Cycling the Vendee

J's bike was buckled beyond repair so we bought her another on Saturday. It was "occasion" which is French for second hand. I thought it was a description of how often it would get used so it seemed perfect. This meant that on Sunday we were going for a bike ride no matter what. I agreed as long as we were back indoors for the 20/20 final.
So we got ready. For me that means find a pair of sunglasses. For J, suncream, gloves, change clothes, change shoes, "just put the handlebars up a couple of inches" an extra fleece on the bike rack and water. I managed to convince her we most probably wouldn't need the sat nav.
We have new bike hats. I have never worn one before, I thought they were poncy and unneccessary but a good friend of ours, a very keen cyclist, in Paris is in hospital and has been for 6 months after being knocked off his bike on a cycle track. Get well soon Thierry!
So hats, it is.
Preperation took a good half hour but success we are off. Tour de France or the Vendee at least. We got as far as the village square, which must be 200 metres at least and J loses a chain and we dont even have one of those Skodas behind us with a new bike on top to swap to. Chain repaired, a quick lesson on changing gear one at a time so the chain stays in place and off we go.
This area of the Vendee is very flat, most of it was marshland reclaimed from the sea by monks a few hundred years ago. It is very fertile for the farmers but also has a large variety of wildlife especially birds. The whole area is split with canals and drainage ditches and the cycle tracks mostly follow the canals rather than the roads.
Just cycling along you see herons and other wading birds in the ditches, there are plenty of birds of prey including large buzzards above and the whole time you ride to the tune of countless cuckoos and frogs.
It's funny how when you ride you dont notice the wind when it's helping you but when you turn round, wow, where did that come from. I quickly realised that I am not very aerodynamic whilst sitting perched. I cheated, I tried to slipstream J but that didnt work, the middle half of me was ok but the exposed outside took even more of a battering.
We made it back in time and was it worth it! Great to see England beat the Aussies so convincingly even if we are only just more english than Arsenal. Let's hope this is an omen for a similar result on July 11th.

We are off to Paris this week, we have tickets to the Heineken cup final. We are going to see Toulouse V BO but i think we will be ok. Our seats are downwind.