Le Grand Traversée du Limousin

The Grand Traversee de Limousin adventure May 2008
It’s Tuesday morning and we set off for Dover in Paul’s shiny new van, a Mercedes Vito in subtle fire-engine red with yellow flashes and writing and orange flashing warning lights. An accident on the M25 diverts us slightly then a road closure at Folkstone alters our route and it’s raining steadily but we get to the docks in good time. Just as well as we follow the ferry signs to the wrong terminal and are provided with an owl sticker to get back through customs ‘twit, who?’! At the western docks we find our sea bat and a shop in which to stock up on all our driving abroad goodies which Paul promptly ignores to fit to the van. Manoeuvring into the vessel is interesting as the van has a 4 feet long CB aerial that rattles against the roof like the dodgems. The crossing is remarkably smooth given that the weather isn’t that good and we disembark at Boulougne at 1pm. It’s straight onto the peáge and follow the coast line south-west to Rouens where we stock up on food and diesel at an Intermarché. Back on the toll road towards Tours, the rain is coming in torrential bursts that even the speediest windscreen wiper setting can’t clear. After leaving the motorway we pass through a couple of small villages, one with some good examples of troglodyte houses, to find my friend Pascal’s house. It’s at the end of a small lane next to a forest and is a superb exhibit of 60’s e-bay art deco chic, absolutely immaculate. Over the years of knowing Pascal I’ve heard of every drop of blood sweat and tears he’s spent on this project and was fascinated to actually see it. Pascal is highly amused by our van especially as we now see that the flashing rear lights have been on for some time! He is quite the bonne viveur and convivial host, feeding us with a fantastic taboulet, asparagus and pineapple. We sleep well and awake to yet more grey skies and rain. We plan to head to Limoges but en route get side tracked to a little village museum that Raymond has been told about – Oradour-sur-Glane, a French village that the retreating German army ransacked. SS troops massacred the 635 villagers and used flame throwers to raise the buildings to the ground, it’s been kept as a reminder of the atrocities of war and is both horrific, eerie and fascinating. The weather has turned from rain to glorious sunshine and we continue to St Leonard’s, a town just east of Limoges where a friend of Paul’s has a house. We pull up in front of an enormous ancient dilapidated French townhouse. We tentatively go inside; it’s definitely a work in progress, ‘progress’ in the loosest sense of the word. We are due to meet Julie and KB here tonight, they have flown independently to Lyons and are making their way over, and while we’re waiting we go shopping and start tea. Later they arrive, take one look at the place and decide to move on to a hotel – it’s that kind of place. Unfortunately, as the food was started, the same idea didn’t occur to me.

