Notre Tour de France #9 (47 mi)

I guess you could say that I'm more than a little annoyed. The blog post for yesterday was completely written (and the longest yet). It had been checked over and all I needed to do was get some internet access to publish it. Well, the blog post has completely disappeared without a trace, so I guess I'll have to rewrite it all now. Stuart grumpy.

So yesterday morning we left our campsite in good time and made our way west, again along the Loire. A couple of villages down had what we were looking for; a boulangerie and a café next to one another. I won't tell you what came next, but it was delicious.

Once we returned to the bikes, we branched off from the river and started heading away from it. The Loire has been our companion since we started this trip, and has never really been more than a stone's throw away. The countryside has become more noticeably undulating which is emphasised with lugging a heavy trailer behind you. There are lots of fields of crops here - hundreds and hundreds, and most of it is corn, wheat, sunflowers or grapes. Yum yum.

As we arrived in Cholet, it was extremely quiet. It had slipped our minds that it was already Sunday again, and most shops tend to close early. Jwan found us a nice campsite next to a lake. It is rated as 4*, and the only difference I can see between this and a 2* is the inclusion of toilet paper in the bloc sanitaire. Oh, and there's a swimming pool. I got my money's worth and swam 100 lengths (2000m).

We've managed to get a few chores done, including doing our laundry. As it's both hot and windy here, we've made a make-shift washing line using bungee cords. One can never have enough bungee cords!

On the evening we had a nosey at karaoke night. This is something I'd never ever think of doing... I have a terrible singing voice and I'm well aware of it. We watched some of the other site residents have a go, though. Some were good and some bad, but we both now have a French song called "Je suis malade" stuck in our heads.

Today I had a bit of an incident with my bike. First of all my chain decided to wrap around itself, bending my front derailleur out of shape and also distorting my rear derailleur! When we arrived at the campsite I pretty much got these problems fixed, but then a new one decided to surface. My gear shifter started making horrible snapping noises when trying to shift to an easier gear. The problem became clear when the gear shifter itself fell off. Yes, you read that right - my gear shifter fell off! Not good, especially as I know a set of shifters costs in excess of £200. As tomorrow is a rest day, we can try look for somewhere in Cholet to get a replacement, though Mondays are also a strange day when many shops just don't open at all. It might be that I have to cycle to our next destination, La Roche sur Yon, using just two gears by shifting between my smaller and larger chain rings. I am not a happy bunny.