It will be a long day, so I set off just after seven, hoping to catch the cathedral open for an early service on my way through town… though of course it turns out firmly locked up. I am headed for the town of Falaise, some 80 miles west, via at least one castle. But an 80 mile day becomes a 90 mile day as life takes an irritating, ‘mechanical’ turn. At this point I should admit a certain amount of non-bike-worthiness: it was only two punctures, but getting the first one fixed demanded an act of kindness by a random woman in the mairie at a small village outside Evreux and then a demonstration.
Having arrived quite quickly at the centre of Evreux from the east last night, it feels weird to take so long getting out of the town. And my suburban meanderings are given an edge of comedy when I have my next ‘GPS, aw bless…’ moment. My GPS suddenly delivers an announcement:
“GPS is off.”
Well, I don’t want to get too meta with it or anything, but what on earth is a gps when it switches off its gps – it’s like folding yourself into another dimension, or ripping out your soul or something. How can a gps deny the very essence of what it is? Is it a surreal GPS? Perhaps it’s bored with being a GPS, and aspires to be… what? A calculator? A pacemaker? And perhaps I am being cruel by wilfully mis-reading the tone of the announcement. Given that it’s constantly giving me orders, it feels a bit peremptory, but perhaps it just feels mis-understood, and it’s a sad, melancholic Ugh… GPS is off…
More to the point, what the hell am I supposed to do with it now? There’s only one answer: Factory Settings. Which in itself is definitely cruel. Presumably I am denying all the learning in its life so far. And, along with all the data it has experienced, I will erase its eccentric character too…
It reactivates slowly, as I ride between a spooky looking wood one side and wall on the other. It asks me if I want miles or kilometres and how heavy I am, and whether I prefer to display distance still to cover, or calories …and hey, right on time, there’s a boulangerie. I stop for a breakfast pain au chocolat.
Following a couple more miles of suburban confusion I am steered to a cycle path along the Iton River, which is shrouded by willows and other trees. There’s even a small section of gravel, along the edge of a field. Somehow the day just doesn’t want to get into gear. And then, via a complicated series of crossings of the river, the railway and a local main road, I end up pootling along the main street of another ribbon town, Glisolles. It is mid-morning and almost unnaturally quiet: not even an open boulangerie breaks the inertia.
It is my first hint as to how deserted rural Normandy and Brittany can be. It is Monday, to be fair, but it is also true to say that they are suffering the same issues as we are in Britain, with villages and small towns devoid of youth and vitality, while the cities become overcrowded, hemmed by ring roads and out of town megastores. Suddenly Bang! My front tyre gives up the ghost in a spray of pink liquid which is euphemistically called milk. Bollocks.
I install myself on a bench in Glisolles’ tiny park, next to the war memorial and the mairie, and I try, and try, and try… to get the tyre off the wheel. But it’s useless without the knowledge that these tyres need a hard surface and some judicious violence to be released. And now, I must stand up and admit it, a fact that cannot be avoided - I am a man, the cyclist, who cannot mend a puncture…
An hour later, finger-tips grubbed to the bone, and irritated beyond belief, I notice that the small mairie has opened. I wander in and ask if they have any ideas. “Ah, bah, non, M’sieu… it’s Monday”, they say, so there won’t be any bicycle shops open, nor garages with friendly mechanics, for miles. The train back to Evreux? “Aaah… non. Not for hours.”
But just as there are moments of bad luck in any journey, so there are moments of delicious, entirely random good fortune too. A woman, Diane, who has just popped in to the mairie to make a delivery, takes pity on me, and offers to drive me into Evreux: says she’s going anyway, and could drop me at the Decathlon store, which they are sure has a bicycle section with some mechanics. I just hope that I would find the same time and generosity of spirit in the same circumstances. Actually I do quite often. I end up driving all sorts of people all over the place.
I lob the bike in the back of her van and off we drive. Diane is a special needs teaches in the area, though she’s mostly retired now. And her son is a cyclist, you see, and although he was injured a while back he has done some long distance rides. To London, even…
We encircle Evreux on the ring road. Behind hedges and screens of young trees warehouses slide by; mega-stores, light industry, a hotel, a sports ground, a car rental company. And then, through an acreage of car park, we draw up to Decathlon. Ah, Decathlon, that most anglo of French department stores, a vast warehouse with lines and lines of shelves… and Une Equipe de Techniciens à votre service...
“Bien”, says Diane. There’s no way to repay the generosity other than to say thanks.
I watch carefully as the tyre is changed, of course. It is like a small theatrical production. The wheel is flourished, pinioned and whacked, and flourished again, a blandishing arm whisking out the tyre in a confusion of rubber. And then a dabbing of kitchen towel as the pink ‘milk’ is cleared up. This time I opt for an inner tube - and with a flourish tube and tyre are aligned. As air is applied the tyre thumps home into the rim.
After which I am back on the route, between the wall and spooky forest, and the site of my GPS’s metaphysical crisis (poor thing’s knuckled down, now. I have no idea if it still has a surreal edge to its character, but like the rest of us it’ll just have just keep busy to forestall the lack of fulfillment). My mind turns to calories, of course, because there’s the boulangerie… I get a slightly odd look from the staff – doubtless a frisson of déjà vu - as I order a tarte fermière for some lunch. Oh, and hell, another pain au chocolat too for now.
As for the second puncture of the day, all I can say is that all roads in Normandy seem to lead to a small country town called Le Sap. And a sap was what I was to be…
