Day 265 10th April
57miles (Saint Genis Laval to Belleville) Average speed 10.1 mph Top speed 36 mph
Up at 8 and had tea and cheese sarnie for brekkie. I missed saying goodbye to the man from St Malo as I was having a wash, but managed to find a replacement for the bottle of shower gel I left in the shower last night. Then I got to charge my phone in the morning sun. I left at 10.30 and took the road north towards Lyon.
Road to Lyon
I joined a cycle path for a while and then went in search of Decathlon to buy gas. It was in a shopping centre, so after a security guard had checked all my panniers, I tried to find the lift to 2nd floor, but got some strange looks as people went in search of the latest fashions. Eventually I found a lift but it was full of lazy people, who couldn’t be bothered to stand on the escalator. Finally I got to the second floor and there were no lifts up to Decathlon, so locked my bike next to the entrance and went up. They only had small canisters of gas at 5.99 but I needed to cook so I got one, but they only had big cans of degreaser so that I went without.
Then I had my route planned out of town but after going through a park with lots of animals
Bear in the park
I found that there was no way across the river other than the A46 motorway, so I went in search of another route. This was fruitless and I ended up heading east and found myself lost in a poor part of town where I was so annoyed I consoled myself by eating a whole packet of biscuits!
Then I decided that my only option was the A42 motorway to try and get back to the A46 to cross the three waterways I needed to get over. So I took on the challenge of motorway madness and managed to fight my way across a couple of junctions but when it came to crossing two lanes at high speed I gave up and headed east amid lots of angry drivers but thankfully no gendarmes.!
Wild camp , picnic table and rapeseed farm. Free