Ride The Flavour (en)

Day One – 100 km

Apr. 29th | 7 comments

Saturday 20th April 2013 – From La Rochelle to Royan.

We are leaving La Rochelle. “Good bye, see you next week!” Damien’s parents keep following us until a turn takes us away from their eyes. Ours are towards Toulouse. Our bikes carry everything we need, we are free, let our journey begin!


Les vélos aux couleurs de Ride The Flavour

We start riding towards Rochefort, on a road we know pretty well since we have already it taken during smaller trips. We stop at Chatélaillon to see a friend of ours, Jean-Pierre GUELOU. We find him in his pharmacy, preparing his precious remedies, and introduces him to our shiny Veloscoot bikes. A picture to mark this instant and to thank him for his support: Jean-Pierre will give us the first aid kit that we will carry all around the world!

Thanks!


Avec Jean Pierre Guelou, notre pharmacien ;)

We go on riding… We are just beyond Rochefort when the first incident occurs. LĂ©o’s front tyre has met a treacherous glass shard. The flat is quickly repared but as we put the wheel  back, the disc seems not to fit in the brake anymore. We are not used to this kind of brake but we try every adjustment possible and finally find out how to replace the brake in the right position. Isn’t it called learning by doing? 😉

At 7 pm, we set foot on the ground near Royan, in a housing estate. Anything particular about it? We did not stop there for the nice houses but rather for the forest that surround them. We will be able to set our tent and bivouac there easily. But first, we have to find someone, a generous psoul, who will accept to recharge the batteries of our bikes during the night.


Arrivée à Royan

A woman is in her garden, looking after her car. We ask her and, after we have explained our situation, she accepts to host our batteries for the night. “But, I cannot invite you for a drink though, I have many things left to do.” No embarassment, she already invites our batteries for a charge!

We thank her and then enter the forest. We find a flat space, big enough for our tent, and start setting our bivouac. Crap, we forgot to refill our flask! Back to the housing estate, we meet a girl, waiting for her friends to come (looks like there will be a hell of a party tonight), and ask her for water. She anwers with innocence: “tap water or bottled water?“. Tap water would be perfectly fine, thanks a lot!

We need water to drink, but also to cook our (almost) gastronomic dinner: pasta served with their tuna and tomato sauce 😉 The forest is humid, and its mosquitos agressive. Whatever, we rode 100 km today and we do not use gas as fuel. We are hungry and even these useless and annoying insects cannot spoil our dinner!


Notre bivouac

What about our electric bikes ? They are little gems! Several levels of assistance. A manual mode with a trigger which allows to punctually activate and dose out the assistance (awesome when riding off road!). An easy-start which throw the bike up to 6 km/h without pedaling. And in spite of all this embedded technology, these bikes are really aggreable to ride, even if you shut down the electric assistance. During this first day, we rode without assistance as much as we could (we used it only when climbing), and here is the result: after 100 km, our batteries were 2/5 charged.


Des vélos technologiques !

After we wolfed down our dinner, we fell asleep pretty much instantaneously. But before closing this first day, let’s make a short summary:

– one flat, which eventually made us learn how to adjust our disc brake
– several hours being constantly overtaken… definitely not an enjoyable time, but we are aware that we will meet cars again during our world tour
– and above all, our first human encounters as bike tourists, which filled us of optimism regarding the next days…

And we were right: generosity and hospitality did not disappear from France! Our journey proved it… and we will prove it through the story of our journey!

******************

To be continued …


Day One

7 comments Add a comment

  1. congrats on day one!


  2. vous aviez de la chance, il fasait beau sur toute la france la semaine derniĂšre non ? Bonne continuation, j’attends 2ieme journnĂ©e !


    • En effet on a eu 6 jours de soleil, c’Ă©tait super agrĂ©able mais on Ă  pas pu tester nos vĂȘtements de pluie 😉


  3. Quel suspense ! Êtes vous bien arrivĂ©s Ă  Toulouse ? Vous pouviez rouler Ă  quelle vitesse moyenne avec l’assistance Ă©lectrique ?


    • Oui, nous sommes arrivĂ©s Ă  Toulouse jeudi, aprĂšs 6 jours sur les routes ! Nous sommes en train d’Ă©crire notre journal et le publierons au fur et Ă  mesure !
      On peut rouler jusqu’Ă  25 km/h avec l’assistance Ă©lectrique. Au delĂ , rĂ©glementation oblige, elle doit se couper. Sinon, le “vĂ©hicule” sort de la catĂ©gorie “vĂ©lo” et doit ĂȘtre immatriculĂ©.


  4. Super! Je suis quand mĂȘme Ă©tonnĂ©e par le peu de bagages…


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