Trip Day 5 (Bike Day 3) – A little soggy??? Granville to St. Lo

We woke to dripping rain on the balcony and howling winds.  Apparently, three drops in the weather forecast means a deluge – yup, it rained all day.  Heavily, most of it, with some brisk winds (rarely tailwinds of course)¹.  Only 65 km, 450 m elevation gain, but it felt like much more elevation than that as the hills were sometimes quite steep² and the countryside sent us up one hill, and down another….. yeeesh.  Some spectacular pools of water on the roads, too – and many thanks to that large truck without flaps on the wheels that passed us in ongoing traffic.

Breakfast on the (closed) terrace was taken in concert with an English choir full of chatty, (loud) and apparently very hungry folk, as the remains at the buffet when we arrived resembled a field after a cloud of locusts.  The poor servers were trying to get food on the buffet but it was being snatched from their plates as they went past – really????  Eventually we managed to dart in and get some food, after did a bit of scouting around town for Tour de France shirts (only available online they say), did some bike maintenance and then onwards ho, just as it restarted raining after a brief respite.  That was the last rain pause we saw for the rest of the day….

Lovely countryside again, especially after the first few km. when we got off the main highway, although the poppies were closed in protest today and really, roses and geraniums do NOT look as nice in the rain…  Atop a steep hill (me – we’re really going up that???) was Coutances, our town for lunch, except it appears that Monday in France is much like Sunday, nothing open.  The bars are open, but only serve alcohol, and occasionally coffee, but no food despite the menus in the window.  And why can’t places post their hours on the door??  I guess that would suggest that hours are regular?  We went into a bar advertising sandwiches, dripping wet, and to the amusement of those inside stripped down to shorts (semi-dry), only to find no food served – at least the coffee was good – they had no idea where else was open (hmmm, small town, if they don’t know the opening hours how are we supposed to??) so the decision was made to go back to a kebab place (takeout) a couple of blocks back – dressed up again in our nice wet (and now cold) clothes, wrung out our gloves, and went back – oh, now they’re closed.  Other places we found open only had sandwiches with meat, so we eventually found a carrefour (small grocery store) and ate self assembled sandwiches standing in the alcove of an upscale handbag/shoe shop – happily the owners did not evict us, as we were at least sheltered from the wind.  But even grocery store cheese is great….

Suffice it to say the rest of the ride was wet, wet, wet and we were fairly happy to present ourselves, dripping, to the foyer of tonight’s hotel.  The receptionists are remarkably sanguine about bikes arriving in the lobby…..  The room is a bit like a sauna at the moment, with things drying everywhere…. (hopefully).  I was sloshing in my shoes on arrival, so hope a miracle happens there for tomorrow, and my MEC glove covers proved completely useless, to the point that the fourth and fifth fingers collected a pool of water and so when I picked up the water bottle to have a drink, the pool ran down my arm.  Ugh.

Dinner was a “meh” affair in one of the few cafes open in town, but hot and three courses so appreciated all the same.  It was turning people away by 8:30 pm, completely full.  Not surprising….

Memories from today?  Rain.  Pretty villages with nobody in sight (at work?  sheltering from the rain?).  Closed signs.  A lot of Tour de France decorations and signs along the route – apparently this town too is a stage start.  The sound of Étienne’s rain pants at the end of the day (squerch, squerch).

Étienne’s comments:

1. We actually had a ton of tailwinds today! Very nice. It just didn’t seem so, because we were being pelted with rain on our arrears.

2. They were not that steep. Just to the point that work is required =P – you can’t say a Hossack vacation is supposed to be easy!

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