3 punctures, all in different places so not the rim or anything, just bad luck.
I gained a travel companion en route to Paris. We both camped near Dieppe the first night, then we both stayed at the Cyclist Halte in Dampierre-en-bray, so we decided to travel together. It was really nice having a companion for the first half of the trip. They are 64 and have done a lot tours and taught me lots of neat tricks and how people toured before GPS, which saved me a lot of battery in the end. They were using a Brompton folding bike as they came over from Canada (see pictures)
After Paris, I got the train to Calais and cycled the Euro Velo 4 route along the coast back to Paris. I didn’t know the fast trains require bike bags, I thought there were lots of options to get to Calais, but in the end it was one of two regional trains that you can just walk bikes onto, and I had just missed the early one, so got to Calais to late to ride that day. The next day was rainy, and I did my 50 mile quota plus about 30 more to make up for losing time the day before. However the next day was gale strength head winds, I tried my hardest to get to Dieppe so I could make the ferry in the morning, but I just ran out of energy 30 miles short, and had to give in. I booked a ferry for the following day instead and took the last 30 miles at a relaxing pace to recoup.
My rear brake was broken. It failed going down a few hills and I had to foot brake to stop. I could temporarily fix it, but it would stop working again after a while, and I had to keep fiddling with it before going down a big hill. Need to get it fixed at a shop before any more tours.
Arriving in Dieppe:
A view of Normandy on the Avenue Verte:
Gisors:
Camping in Dangu:
Travel companions:
Some cool wall art:
A coastal town view:
Mind you sharing some tips for riding without GPS.
We have pretty extensive network of bike routes so I used to write the numbers down on paper (start on 404 -> in “town” turn to 5065 -> …) like rally instructions. But with maps even paper ones it is much easier to navigate.
Thank you. Im not used to routes being well signposted where I am outside of the city but france seem to do a great job of it. And theres always copies of the local bike routes at the main tourism offices in town. I think I will avoid gps as much as I can get away in the future, it was really nice not to worry about battdry management