The Bikepacker: Bikepacking 2024 - Plévenon to Allineuc

Day #

State of Legs

:-|

	Distance (miles)	Distance (km)	Ascent (feet)	Ascent (metres)	Punctures
Today	52 miles	km	3517 feet	metres	0
Trip Totals	174.9 miles	km	9987 feet	metres	0

Today's Route

Route So Far

Travelogue

We continued to cycle west along the coast, following Eurovelo route EV4. The weather was good and we enjoyed the scenery and cycling over a couple of bridges, including one fairly awesome viaduct.

We stopped at Pléneuf-Val-André for coffee and took photos of a house that appeared to have been built on stilts out over the water.

Our route continued a little further along the coast, passing numerous moored boats in little harbours but then turned inland, heading approximately south-west towards today's destination, a village called Allineuc. At some point, we left EV4 and joined one of the regional cycle routes known as route V8.

Naturally, with all that pedalling of our heavy bikes (have I mentioned that our bikes are heavy?), not to mention all the taking of photos and our bikes being heavy and everything, we were soon feeling hungry.

We screeched to a halt outside a grocery store that miraculously appeared just when we needed it to. This was in the village of Hillion.

M1 was dispatched to obtain something for lunch and appeared minutes later looking very pleased with himself. And with good reason. Because M1 had done very well indeed and procured a salmon quiche that promised to be utterly delicious because it is the law in France that all salmon quiches and similar pastry-based products must be delicious.

The quiche was cut carefully in two by M1 with his handy Swiss army knife and sat on a bench, M1 and M2 started to slowly eat the precious delicacy. And oh my, no laws had been broken! The first mouthfuls verified that this was in fact a delicious French salmon quiche.

M1 was excited and felt the urge to document the moment. Apparently he doesn't understand that you can't photograph a taste. Nevertheless, he got up from the bench, walked to The Mule, his part eaten half of the quiche in his right hand, managed to extract his phone from the frame bag on the bike using his left hand and was in the process of persuading the screen to unlock so he could use the camera when...... DISASTER!!!

M1 somehow dropped his quiche and watched, absolutely horrified as it somersaulted in slow motion towards the ground! By a small miracle, it landed pastry side down but OMG!! There was then a lot of swearing and asking of unanswerable questions such as "Why?! Why?". OK there's an answer to that one but M1 doesn't really want the answer.

And M1 has been here before. Delicious food imperilled by some random act of God. Remember Attack of the Seagulls? Well this was the same but without the seagulls and with a quiche not fish and chips. But otherwise identical.

M1 calmed a little. And examined the situation clinically. The quiche was presumably still delicious. It had just changed its position in three dimensional space. Did this matter? It had retained its structural integrity and not been smashed into a thousand pieces. And then M1 heard M2 say "It's probably OK, you know". Or maybe he wanted to hear this and imagined it. We might never know. Because before too much over-thinking could be done or objections raised, M1 stooped down, picked up the beleaguered piece of quiche and..... took a large bite out of it. And yes! It was still delicious! And if M1 could survive ingesting seagull spittle with fish and chips, then surely a bit of whatever you might find on a French pavement wouldn't kill him either! At least that was the hope!

Listen, stop judging M1. If you'd tasted that quiche, you'd have done the same :-) The French know how to cook, never forget that!

Having lunched on presumably a little more than was obtained from the store, we continued along route V8. But not much further on, ..... DISASTER!! Well, OK not quite a disaster so let's try that again. But not much further on, ..... SLIGHT INCONVENIENCE!!

The route was closed. A bridge we needed to cross had a big hole in it and was physically closed at each side. Sigh. There was no information given and no deviation sign indicating where to go to get around the closed bridge. No matter. We huddled around a smartphone and used the Organic Maps app to determine their options. New route established we headed off again and rejoined the planned route further on after a small detour.

When reviewing the day's profile the day before, we'd incorrectly formed the view that today would take us to the highest point above sea level on our journey across to the Atlantic coast and that we'd then be treated to a wonderful downhill ride that would take us right to the campsite. We were so wrong and didn't quite reach that point, unfortunately. Instead, we went up and down, up and down, up and down, clocking up the accumulated ascent and taxing our legs which had still not recovered from day #1 and the 74 mile ride from London to Portsmouth. As the truth about the day's profile dawned on us, we were dismayed but pushed on. A nasty headwind made even the minor downhill sections hard work but nothing stopped M1, M2 and their trusty mule and non-mule bikes.

Eventually we reached the village of Allineuc, passed through it and found the campsite with no problems. It was a very nice campsite with a bar and creperie, too.

Photos were taken. Here are some of them.