My breakfast was amazing, an all I could eat feast. There were what I thought some small round fried bread on a plate but when I tasted one Sylvie noticed and got the translator laptop out with a smile. They was absolutely gorgeous, they were like soft sweet crumpets soaked in syrup and caramel with a hint of cinnamon, I honestly had never tasted anything as nice. She said it was pain perdu which translates as French toast but she said it was a specialty of Picardy called poor mans bread I think and was made during the war as it used left over stale bread and milk,eggs and sugar along with a few other ingredients. The stale french bread is soaked and fried and it sounds really easy but I will never forget the taste. I think I finished off 6 slices !!!
Leaving early I was more than ready for the day ahead but a little rain was threatening and a few raindrops persisted for the first hour or so.
My plan today was to head to see a large chateau in Chantilly and then into Paris and out the other end down to the forest of Fontainebleau. However, I made the worst decision of the week. I thought I would change my plan and go into Senlis (which was stunning and a beautiful town) and skirt around Paris's eastern edges to miss out the big city and make my day less stressful !!! Top tip. When you make a plan stick to it. This day would end up being a stop start nightmare with many wrong turns and I lost count of the times I wished I had stuck to my original route.
So I have learned to make a plan, stick to the plan and don't freestyle something as important as directions that you had previously rehearsed on a map !!
I also spotted my first vineyard !!
Senlis is a beautiful town...
Spiderman on a bike...
Senlis..
Great coffee and croissants....
My first French cycle path...
Always seemed today that storm clouds were threatening but never thankfully getting to anything..
Another welcome sight... cyclepath 2
I have to admit my first wobble came when I spotted a sign that said Gare de Noisy le Sec which I knew was a massive international railway station and I could have quite easily rolled up got on a train to Calais and home. !!!
OK I must now make a formal confession. I went on a few motorway roads on the hard shoulder to get to where I wanted to go. I was lost, despondent and had no other real options other than to accidentally on purpose get on the D199 & D499(N104) . So for the next 20-25 miles I hopped on and off the hard shoulder between Noisy to Melun. It was thrilling and fast and did the job but it was wrong and I never thought I would admit to it but what the heck. I promised myself I would not do it again for the entire journey and I kept this promise (maybe by accident one more time !!)
Not a big cafe, only me and the bike and it was full to capacity, nice chips though !!
After a very frustrating time trying my best to find decent roads and failing to keep away from main roads and traffic I got to Melun and then south to Fontainebleau through the beautiful forest, (downhill all the way for the last couple of miles !!)
Another reason I was a bit miserable during that day was it was the least scenic bit of the trip and looking at the stats after I had been gradually climbing for the last 50 miles !!
But at the end of this day I was greeted by the most beautiful old mansion which was my airbnb for the night. It was stunning. The lady owner said she was going out that night so see it as your own for the night... Enjoy. !! I ordered take out pizza and sat in the garden and ate, drank and relaxed. I could have stayed there all week. I really wished my wife was with me. I missed her so much already and it was only day 2.
Notice my saddle is slightly bent down !!! Near miss accident today in Melun (read on)
The resident cat introduced herself...
I later copied this exact position in the same space for a nap.... cats know just how to get comfy. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
The owner told me how to use the washer/dryer so I attempted to give it a whirl. I felt like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone !! Unfortunately, being a man and unable to take simple instructions and not a French speaker I failed 100%. So on attempt number 3 I realised the reason my Lyrca was still wet was that I was rewashing them on a 30 minute setting not drying them. So I put them in the dryer & set it to 120 minutes and went to bed hoping for the best !!
Random thought number 3: speaking in a French accent but simply carrying on using the English language doesn't help translation or understanding for the listener !!
The night time routine was starting to reveal itself. I had brought 2 sets of clothes along with all the other gear which were stuffed inside 3 bags from my bike. The small bag on top near the handlebars had my glasses, phone, passport, money and some energy bars/gels.
The larger one on the back hanging from my saddle had all my contact lenses, tablets, batteries, chargers, buttcream ! and some other bike maintenance stuff.
The main very large bag under my top frame (which was a fantastic purchase from a firm called Alpkit) had my spare clothes which I was by then used to alternating every day. It also had a huge stock of tiny sun cream sachets and my flip flops called xero shoes. It also had a hand pump sort of stuck to the bottom of it just in case my CO2 failed or I needed a top up of air along the way . (I never ever used it)
The other thing strapped to the front under the tribars was my 2nd water bottle in an upside down tribar bottle holder. The other adaptation I made was to insert a tube into the main water bottle to feed myself water by just sucking it up through the tube whilst on the go. I went with plain good old fashioned water and no supplements, juice or anything and thankfully being in France the tap water was purer than any you will find in a plastic bottle on a supermarket shelf. It worked really really well BUT every night I had to strip these down to clean and refill but the worst thing was trying to get the cleaned clothes I had managed to wash and dry back into the Alpkit bag along with my flip flops and then velcro strap it all back together tight. Did I mention the only real injury I got was that the bag was rubbing on my inner thigh for about 300 miles and made a friction burn mark which was annoying. I had to get the velcro just right so it was tight and made the bag flat and kept it out of the way. I also had to velcro strap the front bottle in place too. So the night time routine was set which was velcro off, empty the bags and in the morning the refilling and re-velcroing began. My advice is when you rehearse a ride, imagine your routines and try to streamline or rethink the way you do them to make life easier.
The other joy I had this time round was to refit my saddle as when I was in Melun I had to make an emergency stop and slammed on the brakes which caused me to sit down really hard on the saddle and it tilted forward 1 inch. So although the last 10-11 miles were through the gorgeous Forest of Fontainebleau it was done whilst sitting towards the back of a nose down saddle.
Dominos pizza consumed, shower, clothes washed (eventually) and bed around 10 pm ZZZZZZ
I cannot believe that today was just 110 miles, it felt like more !!! Nearly 5000 feet climbed today too !! Tomorrow I go the feeling the scenery would start to get better and oh my I was spot on. Every day became more and more stunning and the best 3 days cycling I have ever done were during the last few days of Le Frog.
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