It was at the Semaine Fédérale last year (2014), as we crossed L’Allier one day, when we realised that there are some big fucking rivers in France, that we’ve simply never heard of. Obviously, we’d heard of the Seine and Somme and probably some others we could name if we smashed our heads on the desk for a while, but our knowledge of French rivers can only be described as “thin”.
The Orchies 400 we rode in early May was all about the Somme. Actually, it was mostly about open prairie, but it did repeatedly interact with la vallée de la somme as we toured the cemeteries of the Western Front.
To keep our Franco themed year going, we decided to return and ride La Bataille de Verdun, a 600km randonnee starting and finishing at Verberie, which would include a visit to the Eastern Front, and a tour of Champagne. To avoid any surprises, I looked up the rivers we’d be encountering this time - and speaking for myself here - I’d never heard of any of them; L’Aisne, Le Meuse (actually I had heard of this one, although I didn’t know it - because it’s the Maas when it reaches The Netherlands), and La Marne.
This time, we ventured South with an old
wheel sucker YACF chum, Veloman, who apparently had nothing much better to do than hang out with us. We had a leisurely drive down on the Friday, and were installed at the Kyriad Hotel, Compiègne in time for tea at the neighbouring Italian restaurant. The forecast for the weekend looked warm, sunny and settled.
Another ridiculously early start; our alarms went off at 3:30am (2:30am for our body-clocks) which gave us enough time to shower and get over to Verberie ready for the 5am kick off. Once again, fboab managed the controle admin, while I fretted about stuff.
It was a rather ill-disciplined start to be honest, we all kinda leaked out of the car-park in dribs and drabs. We exchanged “Bonjours” with Didier et Sylvie on the other tandem, and we settled in behind Veloman who was in turn tucked in behind an infeasibly fast touriste rider at the front.
We continued in this formation for some time, although the other tandem fell behind quite early on. Finally, fboab and I gave it a wee bit extra and we took to the front, with Veloman tucked in close behind us. Veloman and I spied a Wild Boar on the verge up ahead, but fboab missed it so claimed we’d been seeing things.
As dawn completed her morning thing, and day got into its stride properly, we cracked on at a decent pace through kilometre after kilometre of lovely cool forest. There was no sign of the rest of the ride by now - the crazy English were off up the road. At 60km we got a bit caught up with the Saturday morning rush-hour at Soissons, but that was soon past and we were back beside L’Aisne on lovely fast, flat, smooth roads.
The first control was at 116km, at Neufchatel sur Aisne. We tucked into hot baguettes from the local baker, and drank strong black coffee at the salubrious Hotel du Cheval Blanc. While we were there, Monsieur Le Mayor arrived for his morning coffee; the greetings of “Bonjour Monsieur le Mayor” he received from the other customers striking a level of respect you’d not likely see in Britain. Shortly before we got underway again, the peloton arrived, along with the other tandem. It became apparent that quite a few riders were being supported, and we speculated that this was probably as much a PBP dry-run for the supporters as it was for the riders.
We were soon away again to more of the same flat riverside roads, but it started to get a little harder as the altimeter on my GPS started to tick up. The sun was well up now, and it was starting to get warm - easily into the mid-twenties by mid-morning - but there was plenty of cloud around, so we weren’t exactly getting blasted by the sun. We stopped for a nature break and Veloman elected to ride on slowly. When we caught him again, he was looking a little hot - not helped by the arrival of some rather more choppy terrain. At Le Chesne he announced he was going to stop for a coke, and encouraged us to carry on, which we did. The road reared up ahead after Le Chesne and our super-fast touriste friend who’d got away from Neufchatel ahead of us was enjoying a picnic lunch under the trees as we passed - he probably knew what was coming next - some long long climbs, fully exposed to the sun which was now out from the clouds again. We repeated a slog up/swoop down pattern for probably an hour or so before reaching the second control at Beaumont en Argonne. It was fiercely hot in the sun by now, and Beaumont was properly ferme. This continues to be a source of irk to me - just at the point when travelling folks want to run and hide under some shade outside a bar, is just the time when the buggers shut for a few hours. Fboab managed to find the bar-owner, who took pity on us and at least filled our bidons for us.
