Monday, May 19th, 2014
Route Map and Garmin Ride Statistics
Unfortunately, in the process of collecting bikes from the hotel's hidden garage, checking luggage and getting on the road I realised I didn't have any pictures of Abbeville. You'll just have to imagine a large French provincial town with a central cathedral, a square and a canal!
About 20km into the ride, having completed the first climb of the day, we were up on a plateau of canola (?) fields and wind farms.
And quite often, piles of the typical French hay bale, or roll.
We were also in the Somme, or at least the southern edge of the Somme, and this church in the town of Aumatra had a poster presumably referencing the 100th anniversary of the First World War. Many of the building in this area would have been constructed well before that war.
Including this Mairie, or town hall. But you also see houses on this scale, and I always check whether they are for sale. Usually not, but there are numerous smaller houses for sale, probably reasonably priced. What strikes you is the neatness of just about every one of them.
We stopped for coffe after 40km in the first town to have a place selling coffee - Liomer. As usual, the proprietors were friendly an understanding of our (very) poor French.
This picture of Aumale, one of our lunch options, is also typical, except for a relatively recent freeway in the foreground.
We stopped in Aumale after 50km, mainly to chat to Steve and some of the other riders, rather than to eat. However, the stop dragged on, and some of us bought a drink to keep ourselves hydrated. It wasn't yet midday, and so we decided to continue another 40km for a proper lunch.
All over France there are churches, every village of any size having at least one of them. And all over France is evidence of the upcoming EU elections, often plastered on the wall of the local church.
It was another perfect day, and the hills seemed to roll on forever.
Tony and Trevor also thought so!
At 90km of a 116km day, we finally stopped to eat, and I had my first (lunch time) baguette with ham and cheese. It was delicious! While this fountain appeared not to function, one of our riders discovered later that there was a tap - what a neat trick to play on the unsuspecting.
With not to far to ride, we came up our last hill of the day - a short, but steep little bugger which led to the London to Paris bike route. We stayed on this excellent road for the last 10km into Gisors. This is camper Fran followed by camper Simon in the distance.
At the hotel we discovered that the Bike Adventures van was "on course" trying to get a few of our fellow riders back on course - David, David and Gary had taken a wrong turn very early and were 20km west of where they should have been. So we relaxed, had a beer (or two) and waited for out luggage to arrive.
At 7:00pm, ten of us met at the hotel and went in search of dinner.
The ten soon became nine, then eleven, then twelve. The woman at the restaurant did a wonderful job of controlling twelve hungry (and thirsty) cyclists who couldn't make up their individual or collective minds. The food was great - too bad they had run out of beer (and oysters). At least the red wine was great, and so was the company.
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