26 Sept to 17 Oct 2023
I wanted to revisit Europe but was feeling weakened after an illness. The Meuse cycle route is a pretty ride with few hills and starts near the ferry. I saw that I could continue all the way to the Mediterranean and could also link to the Canal Des Deux Mers – all relatively flat routes. But I began with the ambitious-enough target of completing the Meuse because 2 weeks earlier I had struggled to walk to my garden gate!
I began with a 90+ mile ride to Norwich against a very strong wind. That ride served as a test of my physical state; after completing it with no problems I bought my tickets for the next evening’s ferry.
My problems began when summoned to the car deck to disembark in Holland. The air smelled toxic and I felt desperate to get out, but the 15-20 cyclists were at the back of the ship and were held inside until the motor vehicles had gone. By the time I had ridden the 200m to passport control, my chest was tight and wheezing. It’s easy to initiate asthma but hard to stop it!
I had 2 hours wait at Hoek Van Holland and an hour on the ferry across the port. The air now stank of diesel fumes and the wheezing in my chest returned as soon as I started riding – and if you can’t breathe much you can’t cycle much! A recent EU report found that a large area around Rotterdam has some of the most polluted air in Europe; with my weakened lungs and asthma I guess I was particularly vulnerable. I could only hope that the strong Southerly headwinds I was facing would soon bring cleaner air up from the south, and meanwhile… there was Ventolin!
My trip through Holland was a battle with headwinds and ill-health. It was a very pleasant and surprisingly varied landscape and the cycle paths were excellent and well used. For me though, it was nearly too much: overtaken by old ladies on e-bikes, mainlining Ventolin and struggling with low energy, low strength, sore joints and even saddle soreness which hasn’t been my problem for years. On the 3rd day I vividly recall stopping for an energy-bar and some coffee from my flask and asking myself if I should really be doing this when every turn of the pedals was hurting. The answer was probably no, but deciding to give up is hard. I rode on, amusing myself by plotting a secret return home while continuing to post a fake blog of the journey using pictures cribbed from the web!
I survived that day with rest stops and a lot of coffee, then things began to improve slowly. Days of sunshine and lighter headwinds helped, and first the pain and then the wheezing stopped but for the whole tour I struggled for energy and rode slowly.
My trip was not well planned out. Not only did some campsites start closing after September, but so did a few of the many ferries required to link up the Dutch cycle route sections – it was pure luck that I arrived while these were all still running. Moreover, some tourist ferries operated limited hours which was inconvenient for me as I like to start early and finish late. Short opening hours was a problem at campsites too. Then there were cafes – not a problem in towns, but many path-side cafes had also closed now.
My first night had to be a wild camp; I had passed 1 site because it was too soon to stop but then found that my only option was a mini-camping for which you had to pay a membership as well as a nightly fee – ok if you intend to use a lot of the sites but for just one night it would have been like the cost of a hotel! As I continued looking for a place to stop, nightfall crept up and I had to camp where I was! As usual, I left no trace and caused no harm.
Most nights I tried to use official campsites if I could reach them in time. Google maps shows an abundance of these but many only take campervans and many more were closed. Many sites that accept tents are spoiled by ruts and mess left by wheeled campers. Montech was a super exception to this: part of the site, a sanitaire and a kitchen were reserved entirely for cyclists and walkers.
My only breakdown was the tension-pin of my old Brookes saddle which snapped when I was tightening it. Jean Claude, from whose workshop I had borrowed a 14mm spanner, immediately phoned his friend Dennis who arrived quickly with an assortment of old saddles from which he was able to extract a replacement. Meanwhile Jean Claude’s wife, Ferdinand, went shopping and came back with buns to share! Lovely, kind, generous people! I was glad I had practised some French at all the cafes!
The whole route had good paths but Belgium had the most potholes! The Canal du Midi path has been transformed in the last 12 months and is now good, easy riding; its biggest fault was its uniformity but there are villages to explore.
At Bordeaux, storms were forecast so I fulfilled an old ambition by travelling back to Paris on a TGV at nearly 200mph then, after a taste of Paris rush hour in a gaggle of bikes, I took local trains to Dieppe for 1 last camp before the early morning ferry.