Closed on Monday

June 2, 2025

The quest begins

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Yesterday was spent in a flurry of preparation. Firstly, the domestic stuff that had to be done before I left. Secondly, a bunch of IT things to make sure that I had functional maps in a foreign country, and necessary phone details for emergencies. The actual packing was the simple bit - I think I've got this sorted now, and clothes etc took about half an hour - so just after dinner Raven settled into the back of the van for my wife to drive us to Plymouth.

It seemed we weren't the only ones to have had this idea. There were probably about thirty cyclists on an otherwise quiet sailing, and I got talking with a few. A pair of guys were taking a week to get themselves to Nantes (my day two stop, so I felt secretly smug) and a married couple were heading off to Nice via the Massif Central (which made me momentarily jealous. Maybe next year). We were collectively waved onto the ferry first, and I was soon able to dump my kit in the small inside cabin, and practice my first french for a while. "Une bière pression, s'il vous plaît", in case you were wondering.

What's the collective noun here? A draft of cyclists? A large group of us waited to board the french ferry Armorique.

Raven waited patiently to board. I took the opportunity to grab a quick shot, because she's usually camera shy and hides underneath me whenever I'm taking pics.

The night's sleep was a fairly good one, and I woke an hour or so before to get into the queue for the English breakfast. I'm very aware that there might be two weeks of pastry based offerings ahead, and wanted to take advantage. It was honestly a bit so-so... garlicky sausage, soggy toast and an almost unforgivable absence of black pudding. But it was a french take on the dish, and I guess it's one way to get into the spirit of being abroad. Regardless, it was appreciated. The sky was blue and the view to approaching land was wonderful. I couldn't wait.

That's not a breakfast sausage that any self respecting trucker would recognise. Coffee was good though!

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(Sorry about the bit above. It's a website glitch, and impossible to remove!)

One of the views to sea as we approached port. You can't see the land from this aspect, but I wanted to capture the Breton flag which the ship flies, in addition to the French tricolore. Brittany is a region fiercely protective of its identity, and the place signs are in both French and Breton everywhere. They're also, frequently, almost unpronounceable even if you think you speak French. Different languages, see?

I think this one kind of captions itself, don't you?

We were out of the boat and through passport checks in about 20 minutes, so by 0830, Raven was on french roads proper, and ready to start the adventure. The maps seemed to have loaded properly, the computer knew where we were, and it was already nagging us to push on. So we did.

The first thing we noticed was that some idiot was on the wrong side of the road. Shortly after, it became apparent that there were lots of them. Fashion being important in France, we decided that it was probably helpful to join in with the trend.

There were several other things that we noticed in quick succession. In no particular order...

French roads are fabulous. So much smoother than British ones. Raven felt like she'd had soundproofing, and been given suspension. I definitely think this helped us make quicker progress during the day, as well as making the ride so much more pleasurable.
French cycle paths are fabulous too. They're wide, clean, adjacent to the road, and they give you priority at junctions. In England, all you can generally say is that they're adjacent to the road, sometimes, except when they are a narrow painted part of the carriageway or want you to cross over for no good reason. So in France, you can use the cycle paths. In England, not so much
France was shut.

Our route for the day was a rural one, not least because France is a rural country, with far lower population density than England. Few settlements of note. But I wasn't worried about that, because all French villages have a bakery, right? Hmmm. Not so much. Several did, but they were closed on Monday. As was anything else resembling a shop. Monday, in France, is like Sunday, for reasons that I'm not entirely able to explain. I love that while the rest of the world hates Monday mornings, the French nation solved a problem by simply cancelling work. But it was going to cause us a couple of difficulties as the day progressed...

A tumbledown street in Morlaix, about 15 miles in. Too soon to stop for morning coffee. Although with hindsight, I might have done!

I'd planned stop one in the small town of Lannéanou, about 30 miles in. Nothing doing. All shut. Next settlement was ten miles on. Also closed. By three and a half hours, I was out of water, and there was no sign of anywhere to buy food, breakfast having been at 6am. Soon, the church bells chimed for midday (if you can't eat in French villages on Mondays, you can definitely pray). This was unhelpful because, if you know France, you'll know that anything open will probably close at 12 for lunch. Aaaargh.

As ever, though, we managed. I found an unsuspecting frenchman talking to two cyclists outside his house, so I slammed on the brakes and politely asked him for some water. A little surprised, he kindly obliged, and I downed the first almost instantly. Shortly after, I passed a cemetery, and knew there'd be a tap here too. So I was able to rehydrate properly, rather than feeling I had to restrict myself. And then, miracle of miracles, we arrived at the oasis of Maël-Carhaix, 50 miles in. It's a fabulous place.

