The road out of St Malo is so damn straight. I blame the Romans, it makes me wish I had something a bit quicker, like the BMW I followed off the boat. That would eat all this up and make a little burp afterwards. It’s either the bike that’s wrong, or the road, and my wistful fancy for a more modern ride thankfully evaporates when I find my exit from the Route Nacional and drive off into the countryside.
The flat exhaust note, with nothing to reflect it, is replaced by the rich burble that makes riding the Black Bullet such a pleasure. She pulls enticingly out of the bends and pops on overrun into the villages. "Eat Enfield exhaust note Frenchy." I murmur with a smile, blipping the throttle.
The overnight ferry trip was such a treat. To be free of family responsibilities for a while, not running away, just taking time out, like you’d do in a long hot bath, a five-day bath. Everybody needs a bit of time to themselves and this form of transport provides the perfect opportunity. We had whisky and Simon played the piano but I was in bed by midnight, what with a big riding day ahead and all. The next thing I knew, we were becalmed in the mist by the imposing walls of this old fortress town.
An impossibly perky reveille fought through the bath towel I’d stuffed over the speaker under the table in our cabin. I saw it when I was stowing my damp boots, tongues out, and thought, "Hello...oh no you don't." All the same, I was keen to make it to breakfast and get on with the leg down to Le Mans.
The next stint was about 140 miles which at 40mph, tops, made three and a half hours of solid riding. Add in three twenty-minute breaks and maybe an hour for lunch and that came to five and a half hours in total, by my back-of-a-fag-packet reckoning. This was provided everything went like clockwork. A contingent couple of hours made it potentially a full working day.
I laid a paper napkin from breakfast in the oil patch under the bike while I buckled up and realigned the levers for start up. One of the other riders came over for a chat as several car drivers in our vicinity started their engines, prematurely, oblivious of the exhaust fumes in their air conditioned comfort.
“Come far?” he said cheerily over the noise.
“Oxford,” I said, frowning at a couple of aged fashionistas. They’d been gossiping loudly in the cabin next door and were now revving up their Range Rover 'Vogue'. They giggled infuriatingly and winked back.
“My dad used to ride one of these, it was a Model G.” he continued.
“So is this.” I responded curtly, regretting that I couldn't be a bit more polite.
“Oh really, I thought this one was earlier, what year is it?”
“It's a fifty-three.”
“It’s a rigid frame, though, isn’t it? I thought they all had a swing arm by then.”
“I don’t know, I’m sorry, I really don’t know that much about it.”
“It should have a swing arm,” he insisted, “unless it’s a military one..."
I just wasn't in the mood and he thankfully retreated, "Well, good luck anyway.”
I was to have a lot of these conversations along the way and although the interactions were generally welcome and sometimes genuinely informative, I was not always receptive, particularly immediately pre and post time in the saddle - when I was nervy, or tired. That morning I just wanted to get out there, settle down to the job in hand and get some miles under my belt. I would have all the time in the world for chatting once I got to the Chateau.
