Pedalling for a Purpose

It's an easy ride out of Angers this morning, through well-maintained parklands and wide bike and pedestrian paths. There we a lot of people out walking or running, as well as cycling. We pass waterways that resemble mill ponds - very smooth with not a ripple from wind or water flow, in fact, we passed a rowing club that seemed to be the perfect venue for such a sport. As we do every day, we see a few multi-day touring cyclists. They have full rear panniers and sometimes front panniers as well. You can easily tell they aren't cycling for just one or two days. This is a fraternity, and a wave or nod is reciprocated by the same. When travelling on my own last year I would have stopped, chatted, and swapped stories of our journeys ... the route, the destination, and any tips about the road ahead. Travelling in a group makes this more challenging as you don't want to hold the team up, or want to chase the pack to catch up. Being a Sunday we see lots of families out cycling ... ...

With a journey of 65 km to Angers today we opted for a late start of 9.00am. David would have preferred a later start ... as usual. He's been in construction all his life and now being newly retired, he wants to sleep in. The day started with the usual breakfast at the hotel. These are quite reasonably priced between 8 and 11 Euro, and are generally very filling. The ride out of Saumur was easy given the hotel was right on the route. We rode alongside the river through parks and very good bike paths for the first few kilometres. Unfortunately, we struck hills early in the day ... before the body had warmed up and the brain had adapted my pain receptors to accept it. Fortunately, the wind was negligible and stayed that way for the remainder of today's ride. We've planned well ... we've had very few Westerly winds affecting our ride, other than a few hours of headwinds early in our trip. OK, maybe just plain luck! The hills led to some good downhill riding allowing me to ...