Big Ben' s Bike Blog

Day 20; back home Today 115 km home, crossing 4 major rivers. The recent flooding in Belgium and Germany made the water level very high for this time of the year. Normally we would have used little ferries, some of them were out of service now due to the high water. We had only one ferry, after 20 km over the river Maas. On board 2 huge tractors with grass cutters to be taken across. The ferry had major problems having these two vehicles on board, the skipper started manoeuvring them in a favourable position and at one point the deck of the ferry subsided with a serious amount of water. A Belgium car driver was so scared by this that he reversed his car in and swiftly drove off the ferry to take a bridge further down. We trusted the skipper and safely arrived at the other side of the river.  We had coffee and cake at a trout farm and crossed the last 3 rivers by bridge. The day was uneventful but pleasant with a good average speed of 25.3 km with a slight headwind. For a moment we ...

  Day 11; Mousse au Bloc de Frein  75 km Chartres 09.00 with some drizzle. Within a few miles we were outside town heading for Versailles. In Rambouillet the drizzle changed to more serious rain and we took refuge in a restaurant. On the table next to us were other refugees, a German family who were on their way to the Atlantic coast. These cyclists looked so smart and clean that the rest of the day we were discussing how on earth they managed to look like that in these conditions. After our usual caffe creme we decided to get going, the beauty contest was already lost to these Germans and we’ d better show them what a real cyclist was up to. By now the rain was pouring from the sky. Before Versailles there were two short climbs and descents; Ben had more and more trouble using the brakes in the rain. When we arrived in Versailles there was no braking left and inspection at the hotel learned that the shimano brake pads had completely disappeared and changed into a substanc...