding along the cycleway, it runs out, and we weave our way for a few miles along country lanes around farms and alongside fields. On the smoother tarmac, I can hear that my bike has developed an annoying noise. Suddenly, the road leads us to another disused railway cycleway where I take the opportunity to have a look at my bikes mechanisms. I can see nothing wrong, so give all moving parts a squirt of WD40. The noise has disappeared. Hurrah.

We continue to follow the cycleway, and after we have cycled for around 20 miles, we spot Domfront high on the hill in the distance. We have stayed there several times before on previous trips because a number of the official French cycle routes cross here. It is a beautiful old fortified town, but today, ⁰we were happy not to be cycling up the hill to reach it.

While eating our picnic, I started getting text messages in French from the owner of tonight’s accommodation, which is an apartment. I decided to do a copy and paste translate exercise rather than employ my compatriots Babel app French. It was a slow and painful task, but I managed to communicate correctly in the end. I had instructions for paying, followed by instructions for getting into the apartment using my phone, and then more instructions for how to store the bikes. All of this passed an hour away while sitting in the sun.

The rest of the route up until within a couple of miles of our destination was on another old railway. Garmin, not having anything to do today now refuses to give directions through the town to our accommodation, so it is over to Google for those last couple of miles. I will see what’s wrong with Garmin later.

Flers is a busy town, and my compatriot has got a walking tour map from the tourist office. The town is decorated with palms and tropical flowers on roundabouts and lampposts.