It has a small supermarket.

Actually, it also has a small restaurant which opens on Mondays.

L'embarras du choix, as the French say.

Maël-Carhaix is certainly attractive in a typically french way. The best thing about it today, though, was the garish signage of an actual shop. It closed at one, but it was twelve thirty now. So we didn't care. Top marks on TripAdvisor from me.

More pretty buildings on the square. This one was obviously designed to allow cyclists to give thanks for the supermarket.

And here it was, from a limited selection: lunch. This may yet be the best meal of the week. A family pack of rice puddings, two bananas, and a half baguette and bar of chocolate to make impromptu pain au chocolat. Cheap, cheerful, and ohmygod so carb heavy. I really needed this.

Feeling human again, I jumped back onto Raven with a little more energy, and headed off for the second half of our ride. Next settlement, about ten miles on, was Rostrenen, which was larger again. I say ten miles, but for the purpose of completeness, I should say that they'd blocked the road out of Maël-Carhaix to fell some trees, which necessitated some hasty replanning and a longer diversion.

One of my day's aims - indeed, one of the tour's whole purposes - was to find french flan. I mentioned this in the journal introduction but I'm mildly obsessed, and for those of you who didn't read it (shame on you!) I'll recap. It's essentially crème pâtissière in a pastry case, pastry whose sole purpose is arguably to hold as significant a lump of custard as possible in some kind of manageable handful. I know France has a lot to boast of, from pasteurisation and the metric system, to hot air balloons and even the bicycle. (Some of these may be debatable). But it's my assertion that flan nature is their greatest gift to the world.

There wasn't any flan in Rostrenen either, because the boulangerie was shut.

However, there was a bar.

We sat and had a coke, roadside. Because frankly I felt owed a little cafe time, and people-watching from the terrace is a national pastime. Rather predictably, other French people were doing it too, whilst indulging in another typical pastime: heavy smoking. We didn't linger too long.

Thirty miles to go, now. It was a long day, and the roads were rolling, but nothing with much more than a steady gradient of 3-5%.

We passed the Nantes-Brest canal path, itself a busy cycling destination which would have taken us to our evening's lodgings, and tomorrow's too. We didn't follow it though. Too meandering, too slow, and too imperfectly surfaced. We've got Raven's new tyres to think about.

Shortly afterwards, we left the hilliest section of our first french region behind. We were closing in on the finish line.

The sign for the département of Morbihan, in the south of Brittany. We were making steady progress! This was a fairly typical shot of the day's french roads, too, which is why there aren't many like it. Lovely to ride, but lacking in significant deatures, and largely devoid of traffic.

About six miles from the finish, we came to the town of Noyal-Pontivy. It had several compelling landmarks. I'm going to let you guess which I liked best.

Or the baker's shop? You'll notice two details. It's open. And Raven is parked.

I'm not even going to let you guess what I bought in the bakery. Pointless. Actually, the flan was probably only a five out of ten, as flans go, but that's like comparatively grading winning lottery tickets or mega-yachts. Zero complaints.

And then, a few short miles further along, and ninety-three miles from our starting point, the satnav showed us a little chequered flag. We'd made it: probably the toughest day's riding of the tour. The b&b was an unexpectedly lovely surprise, situated right on the canal, with great views which I'm currently enjoying from their reading room as I type.

B&b "la tranquillité", which has its own bicycle store. Just about everyone else here has also arrived on two wheels, although they've done it on the canal path.

It's not just cyclists who come here. This guy is one of the permanent residents, and he gave us the once-over as we arrived.

The view from just outside. I suspect there won't be many better, this tour.

And lastly, the day's numbers. It's not possible to reprogram all the important stats on this device, so let's also acknowledge: slices of flan (1).

Today's ride: 93 miles (150 km)
Total: 93 miles (150 km)

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Stuart RussellWhat a great start. Presumably the availability of bakeries and the quality of the flan can only increase! 😊
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1 month ago

Mark M.To Stuart RussellI will test that with single minded dedication. You can count on it 😎
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1 month ago

Lesley AndersonAnd just like that, day 1 is over and Tuesday should be a blur of open shops and an abundance of flan 🥰
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1 month ago

Mark M.To Lesley AndersonIt's almost as though you made it happen! Tell me, what are you thinking about Sunday on the continent..? 😱
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1 month ago