65km, 683m climbing, 3h15min, average speed 19.8km/h
The discussion about how to play Friday’s stage started almost as soon as we got in the car, continued through dinner and drinks, and was only really concluded at breakfast. Our first day following the Tour had been great, but it was hard to see how we could continue with our plan to ride 130km to Mûr-de-Bretagne and halfway back again. It was too hot to ride safely from about 11.30am – I had found this out the hard way on the road to Mortain – and Friday was forecast to be even hotter. MdB was about 90km from our accommodation, so we’d need to be on the road for 6.30am, and we’d arrive four hours before the Tour’s earliest arrival, on a hillside in the heat with no food or drink. It just didn’t sound like an enjoyable day out.
But the Mûr-de-Bretagne – literally the ‘wall of Brittany’ – was the big draw for the whole adventure. It might have been my whole reason for being there. We’d both watched Dan Martin win there on TV in 2018; that was the year Geriant Thomas won the tour, and G wrote a memorable chapter about it in his memoir of the race. He was in the breakaway that day and would surely try an attack again this year. And two years ago, Graeme and I took in the climb on our annual trip, our first big Tour climb on a memorable day. It was difficult to dismiss the plan, to cheer G on as he made possibly his last attempt at a stage win on a climb we knew quite well. But yesterday I hadn’t taken enough care of myself and suffered mild heatstroke, and I resolved to look after myself better today.
In the end we decided to get on the road for about 9am and just see where the weather and the conditions took us. It was unlikely that we’d make it all the way – in fact, as it turned out, they closed the road to the climb at 8.30am because it was already dangerously full – but if we got ourselves to a nice village with a bar and watched them whizz by, that would still be a great day out.
Our first target from Aucaleuc was the small town of Plancoët, a well known Breton cycling hub. I’d been camping there with the family a few years ago and been quite taken with the place, and the Tour was following the D794 all the way there from Aucaleuc. By the time we hit the road, an hour before the route closed, there were already dozens of caravans and motorhomes already in place, and locals and tourists alike lining the road. With nothing much else to do apart from prepare lunch, they gave us a great welcome, letting off air horns, shouting encouragement and waving flags as we went past. We adopted time trial positions and gave them what they wanted. It was lovely; everyone concerned knew we were just lycra-clad imposters but the encouragement was warm and genuine, and any pain from yesterday’s ride was quickly forgotten.
We arrived in Plancoët too soon, and while Graeme went to find a loo I enjoyed the sun and reminisced about my previous trip. We’d had a great few days on the nearby camping municipal, close enough to enjoy Saint-Malo and Mont Saint Michel but far enough out to escape the summer madness and hordes of tourists. The highlight of that trip, at least as far as my children are concerned, was the night when I needed a midnight wee and tripped over a hedgehog on the way back from the loo. It’s a pretty little town on a lazy bend of the river Arguenon, and a place I’m rather fond of.
Graeme’s bladder relieved, we continued along the road, criss-crossing the river as we headed south-west towards Pléven. The countryside was a wonderfully bucolic and very Breton mix of small villages, smallholdings, woodland and rivers, with a couple of steepish climbs thrown in to keep it all interesting. I love riding in Brittany, the roads are good and every day brings fresh and interesting challenges. Just after Pléven, I had planned for us to take a forest track as a shortcut; a bit of a gamble, as I had only been able to see the gravelly start and finish on Google Streetview, but how bad could the bit in between be?
Well, the gravel soon disappeared, as did the rutted path that it led onto. We dragged our road bikes through large patches of mud, tussocky grass and piles of logs, passing by several high chairs we could only assume were there for hunters to sit in while waiting for deer to pass by. ‘It’s only like this for a few hundred metres’ and ‘it looks a bit better up ahead’ I called out, while Graeme presumably mumbled curses and made a vow to take over the route planning next year.
We popped out on the main road, slightly muddier than expected and with about five km of riding saved. And, I hope, enriched by the adventure. It was worth it all just to see the jaw-drop expression on the farmer’s face as he passed by on his tractor at the end of the lane.
Soon afterwards, we rolled into Lamballe and, after a couple of false starts at restaurants that didn’t really want to serve us a couple of beers and some chips, we found a great little café that served enormous croque monsieurs, great coffee and a friendly welcome. It was getting hot, we were close to the Tour route, and it was time to choose where we could watch it go past. We checked our print-outs of the tour schedule and our Michelin map – old-school – and decided to intercept the Tour at Saint-Carreuc, an hour’s ride away.
Back on the bikes, we whizzed through more lovely Breton countryside. There was less sightseeing now though; we were well and truly racing the Tour! We were hoping to arrive at Saint-Carreuc before the caravan arrived and we just about made it; it was due at 14:07, and we arrived two minutes early, with just enough time to scamper across the road before the sponsors’ cars came through. We weren’t as successful today, as just in front of us a tall, athletic young man scooped up most of the offerings, and those that made it to the floor were scavenged by the kids before my ancient back could even consider bending. Well, you win some, you lose some.
It was hot by now and after the caravan went past we did our civic duty, buying a couple of cold beers to support the local firefighters and enjoying them underneath a shady tree. The period between the caravan going through and the arrival of the Tour is a bit of an odd time; there is a lot of milling about, and there wasn’t much to do, but it seemed like a good opportunity for everyone in the village to catch up with one another and Graeme and I did the same. In a small marquee, there was a TV showing the Tour, we watched Ivan Garcia Cortina of Movistar take the points at the sprint just up the road, and then we took our places on the road.
If you haven’t seen a bike race go past, you may not appreciate quite how fast they’re going. I took my sons to watch the Tour of Britain go past at Torcross a few years ago, and we were almost literally blown away by the speed that the peloton went past. At Saint-Carreuc, we were on a short uphill section just after a descent, and although the riders were in view for about 100m they really flew by. I only just had time to shout ‘go on, G’ before the breakaway were gone, and I’m not sure that my Welsh flag had even unfurled properly. A couple of minutes later the peloton barrelled past in hot pursuit, and that was it. They were gone. All that was left was for us to meet with Jack and Sara, who had arrived just in time, make our way back to the car and load up for the drive back. It was an odd feeling: all that planning, anticipation, months of waiting – and in seconds the Tour was gone, with not even a look back. Is that it? I guess so.
Thomas, by the way, came past us leading the breakaway, but was dropped on the approach to the climb and finished over seven minutes behind the winner. So if we had made it to MdB, it wouldn’t have been the day we had hoped for anyway.
For us, the riding was over for the day. On the way back, we bought burgers and sausages, had a swim at the cottage, and ate and drank long into the evening. Our day had been a little less ambitious than we had first envisaged, but it had been a hell of a day.
Blaggers' Blog 