Stage Three: Péronne to Laon

…in which we fall off. Twice!

Time: 4hr49m
Distance: 84.76
Average speed: 17.6kph
Distance from Calais: 267.14

Péronne is lovely: a handsome town square beside the river Somme, rebuilt after major damage in the Great War. We had a small meal, no room for any more after the enormous lunch we ate!
The following morning at 9.30 we were picked up by Diane from Les Alouettes, the organisers of our tour of the Somme battlefields. She turned out to be an excellent and knowledgeable guide.

The tour, inevitably, was a sobering experience. In bright sunshine and temperatures approaching 35 degrees Celsius we visited several locations in the Somme. There were cemeteries everywhere: the Commonwealth ones incredibly well maintained, with row upon row of pristine white tombstones, each surrounded by flowers. In contrast, at the German cemetery at Fricourt, only 500 or so crosses recorded the resting place of over 17,000 fallen soldiers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the French did not want the German cemeteries to occupy much land.

We visited the huge memorial at Thiepval, and sought the plaque commemorating the loss of our neighbour Diana’s grandfather. It was there: Alfred Fuller de Horsey, killed on the 1st July 1916 – the very first day of the first battle of the Somme. It was surrounded by uncountable others.

One of the most remarkable features was the small distance between opposing trenches particularly near Hawthorn Ridge, site of the Newfoundland memorial, where the fields were pock-marked with shell holes and intersected by zig-zag trenches.

It would be easy to write much more, but it isn’t the main subject of this blog. It was a memorable and moving experience. We returned to our hotel in Péronne, discussed it all over a large cold beer, then had a final “Picardie-style” meal before retiring to bed.

We had checked the weather forecast for Rheims on the BBC website. Sunny, with a strong westerly wind, it said, to our delight – a tailwind all day! So it was something of a surprise to be greeted by cloudy skies, rain and a strong easterly wind when we set off this morning. Or perhaps it wasn’t!

We missed the first opportunity to join the towpath of the Canal du Nord, cycling on through small villages under cloudy skies. After a few slow miles into the headwind we spotted an opportunity to join the towpath, which was gravelly but wide, and offered some limited shelter from the wind.

We overtook a huge commercial barge heading toward the next lock, then stopped to put on rainwear as the rain grew in intensity. After a few kilometres the canal split into two, and we followed the towpath of the (closed) Canal du Somme. This was a promising choice to begin with, but became more narrow and chalky. We had already cycled on chalk lanes on previous days, and had enjoyed the experience. What we hadn’t taken into account was the effect of the rain. Unbeknown to us this had caused the lanes to become extremely slippery, and suddenly the tandem slipped to the right and we followed it to the ground.

A quick assessment showed that we were bruised but largely unharmed, and the tandem was fine. Jonathan had twisted his thumb in the fall, and it was somewhat sore, but useable. Our second mistake (showing a lamentable lack of common sense) was to assume this was a freak accident and to remount the bike. A few metres down the track we fell for a second time! Fortunately we were going slowly and no further injuries were incurred. Seeing sense at last, we chose to walk the remaining few hundred metres to the junction with the road.

We consulted our planned route for the remainder of the day and chose to bypass any remaining off-road sections and stick to the roads. As if to compensate us for our experience the sun came out and the wind turned 180 degrees. The BBC had been right after all!

Cycling through the village of Beaumont-en-Beine we spotted two lively dogs by the side of the road, and put on a spurt of speed to leave them barking behind us. One of the dogs clearly regarded this as a challenge, and set off beside us. Reaching the end of the village we assumed the dog would turn around, but no, it continued down the centre of the road. Each time a car approached in the opposite direction we had to wave at the car in order to warn it about this clearly rather stupid dog. We accelerated away again, but in vain: Fido was still there! After a mile or so we climbed up for a few hundred metres, spotting an opportunity for a fast downhill escape. Changing to our highest gear at the top we pedalled frantically downhill. It worked! We were free! He had been distracted by the entrance to someone’s house, then trotted back in the direction of his village.

We were making fast progress now toward the town we had chosen for our lunchtime stop. Tergnier was large and fairly unremarkable, but boasted a boulangerie with sandwiches and soft drinks, so we purchased some and sat on benches by the road to have our food. Rain was still threatening, but in the distance the skies were blue and the prospect of a dry afternoon seemed good. After a few minutes a man on a bicycle spotted us and turned around to chat. We managed to converse to some extent, but he seemed unperturbed by our lack of understanding and continued to chat away. It became apparent that he would continue to talk for hours if we let him. Also, his conversation was becoming more and more eccentric: perhaps we had met the village ‘character’! When he started to sing ‘Roxanne’ to us we decided to make our escape, for the second time today, and cycled a mile or two down the road to finish our sandwiches in peace.

Our reluctance to use off-road tracks meant that the remaining 20 kilometres (or thereabouts) would be on a main road. The surface made for faster cycling but the traffic was heavy, and we were relieved when we ascended the hills near Crepy and spotted the distinctive outline of Laon up ahead. This mediaeval city is built on and around a high rocky outcrop, and surmounted by a magnificent cathedral. Soon enough we arrived at the Hotel des Arts, wheeled the tandem into their garage and settled in for clothes-washing and blog-writing duties!

Tomorrow’s destination is Reims – we’ve planned a fairly short day in order to visit the cathedral.