Today it was still windy, but rather than rain we had broken cloud and sunshine.  We cycled down to Hambye on the tandem and then on to the the ruined Abbey.  The abbey lies in gorgeous surroundings in a wooded valley.  Unfortunately, only 25 mins remained before it closed for the lengthy French lunchbreak, so we pressed on through beautiful wooded lanes to Gavray (twinned with Launton!).  At this point we debated what to do next, and ended up riding on to the coast.  We headed first of all to Brehal, and then carried on across saltmarshes to Les Salines, in the hope of finding some seafood for lunch.  While we saw loads of bouchots on the beach, there wasn't anything near the beach in the way of eating (just a large car park, and many people either hanging around on the car park or traipsing around the beach looking for shellfish.

Faced with this disappointment, we rode over to St Martin de Brehal, but only found pizza cafes.  So back we went via Les Salines, from where we headed home via Ligneville (everything shut) and Quettreville (where we finally had sandwich and pains au chocolat from small supermarket).

A nice morning, and we drove to La Lucerne d'Outremer, with the tandem on the roof.  We left the car and rode down to Genets, on the coast and with very nice views of Mont St Michel in the haze.  Mont St Michel was surprisingly close, and indeed the pilgrims' route takes them across the sands to the Mont.  Presumably this is the quickest way to heaven in more than one sense!.  From Genets we rode up the coast in the direction of Granville.  Along the way there were several viewpoints from which Mont St Michel could be spotted, all bar one very quite with the exception being one that was heaving with people. 

ventually we stopped for moules & frites after climbing out of St Jean de Thomas.  We turned inland through a confused set of one-way streets at Jolouville and returned via the ruined  Abbaie de La Lucerne.

As usual, a rest day before the big event.  We drove over to Villedieu les Poeles, where we left the car in a supermarket car park and walked into town.  The town is full of touristy nick-nack shops, much of it copper pots and pans.  However, we did visit the bell foundry museum.  This was very interesting.  The tour looked like it was pretty good, but it was of limited use to us given it was in French, and well beyond our halting capability in that language. 

We then wandered back to a creperie, where we has excellent crepes and quaffed some equally excellent cider.  While we were in the creperie a heavy rain shower blew in.  We went back to the car, via the supermarket, then returned to the house, where they'd not had any rain.

Team Grumpy approached this year's Duo Normand with the expectation that we'd do less well than in previous years - both riders have had less than stellar seasons.  In the event, we did better than we expected, I think, despite being trounced by a seriously strong team riding for BikeRadar.com (Robin Coomber and Jeff Jones), who rode a superb race, taking the category record with 1:15:22.

Two main issues concerned us - firstly, we received emails the day before we set off for France saying that a following car was compusory (we had to drag Carol into this role) and secondly, rumours abounded that the UCI bike regulations would be enforced in all categories.  The latter rumour caused us some concern, and a day or so before the event, we made final checks that our bikes complied.

We had the usual rest day after the Duo - we drove to Granville to amble gently about.  In particular the citadel area and the old town were very attractive, with the interesting wartime additions of the concrete gun emplacements that formed part of the German "Atlantic Wall".  Interestingly, it looked as though someone had had a go at chipping them apart but had given up.  Over 65 years since they were installed, the many concrete structures left by the Germnas still look quite robust.  We decided not to go to the aquarium, but wandered bak down to the habour where whe had an excellent lunch.  I had an  assiette de fruits de mer (whelks, winkles, oysters, crabs, langoustines, clams, etc) - while Carol had a salad nicoise and an excllent white fish (we think trigger fish) in a greenish spiruline sauce.  Then back for a lazy afternoon back at the house.

Photo gallery:

First thing, I went round the 15 mile circuit with Gerry (15.5 miles), stopping to buy bagettes and pains au chocolat. 

After second breakfast, we drove over to Utah beach for the ride we'd hoped to do the previous Wednesday - it was an altogether better day, with brilliant sunshine most of the time.  After unloading the bike in the Utah beach car park, we cycled to St Vaast le Hougue.  Initially along the coast road, but due to roadworks, we had to cross to the bigger D14 road.  Pretty nice cycling for the most part.  Lunch was galettes & crepes in a creperie in St Vaast le Houge.  Bizarrely we were supplied with the strong Leffe 9 instead of Leffe Blonde (!) - this made us feel rather sleepy as we set off to return to the car. 

We decided to investigate Agon-Coutainville today, and also try and find a village called Grouchy on its outskirts (some play on words re Team Grumpy!).  We set off via the small lanes near the house.  This practically was our undoing, as they proved very difficult to navigate due to the limited sinage on these tiddly roads.  Our aim had been to avoid the big intersections near Coutances.  We eventually crossed the D972 near Belval-Gare, after about 16 miles cycling, only to see signs proclaiming Cerisy La Salle 7km!  So we'd really come via a circuitous route. On the other hand, the roads had been delightfully rural, though populated by lots of barky dogs!

We narrowly avoided the Coutances industrial estates and the associated big roads ad in the end rode straight down the sea front at Agon-Cotainville.  Here we stopped for another excellent lunch in restaurant (pigeon breast salad & skate for Carol, assiette de bulots and skate for Robert).

I'd realised a few days before that I'd bought a return ticket to Poole rather than Portsmouth.  This was on the Brittany Ferries Normandie Vitesse.  I'd booked this because I wasn't keen on rolling off into British road traffic in the dark.  As it turned out, the ferry was still badged as "Condor Ferries" - presumably bought up by Brittany Ferries comparatively recently - but it was very quick, with a crossing time of 2h15.

Exiting Poole was a bit of a shock to the system after the gentle traffic we'd had in Normandy - but once out onto the motorway and A34 we rolled along OK, except for a major hold up due to an accident on the A34.  The A34 becomes more monstrous in its traffic levels each time we use it.  Astonishing to think that a few years ago we were still using it as a time trial course, albeit early on Sunday mornings.

Mikel Astarloza (Euskaltel) tested positive for EPO (both A and B samples) back in June - test results which may see hims tripped of his Tour de France stage win.  Over the years, I've been quite amused to read the explanations for positive dope tests proffered by professional athletes.  These can vary from the vanishing twin explanation for a positive test for blood transfusion, to beer consumption as an explanation for aberrant testosterone:epitestosterone ratios.

Cyclingnews.com reports (Astarloza blames positive on training session) that Mikel Astarloza has offere an explanation for his aberrant test results. Apparently his lawyer Jose Rodriguez

Three months after returning from Belize, Vanessa of NatureBreak.org felt and heard the activity of a botfly larva in her scalp (I can recall reading an article in BBC Nature magazine about a cameraman who suffered this - he reckoned it was scritching against his skull!).

Botfly larvae are bulb-shaped, the the posterior spiracles poking out through a small hole in the skin - the main body of the larva is covered in backward pointing spines which serve to prevent the larva from being removed.