Stage one – Nantiat to Bénévent 74km in 5:35 After a disturbed night in which every rustle was a rat, we wake and load the van and set off to the sign on village of Chataluz. This will be the eventual finish in three days time. It is misty with a fine drizzle and we arrive an hour or so later. We are directed to park in a field adjoining a lake with a hut that houses the registration. Here we hand in our self endorsed medical certificates and sign on the dotted line. This event is unique in that you can either enter the three days as a race or individual days as a randoneur. The race is solo but, as an additional category, you can nominate four riders to be in a team with the fastest three times counted. KB and Julie are already here and entered, and Raymond, Paul, KB and I enter as a team, Julie declines as she reckons she’ll be slow, I think she just wants the chance to collect wildlife and hunt for truffles as she’s riding alongJ In a white van further down the field Raymond spots Stratobiker, aka Steve Bennett, the guy responsible for us being here after Raymond stumbling upon his excellent blog ‘Stratobiker’, riding with him are his brother Andy and a friend Dave in the colours of Team Pearce and we are all introduced. The trucks to take our bikes and luggage to the starting village of Nantiat are here so we organise what stuff we have to take and load up, in other races we are limited to one bag but here they take anything, people are loading up mattresses, chairs, one even had a chaise-longue! We are then treated to a snack of bread, ham and pasta which the locals are tucking into with gusto. At 11.30 we are herded into a couple of coaches and taken on an hour and a half trip to Nantiat. At the local playing field there is a mass of cyclists as many of the ‘one dayers’ have driven directly here. As we disgorge from the bus a girl catches Raymond’s eye, after hesitating he asks whether she’s Carla, Steve’s wife and authoress of another absorbing blog ‘Limousin Life’, indeed she is and she wishes us well. It’s now almost 1pm and I’ve rather gone of the idea of cycling for the day, also it’s still grey, chilly and drizzly, not the most inviting for a bike ride. We congregate for the start and try to decipher some of the pre race briefing which is all conducted in excitable fast French, none the wiser we just follow the leaders as they set off behind the motorbikes for a neutralised 2 km down the road before turning off onto fire tracks. The next 72km are a bit of a blur, a complete sensory overload and assault on body and mind. I reckon maybe 2km was tarmac, the rest totally off-road ranging from short sections of fast double track to exquisite single-track and no flat bits, just up and down, up and down. The weather is still damp and the previous few days’ downpours have left huge swathes of muddy trails which fishtail your bike and sap every ounce of your concentration. The course is so full on that it is difficult to find an opportunity to eat and after a couple of hours I’m beginning to fade, this is most noticeable in my deterioration at negotiating the muddy sections and the exponential increase in blasphemous utterings and insistence that I AM NEVER, EVER DOING ONE OF THESE AGAIN! My hatred is aimed squarely at Raymond for getting me here in the first place with a little left for Stratobiker for giving him the idea! I curse and mutter my way onwards for another couple of hours. Much later, in the midst of a particularly vile muddy patch Raymond loses his front wheel, steps to balance himself and cracks his knee on his fork, the obscenities ring out, echoing far and wide. I sheepishly find some extra determination from this and the last few kms quickly pass and we drop into Bénévent which reserves a final sharp kick up to the village square and the finish line. We are both absolutely shagged and I rue all those weekends lying in bed when I should have been out training, rain or no rain! We find the hall that we’re sleeping in tonight and try to leave our bikes in the Parc Ferme but the lady overseeing it demands that we wash them, we try to tell her that we never wash our bikes during races, it’s unlucky, but she’s having none of it so, disgruntled, we return to the bike wash after which she admits our bikes with a radiant smile. It’s then time to wash ourselves and get fed. This is where the French excel. We sit and are served a three course meal, salad and bread for starters, steak, pasta and lentils for main course and cake for dessert all washed down with copious amounts of water and red wine. Fantastic! Satiated we retire to our sleeping bags and await the next day’s trial.

Stage Two: Bénévent – Gueret After a fitful night’s sleep it’s up at 7.00am and breakfast of cereal, yoghurt and endless amounts of bread. The sky is shot through with black and grey clouds but it looks like they’re fighting a losing battle with the blue expanse. We wear slightly less than yesterday in anticipation. Our gear is loaded onto the waiting truck and at 10.00am we are herded into some semblance of a group and talked at in French. My ‘O’ level francais is rather rusty but today I do recognise a few words. The motorbikes rev their engines and we’re off on a 2.5km neutralised section through the back streets of Bénévent into the central square where we stop. Above us on the village ramparts are the local press and event photographers and we pose en masse. The route is immediately off road on cart tracks and follows in much the same vein as yesterday albeit with a few splashes of asphalt that are long enough for you to get half a bar or a gel down your throat. The sun is shining and locals are chatting to their neighbours over their garden walls, pausing to wave and shout ‘allez’, ‘c’est dur’ et ‘bon courage’ at us. We wind our way through fields, splash through puddles of varying depth, squelch through mud of varying consistency, clamber up short, steep, boulder strewn climbs and fly down short, sharp, rutted descents. Today I have unearthed my ‘roid blocks and together with actually having the opportunity to eat am feeling much better, far fewer race hate moments and less temper tantrums. I have also come to accept the fact that I’m going to get a wet, muddy backside and stop fannying about in the mud so much – just ride the bloody stuff! I even catch up with the 2nd place girl on some lovely twisty single-track at the top of one of the last climbs but lose her again on the rooty, mulchy descent into the outskirts of Gueret. We cross the finish line in just over 4½ hours. Tonight we are based in a gym and Paul has grabbed us some gym mats to cushion our aged bones. After washing our bikes and taking a hot shower all we need to make life complete is a cold Coke and a strong coffee. Our prayers are answered as a press conference has been arranged for us foreigners and we are ushered into the bar and plied with drinks in exchange for answering questions about the race. Fortunately the Belgians get most of the attention as they don’t need a translator, we only have to answer a couple and KB gets to tackle the rest, this he does with consummate ease and professionalism. Tonight we are fed with mounds of taboulet, a chicken/turkey stew with mashed potatoes and the obligatory cakes with custard, washed down with water and red wine. All this, in a cordoned off portion of a sports hall, in the other half of which locals are playing tennis completely unfazed by our presence. It’s an early ‘lights-out’ tonight ready for an early start tomorrow and by 10pm it’s all snores and farts.