Veloman arrived, but was clearly in need of some downtime in the shade - he seemed to be finding the heat hard work. One of the support cars had arrived in Beaumont shortly before us - and fboab had speculated they were going to meet up by an old chapel on the edge of the village, but there was no sign of them. There was some shade for Veloman, so we took photos for PoP and left him to a siesta.
Having failed to find food in Beaumont, we had to stop at the next available place that might actually be open, and that turned out to be a boulangerie in Stenay. We ate a rather unsatisfying lunch (apart from the pastries - which were LUSH) by a dog-shit infested patch of scrubby grass dans centre-ville. It was not a highlight of the ride, TBH.
Veloman arrived and we discussed strategies. He was clearly struggling to maintain our pace in the heat, so we decided to reform in Chalons which would be our overnight stop at 419km.
Leaving Veloman in dog-shit park, we pressed on in the afternoon heat. It was all up from here as we gradually climbed up on to the Côtes de Meuse where the Verdun battlefields are. It was a little cooler in the forest, and being over 300m probably helped too, but it was still a slog up to Douaumont for the third control at 270km.
The Ossuaire de Douaumont is an amazing place. The closest I’ve come to visiting World War I/II sites was to visit my Grandad’s grave near Arras last year, but Douaumont takes it to a whole new level and you cannot fail to be affected as you ride up through the woods, scarred by countless bomb craters and earthworks for trenches and gun emplacements. We obtained a souvenir Euro from a vending machine as PoP and tarried a while. It’s a peaceful place now, but you can’t get away from the sense of complete and utter waste of life as you look around you.
Being tired, hot and sweaty, I was in danger of getting emotional too - so we pointed the tandem at Verdun and enjoyed a full fifteen minutes of crazy descent (including a wave at a thin young thing doing hill repeats up/down the hill - someone called Flavien it would appear, using the stalking power of Strava) before rolling up by a friendly looking cafe on the riverfront in the town centre.
Although not a control, it was tea time and we were in dire need of a decent rest and feed. We ordered All the Drinks, and heeeyooge sandwiches with frites; fboab with the biggest grin I’ve seen on her face for a long long time. We were having a whale of a time!
Leaving Verdun, it was as flat as a flat thing for a good 40km, which is just as well - it gave us time to digest our tea. We only stopped briefly at Saint Mihiel, control number four, mostly long enough to eat Magnums, drink freezing cold lemonade, and for me to get the piss ripped out of me and my useless French by the good-natured locals sat outside; they were pretty impressed by our cycling - totally not so by my language skilz.
Soon after leaving Saint Mihiel, we stopped for a natural break, and to night-up. It was about 10pm and still fairly light, but the sun had disappeared behind some clouds so it was time to get the hi-viz on, lights on, and extra clothes on for fboab. It still seemed warm to me, so I kept my arm-warmers in the bag. We’d covered about 320km and we had another 100km to go until bed. This is not the most ideal distance split - it made for a very long first day, but we’d decided that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing in PBP year.
The terrain started to roll again as we headed West, but the promised tail wind (such as it was - it was pretty light) did appear - the breeze settling into the NE having been a fresh Westerly all the time we’d been heading East during the day.
There’s really not very much to say about the next 100km. It got dark, the terrain was relentlessly rolling, but the gradients pretty easy. It started to get chilly in the valleys, and some extra clothing was necessary - although the radiated heat from fboab’s sunburn that she’d collected despite liberal use of P20, helped to keep me warm. We put tunes on. We muttered and swore at the flashing lights of the turbines on the ridgelines that took forever to arrive.
We stopped on top of Yet another Ridge and raided the Jelly Baby stash, and might have had a snog by a grain silo. How romantic.
As we crawled over the top of the next ridgeline, there was a mass of orange lights in the distance. “They’d better be the fucking lights of portmahomack”
1 I muttered - and they were, but sadly we had to cross another three ridgelines of decreasing height to get to them. Eventually, we arrived at the F1 hotel, Chalons en Champagne at 1:50am.
There’s not a lot of room to spare in an F1 room - and they clearly didn’t design them for riders of tandems. It didn’t matter. Not one jot. We had showers, we had beds. We set alarms for 7:30 and were out like lights. I was awoken by snoring at one point, but I couldn’t work out whether fboab had woken me with her snores, or I’d woken myself with mine.
