43.0 mi / 11.3 mph / 350 ft. climbing
Home: Sandrine’s AirBNB

We would be riding through rain today, something we almost always avoid. But knowing that we were taking a few days off in Nantes made it easier to accept; life is easier if we don’t have to get ourselves and all of our gear dried out to ride again the next day. It meant that we really didn’t want to arrive to Nantes before our 4pm check-in time, because riding while wet is significantly less-dreadful than killing time while wet. So we got rolling a little before 10am, encouraged by the ability to get our bikes out of our host’s garage and loaded up before any precipitation actually started.

The rain began about 10:30am, never very heavy, but certainly enough to get us wet (I was wearing my rain jacket the whole morning, along with my regular shorts; Rett didn’t put on her jacket until after lunch). For probably 10 miles I was scanning for shelters where we could stop for that lunch, early on just to get a feel for what kind of options would be available, but with increasing intention as absolutely zero options presented themselves. Not a single bus shelter, abandoned shed, public park with a gazebo…nothing!

There was a brief dry spell around noon, so I made us at least stop to pop some M&Ms because I knew there was a hill coming up (something we’ve become quite unused to!) And quite a hill it was, feeling much taller than its ~200 ft. height, particularly during the winding descent. Near the bottom, Rett’s right knee popped into a weird misalignment in the middle of a pedal stroke, something she expected to quickly right itself, but when we stopped, she found she could barely walk. Shit.

Thus it was tremendous luck that we pulled off the road right at the point where a bridge crossed the Loire, and there was easy access to the wide, flat ground that was sheltered beneath its broad concrete span. Essentially like blowing a tire right in front of the only tire shop in the middle of a desert. That meant was could set up our chairs, eat some lunch, and hopefully give Rett’s knee a chance to relax and at least somewhat right itself.

One of our favorite things in France has been what we call “Adult Lunchables”. Made by a company called Sodebo (and less-expertly by some knockoff brands), they have at least a dozen varieties, all containing some sort of cold salad as the main, usually with pasta, lettuce/vegetables, a meat, frequently boiled eggs, and a test-tube of dressing that you apply to it. Another bag contains two breadsticks, and a compostable fork, except that it’s not tongue-dessicating like most compostable/bamboo utensils, and only after our 7th time did I read the packaging closely enough to learn that’s because it’s actually edible! (a bit like a fortune cookie, especially when softened a bit by the dressing). And finally, a chocolate-chip cookie. They’re in nearly every grocery store, seem significantly less-terrible for you than most pre-packaged stuff at a grocery store, and for roughly USD$4, feel like an excellent deal. It’s a perfect bike-touring amenity that I already know we’re really going to miss when we leave their distribution zone, because it allows us to eat healthily and efficiently without the work of assembling our own plates from a pile of ingredients we then need to store.

Stretching and rest got Rett’s knee relaxed enough by the end of lunch that she could at least walk without limping, and hopping back aboard the bike showed that it thankfully worked for that task too. Not 100%, but well enough that we didn’t need to start looking for some other form of transportation to get us to Nantes.

We could have avoided that hill (and maybe Rett’s injury?) if we’d stayed on the EuroVelo route, which had bounced to the north bank for ~5 miles, before returning to join us over the bridge we’d sheltered under. But that had seemed like an unnecessary excursion. Now re-joined, it was clear that EuroVelo was really going to work for us, as if to convince us to never part ways again. It took us on some really narrow streets twisting through a tiny settlement, at times feeling like we were on peoples’ driveways to cut us through to the next actual road, a clear result of negotiating with property owners to maximize the car-free/lite sections of the route. And then a point where the StreetView from a few years ago showed a rough tractor-path through the dirt on the edge of a farm field, but now that path has been upgraded to a smooth, flat, gravel bike path. So evidence that upgrades are continually being made to the EuroVelo routes (presumably before the upgrade, the official route stayed on the paved road above the field).

Now on the north bank, our final 7 miles into the heart of the 6th-largest city in France were made surprisingly-easy and peaceful by what felt like a city/suburban bike trail. The rain had even stopped, though another approaching cell on the radar had us racing a bit (getting re-wet just before arriving at our AirBNB, after sun/air-drying for a while would be annoying). And then half of downtown Nantes being under construction multiplied the usual city-navigation frustrations, as bike path re-routes that are obvious and second-nature to locals can be completely inscrutable to us.

We failed in our quest to beat the final wave of rain, but only by about a minute, so we were able to dash inside our AirBNB with our bags slightly less wet and filth-covered than they would have been if we hadn’t been watching the radar. We also used “beating the rain” as an excuse to check in a little bit early (it was a self-check-in, so it was only ourselves to whom we were telling this excuse, but that’s important too!)

For our first evening, we went to Little Atlantique Brewery (yes, in English), which was conveniently just steps from our AirBNB (though unfortunately for Rett’s still-aching knee, there were literal steps we had to walk down to get to the dock-level). The beer was good, as was my burger and Rett’s fish & chips (which she never got in England!) Observing the relatively-large crowd of obvious locals indoors and out at the massive brewery space on a Monday evening, I was struck that this was likely the first time in three weeks in France when we weren’t surrounded by fellow tourists!