So here we are at the second part of my diary from my first attempt at the bike tour. So far I have got rained on a lot, missed a ferry, arrived in France at 23:00, camped in a very small bare patch of a farmers field and got knocked off my bike. If you missed all this then check out 'Rumours Of My Return, Part 1'. Now to check out the second part of my diary...
Lots Of Wood Near St Gobain On Day 4
Day 4 - 73 Miles
I Woke up nice and early on day 4. The clothes I was wearing the previous day were still pretty wet so I spent a few hours in the morning just relaxing whilst the sun dried them and my tent out. When I finally set off it was later than I had wanted, but everything was bone dry which was good. The day was blissfully rain free and I made quite good time once I got going. Hills started sprouting up all the place, which didnt really add much to the overall effort as I just spun my legs in low gears, but it did mean I was going slow on the up's; going down hills is a blast though! Near the end of the day I was heading towards St Gobain an upon arriving found out that it was build on a huge hill, getting to the top of the town was a lot of effort!However once I reached the highest point I had a nice roll all the way to the next town, Septvaux. I cycled a mile out of town and set up my tent in a forest, not the best surface to set up a tent, but camping in the forest was definitely worth it. In the middle of the night I woke up to some very loud banging that I thought was gunfire. I was worried that it might be hunters in the woods and I might get hit by a stray shot. Thankfully it turned out to be fireworks and no one shot at me thinking my tent was a deer.
Morning Of The 5th Day, Pitched In A Forest
Day 5 - 21 Miles
Day 5 was a pretty hellish day; whilst packing up my tent and getting ready to leave I decided that I would break the 400 mile mark by the end of the day, which meant that I would have to cycle 75miles. However after about 5 minutes of cycling my knee started to hurt alot. I pulled over shortly after and tried to tweak my saddle height and my cleats to take some of the strain off but had no luck. I carried on for a while with the pain in my knee slowly getting worse and worse. Whilst cycling I kept having to repeat in my head 'I will not stop' just so I would keep going, definitely not one of the most fun moments in my life, but in hindsight I am kind of pleased with my determination. After about 15 miles I broke down and had to stop. After a little bit of a cry to myself and being swamped with the massive fear of failure I got in touch with my sister and she suggested I try and track down a doctor. I decided it was still early days and I should just carry on for as long as I could that day then rest up and see how it was the next day. 6 miles later (21 miles in total for the day) I reached my limit and had to stop. I wandered down a random track for a while untill I came to a dead end near a river and pitched my tent. It was 13:30 and I had only managed to travel 21 miles in 5 hours. Once I cheered up a bit I spent the rest of the day chilling out in the sun or in my tent reading my book (Game of Thrones is amazing by the way, read it!). Luckily no one stumbled across me or I might have had a hard time explaining that I was too hot and wearing just boxers was my only clothing choice...
Leaving Braine In Search Of A Doctor On Day 6
Day 6 - 36 Miles
Day 6 was a day spent entirely in search of a doctor. I woke up optimistic that my knee might be OK again, however as soon as I started cycling it became apparent that it wasn't. The only real option I had was to find a doctor and see if there was anything that could be done for it; there was no way I would be able to carry on with my knee in the shape it was. After a quick back and forth with my sister I was instructed to go to Braine to try and find a doctor. After a bit of searching it transpired that all 3 doctors in the town were not open... Another conversation with my sister had me heading towards Fisme to go to a local hospital. Once there it again became apparent that this place was not open either, and it wasnt due to them being closed for lunch either... another conversation with my sister and I was heading to Reims. She suggested that I just catch a train there to save myself the hassle and pain but I was very insistent that as long as I could cover the distance myself I would regardless of how slow/painful it was. It took me about 4 hours to travel the 18 miles (which I suppose was an improvement on the previous day...); I had to walk about half of it but I finally made it to Reims. For anyone that doesnt know, pushing a fully loaded bike up hill is really annoying! I decided that it was a bit too late to go to the hospital as I would not have time to see the doctor and then get out of Reims and find somewhere to camp before it got dark. So I cycled a bit out of town and found somewhere to camp next to a river. Every moment of the day spend cycling was painful, but weirdly I was still enjoying myself.
Infront of Notre Dame Cathedral Before Heading Home
Day 7 - 14 Miles
On day 7 (and what would turn out to be my final day) I got up early to head in to Reims to go to the hospital to see if I could finally find out what was up with my knee. I stopped off for some food in the biggest supermarket I have ever seen, by which point the sky was falling; very heavy rain. I had half a wedge of cheese and entire baguette (well over a foot long, no jokes please...) for breakfast whilst standing outside the supermarket. People seemed abit confused as to why I was eating so much bread in the rain... Once breakfast was done I headed off into Reims to find the hospital. I followed signs for about 45mins and finally found it, now all the remained was to find where exactly I needed to go in this massive hospital complex. After another 30mins of wandering around asking where I should go I found the emergancy bit. Although it was a bit of a struggle not knowing more french, overall I found the french hospital to be really good, there was pretty much zero waiting time to get seen. One particularly funny moment involved me talking on the phone to one of the doctors sister explaining what I had done in english, for her to then translate to him! I had an X ray which showed I hadn't broken anything which was good. However after a bit more prodding and poking (by a different, female, and rather attractive doctor*) it was decided that I had done some damage to the tendon in my knee and the only way it would get any better was to rest it for atleast 2 weeks. This bit of news called an end to the tour, unfortunately I did not have enough time to wait around for 2 weeks on the hope my knee would recover.
* Little foot note here. My new doctor could only be describe as very attractive and I felt very self conscious having her probe my knee whilst I lay on a bed in very tight clothing, mud up my legs and probably smelling epically bad from not washing for a week...
So I was in Reims and needed to get back to Potton. I left the hospital with my knee strapped up very very tightly, which rendered me completely unable to cycle my bike. As a result I had to push my bike 3 miles in to town to find the train station. On route I stumbled across Notre Dame Cathedral, atleast the Reims one. I stopped for 5 mins and took a picture as proof of how far I made it and then headed t the station. Getting home involved getting a train from Reims to Paris (where I saw more than my fair share of drunken tramps...), followed by a train from Paris to London and then finally a train from London to Biggleswade. When I arrived in Biggleswade at 21:30 I was warmly received by my mum who dropped me off home.
So that is what I got up to for a week. I know to most it will not sound like I had a good time, but weirdly I did. Every day had its highs and lows and even with the injured knee the highs far outweight the lows.
As I have not completed the distance I set out to do I will be going back to france in the near future. Check out my blog post 'Papworth to Geneva, 2nd Attempt' for more info about this, as well as what I now know about my knee injury.
Chilling Out Waiting For My Clothes To Dry On The Morning Of The 4th Day
Cheers,
Jamie
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