22 May, 2015

Today we passed two milestones, the first was covering our first 1000 kilometres of the tour and the second was Ken taking his jacket off for the first time since we set off.  Only for the cycling though, it was straight back on again once we stopped.

Having cycled our first 1000 kilometres, I thought it would be a good time to give you a status report on some of the technical aspects of the tour.  After the first 500 kilometres, the point at which the Brooks saddle should have been bedded in, it remained as solid as a brick.  Not even the tiniest bit of give in it at all.  Looking on the internet I found a very apt quote, “Most people swear by their Brooks saddles, but a few swear at them”.  We had adjusted it numerous times, but still it was agony.  The problem was that it needed to be further back, as I was sitting on the supporting framework at the back of the saddle, rather than on the leather seat part.  However, it was at the end of the adjustment and could not go any further back.  At this point I purchased a gel saddle cover, the sort people use who hardly ever ride bikes, and since then I have just about been able to cope with it.  It seems that I am not the only one with this problem, according to the internet the solution is to buy a special seat post which allows the saddle to be set back further.  Not the sort of item available off the shelf in rural France.  It looks like it will need to be sorted out after the tour is over.  Still, I can look forward to the most comfortable saddle ever made for the next tour.

The solar panel, however, is a great success.  With the sun being out over the last couple of days we have been able to ride with it on the back bag, charging the storage battery.  It works a treat.

Other technical aspects; we made running repair to ‘Marmy’, my alpine marmot.  As I was going round a roundabout a few days ago, a man shouted out of his car window to me.  I thought he must be shouting something rude; sometimes people do.  When I looked round I saw he was letting me know that Marmy was in the middle of the road.  A nice man after all.  The string on top of his hat had snapped (Marmy’s not the man in the car) so we have had to fix him with a cable tie through his scarf.  He won’t want to miss out on a trip round his homeland.

As far as the ride went today, the route took us along the other side of the river.  Gone were the pretty farmers cottages, to be replaced by buildings on a far grander scale – a château or two here and there, surrounded by their vineyards.

The riding is hard work as the ground rises steeply up from the Loire and we spend our time crawling up steep inclines just to roll down literally a few hundred metres later.  The places we pass through are really spectacular making the hard work worth while.  Nevertheless, we are ready to pull into the campsite when we see it after one of our hardest days of the tour so far.