French Trip 2012- day 1

Day 1- Dieppe to Amiens

On our French trip 2012 were : me (Steve C), Ivan, Malcolm, John S, Paul K, Duncan, Chris P, Dave HH

We arrived at Dieppe around 3:30 with the ferry being 30 minutes late. We had to rendezvous with Ivan and Malcolm who had already made it to the cathedral at Amiens (having gone over to Dieppe the night before). We therefore set off on our mostly direct route knowing that we had 68 miles to cover. Chris was not feeling too good with a temperature and a nasty cough but we set off at a steady, determined pace. Unfortunately the wind was from the east so we had a headwind against us all the way but at least the sun occasionally popped out between the clouds. About hallway up a steep hill there was a sudden loud ‘crack’ from Duncan’s bike. He came to a sudden stop, dragging the rear derailleur behind him. It turned out the chain had broken, got stuck in the rear derailleur which then broke the gear hanger. We split the chain in order to turn Duncan’s bike into a single speed but we couldn’t get enough tension on the chain and the chain kept slipping off the sprockets. Dave realised that what we had to do was get the chain reasonably tight on the small front chaining and then shift it to the middle. After a few attempts we got it right and the chain stayed in place. Fortunately this was a middle gear but it was under a lot of tension and there was a bit of a twist in the chain. Duncan set off and I fully expected the chain would break again before reaching Amiens. We were all amazed how well Duncan rode with this handicap despite not having any low gears he was charging up the hills and it was some of us who were struggling to keep pace with him. The ride to Amiens was a real slog but eventually we were close enough to ring Malcolm and explain to him why we were going to be late. Choosing to meet at the cathedral was a good idea as you could see it clearly in the distance. I rang up Ivan to tell him we had arrived but he didn’t make much sense having been on the beers all day waiting for us. Malcolm and Ivan were at a lovely bar but I didn’t want everyone to get too comfortable as I knew we had about 5 miles of navigating through the city to reach the F1 hotel. Chris was feeling completely done in and wanted to find his own way to the F1 or for one of us to come back for him later but I knew this was a really bad idea and we had to stay together. We finally made it to the hotel about 11:00, the hotel was locked but fortunately this one had one of those automatic check-in terminals so we were able to get in. We were all starving so dumped our gear and headed down the thoroughfare hoping something was still open. Luckily a Chinese restaurant that was about to close took pity on us and stayed open just for us.

Distance 68 miles

Av speed 13.3