Day 4: Welcome to France

After the first part of my ride was so unexpectedly challenging, I slept in until nearly 10:00, and didn't break camp until 11:00. I woke to my first sight of blue skies since the English channel. Oddly, this had me worried as the heat can be punishing on a trip like this, but given the choice of sun or rain, sun is probably preferred.

So far today I rode up the coast calling at Irun, crossing the Franco-Spanish border at Urrugne, Saint-Jean-De-Luz, and finally Biarritz. Biarritz is the point on the shore of the the Bay-of-Biscay chosen to be the start of the coast-to-coast challenge portion of my ride.


The Franco-Spanish border; I was quite disappointed that there was so little fan-fare about it. Not even a sign, the border is denoted by the river.


The harbor at Saint-Jean-De-Luz.


An amphibious car!!!


Duck by the Bay-of-Biscay at Biarritz.

Having stopped for a photo (I dispensed with the swim, on account of not wishing to leave my bike unattended) I set out for Pau, taking a northerly route via Dax (no prizes for guessing why I picked that as a calling point).


The locals have been quite interested in my journey, and I've furnished a lot of questions about my route, the "extrawheel" and
On the topic of the extra wheel, its working out really well; I'm not having to wince quite as much each time I hit a bump as would were all the weight on the bike, and in most circumstances the handling is a significant improvement vs having using only the pannier frames of the bike.


Norway is a sandwich here.

I finished my first day in France at a pleasant, though misleadingly signposted camp site, where I met a nice English couple who were motor cycle touring through Europe. We had actually left Portsmouth on the same day, they had sailed to Le Harve, and travelled south, and hence we had run into each other near Dax (the most northerly point on the cycling portion of my journey). Additionally the lady and I share a birthday, so it is a small world after all.


The camp site was in front of a nice French farm house, but I was more interested in the flowers.

All in all I'm glad to be in France (not least because my French is getting almost reasonable, as opposed to my Spanish which is non-existent), but in honesty I'm growing steadily more nervous about the prospect of trying to ride the Tormalet. I'm finding the hills a significant challenge on my extremely heavy touring bike.