Wow, that's top effort - both the cause and the repeated100m days, and I'm guessing with hills...
Je pars pour la France
- Thread starter Toshack10
- Start date
Ouch!
It was very difficult especially over the mountains. We did have a couple of shortish 70-80 mile days but these had to be paid back with 120-130 mile days. We stayed in fire stations each night.
The bike is finally home. Yesterday I took the motorway to Lausanne then had Beeline plot me a fun route to Troyes, which when zoomed out looks like a straight line
Then today I did the same to Eurotunnel. Very fun but really clear the rural depopulation that’s happened across France. Nary a cafe or boulangerie still existing.
At one point near Arras I found myself following the Arras battlefield memorial (poppy) route. This got me thinking about the waste of a generation in those trenches, the destruction of that part of France, and the lack of German cemeteries - we seem to be ok to forget them. Then I remembered that my great uncle was buried somewhere near Arras.
So I stopped at the next junction and two Google searches later found him. He was just 3km down the road (off my route) at Poizieres! I went to pay him a visit, but he’s one of the “no known grave” lot, went missing in May 1918 having signed up in October 1914.
I also passed a lone sign pointing to a “Major Dickens Memorial” so googled that when I got home as a memorial to a single soldier is a bit memorable. He was Charles’ grandson and died in 1916, also serving in the London Regiment, Kensington Batallion. Funny old world.
Jura yesterday, coming into Salins- les bains
Oh
18 bikes on my Eurotunnel home: 8 of them GS’s
Then today I did the same to Eurotunnel. Very fun but really clear the rural depopulation that’s happened across France. Nary a cafe or boulangerie still existing.
At one point near Arras I found myself following the Arras battlefield memorial (poppy) route. This got me thinking about the waste of a generation in those trenches, the destruction of that part of France, and the lack of German cemeteries - we seem to be ok to forget them. Then I remembered that my great uncle was buried somewhere near Arras.
So I stopped at the next junction and two Google searches later found him. He was just 3km down the road (off my route) at Poizieres! I went to pay him a visit, but he’s one of the “no known grave” lot, went missing in May 1918 having signed up in October 1914.
I also passed a lone sign pointing to a “Major Dickens Memorial” so googled that when I got home as a memorial to a single soldier is a bit memorable. He was Charles’ grandson and died in 1916, also serving in the London Regiment, Kensington Batallion. Funny old world.
Jura yesterday, coming into Salins- les bains
Oh
18 bikes on my Eurotunnel home: 8 of them GS’s
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