Stage Three: Gueret – Chataluz Breakfast is served at the ungodly hour of 5.30am in readiness for an 8.00am start. We go through our morning packing rituals, load our stuff on the trucks, collect our bikes and go to see how much of the race briefing we can decipher today, 25 years of dust and cobwebs are being slowly blown off my language neurons and a few more words are comprehended. The start is neutralised for 3km as we wend our way into town. We stop, things are said, we go. It is a beautiful day and getting decidedly hot. Julie, Raymond and I ride together, enjoying the scenery and ponder how it looks ‘just like Dorking’ with lush green field, dandelions, campions and bluebells. The sun is drying the trails leaving thick mud rather than watery ooze that requires some effort to get through, we don’t escape the joys of getting drenched though as the trail skirts the lakes and deteriorates into streams in some places and puddles of indeterminable deepness in others. The trick when approaching these is to have some unfortunate in front of you so that they can plough in and discover whether the puddle is only an inch or so deep and navigable or not. A happy chappy dressed in full Bettini – esque world champion white top and shorts passes us and heads for one such puddle and promptly disappears up to his waist. He yells, dismounts and steps over a branch to another puddle to his left and promptly sinks again! – we decide to go rightJ Other obstacles today include a mini waterfall as a lake we have just traversed on narrow single-track, plunges down to a lower level and the one obligatory hike-a-bike section up a slimy dirt gully. Perched here is a guy taking photos. As I struggle to get a foothold I screech that’s it’s too slippery, the man, repeating me, agrees. Raymond shouts at me to swap sides, the man says the same, then Raymond yells to pass my bike up and the man echoes his sentiments, parrot fashion – surreal! Julie is finding her legs today and puts a couple of hard digs in. Towards the end we climb up to a rocky outcrop on which stands a fine statue, a man is parked close by and we ask who it is, he answers ‘notre dame’ . We are delighted to find the trail leads up to the monument so we can get a better look, then we are bemused as the trail clambers right up to the base, throws in a couple of bomb holes and passes at the feet of Mary who just gives us a benign gaze. A rare big ring blast takes us across the last few fields and drops us into the finishing village and we recognise the lake where we left the van. A final kick and we cross the finish line in unison. We go back to shake the organisers hand and thank him for such an enjoyable race – yep, already the grumpy ‘never doing one of these again’ vibes are evaporating!
We scoot off to find the hose pipes and wash our trusty steeds down – this is becoming a habit – and load them into the van. Then it’s a quick shower and we begin to walk to the after race knees up venue, we thumb a lift off one of the orga guys and meet up with Stratobiker, Andy and Dave. Another continuous stream of food is presented, taboulet, pasta, lentils, steak, cake, wine. Finally the presentations, firstly for the stage then overall where I have come 3rd and take to the podium to collect a cup, a bag of goodies (wine, bread, sausage, cake and jam) and a bouquet. I smile a lot and say ‘merci’ in my best accent. Stratobiker collects 3rd in the Vets2 category. Then, to our bafflement, all the Equipe Anglais are called up, together with the Equipe Belgique and we are given prizes for being not French! Magnanimous to a fault! Once nearly all the competitors have prizes and good many glasses of vin rouge imbibed we all disperse, we say goodbye to Stratobiker and co, and JD and KB and hit the roads for Limoges. Hot and tired we make a half-hearted attempt to find a central hotel and see the sights but we reach the tourist information just as it closes and settle for an out-of town euro-chain with free wi-fi and very comfortable beds in which we sleep soundly.

Sunday morning we trundle on to Tours, avoiding the motorway and taking the tourist route through rustic villages. At Chatellereaux there is a car boot sale/bric-a-brac market in the town square so we stop for a wander around. Next we head through a troglodyte village and stop again for another fete this time encompassing two villages and the intervening chateau. It’s very hot and we picnic in a shaded spot next to the river in serene surroundings. Moving on to Tours we book into a hotel and set out to explore but Tours is big and we are hot and tired and another comfy bed is calling. I treat Raymond to a hotel breakfast then we hit the road for the last stretch back to Boulogne and the sea bat back to Dover. The Channel is as flat as a millpond and even the Bank Holiday traffic is light once back in Britain so we’re home before 7pm – an excellent trip all round.