Far too soon, the alarms were doing their thing. It was light outside and that meant, time to get a move on. The control didn’t officially close until 8:50 or so, so we still had time in hand despite having just slept for four hours. Fboab came back from the loo. “I just met Veloman. He’s had a rough time - been throwing up all night.” Well, that didn’t sound good. Turned out he was going to try and get his head down for a bit, and see if he could keep some fluids down at least. Meanwhile, we headed for the reception which seemed to have transformed into a cafe, and we made an indecent sized dent in the pastry mountain at the “All you can eat” breakfast bar.
Veloman’s bike was outside with a note pinned to it informing us of his malaise. He was nowhere to be seen, so we guessed he was getting some well-needed sleep, so we didn’t disturb him, but fboab let him know what time we’d left on his note.
As is normal for us on day 2 of a 600, we were pretty impressively slow at first as we trundled out of Chalons, alongside the Marne. We spotted the other tandem again and waved. “Ca va?” I called, and got the internationally agreed sign for “meh” as a reply. I took that as a “yes”!
Fboab and I have some recurring themes in our rides. Some, the more attentive readers will already know; for example, we don’t mind wheel suckers, not one bit - everyone’s welcome, and perhaps my whole “France is always closed” thing. Another one, is this. The Valley road Lie. Time and time again, we’ve reviewed a route, seen that it follows a river (possibly with the added bonus of a railway too) and thought - “Ah - it follows the river, that’ll be flat”. This is of course, invariably a lie because road-builders are a sadistic bunch, who shamelessly ignore the lovely flat plain next to the river on the valley floor, and instead bounce the road up and down the side of the valley. So it is, with the Marne valley.
Fboab: “Y’know, considering this is Champagne, I would have expected to see vineyards.”
Me: “Don’t knock it, Vineyards mean hills”
*
we cycle round a bend *
Fboab: “Oh look, vineyards!”
Me: “Fuck me - hills!”
And so it was, we entered Route touristique du CHAMPAGNE. We followed the D1 though Dizy, mixed it up with a local club run around the gert big climb at Venteuil, had a wee domestic at Reuil following a navigational breakdown, and were finally forced to a halt at Passy-sur-Marne when the rear gear cable broke. Thankfully, we carry a spare, so it was a quick and easy job to change it - and mercifully, we were able to find some shade under which to work.
Fboab (reading phone messages): “Veloman’s on a train to Paris. He abandoned at Chalons.”
Me: “Arse. Oh well - probably for the best, he’d have found this hard going without food and drink.”
We pressed on, but needed lunch. We should probably have stopped at Thierry, but kept going despite getting low on drink, low on energy, and properly cooked by the sun which seemed much stronger than Saturday. We stopped at the control at Le Ferte at just gone 1pm.
We had All the Drinks, and hyeeeoooge sandwiches. Again. I may or may not have had a nana nap.
We had about 70km to go, some of it hilly by the looks of it, all of it into the wind which had shifted back to the North, but had bags of time in hand. There was more rolling terrain after the stop, but gradually it seemed to ease after that, and although there was a headwind, it was mostly of the “Keeping you cool” kind. We stopped at Betz for an ice cream at an improbably Not Closed bar. Bartender didn’t have any Ice Cream, but promised us Ice in our drinks, so fboab ordered drinks, only for him to remember that the ice machine was off. Bah! The drinks were cold though - and we had an excellent conversation with him about our adventures, the weather En France compared to home (“Quatorze celcius?? En Juin?
”), and where we were headed next. He even managed not to laugh at my French, though he did liken me to a picture of Peter Falk on the wall, which is possibly worse.
We took our leave, and rolled on easily through afternoon sunshine, on empty roads, and increasingly - through shady woods and an actual river valley road that didn’t lie.
We arrived back at Verberie at about 17:30. The village itself was closed for some kind of event, but we finally managed to find the cycle club rooms. Turned out we were third back - the Orange Blob was the winner - back before midday, and our friend the fast touriste, second, back about 2pm. While we were at the finish the other tandem arrived. We spent a really pleasant half an hour or so at the finish, chatting as best we could in our (rubbish) French.
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1The Lights of Portmahomack. This is a reference to Eck of this parish, who had this as his Sig for a long time: "Are they the lights of Portmahomack?"
"No".
This we found VERY funny, and we've used this whenever we're riding at night, feeling a bit thin and in need of a stop. When some distant lights appear, the neediest of us will offer, often rather limply, "Are they the lights of Portmahomack?" and the other will gleefully reply "NO!"
