French Love Bikes

Cycling from Otley, Suffolk to Normandy seemed an interesting thing to do. Over 400 miles in a week. Not too bad once your bum has hardened up

Suffolk is soft and the drivers reasonable until you get closer to Essex

Essex drivers take pride in going as fast and close to cyclists as possible. As you get closer to the Thames the properties all have a flat bed truck, a couple of white vans and several rotting cars all protected by large dogs. The sort of places to quote our friend Lynn that you expect a chest freezer in the back yard to keep the bodies in

Kent has lots of magnificent oak tree and lots of exhausting hills

New Haven in Sussex is trying desperately to be a new Brighton. The usual
apartments looking over the docks have been built but the pedestrianised centre still has its fair share of charity shops and a cafe that is closed ' due o the fire bombing'

But New Haven has 5 great, proper pubs. The night I was there one had a pool evening - proper kit for the teams with their names on the back such as 'killer' and the 'Inn keeper'. A boxing style commentator, music and grand entrances for the players through dry ice. A brilliant evening


Cross the channel and you enter bicycle heaven. Instead of being a target you become
something revered. Stop at a junction to try and work out which way to go and cars will stop you to let you across even if you don't want to. Lay your bike down so you can pee into the hedge and cars stop to see if you are ok.

In England people look at you and register a guy with a bike. In Franco you can see them assessing your bike and whether it is an object of desire or not

In Le Harve the dock workers were protesting. They had lit two enormous fires in an office
car park out of tyres. They blocked all the junctions only letting certain cars through - I guess it was the management being stopped. They had beer and very noisy fireworks. All this without a single policeman in sight. In England we would have had riot and armed police swarming over them in case they were a terrorist threat

Got to Normandy at the same time as as the June 6 celebrations. Very moving to see these old guys still so strong.










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