Nantes to Briare via Orleans: How do you want your stake, Joanie?

I’m now in Briare, about halfway across France and one hop further from Orléans, where I took a day’s rest.

Orléans is the northernmost point of the Loire, about 70 miles due south of Paris.

She wasn’t from Orleans, of course, nor was she from “Arc”, wherever that is, “d’Arc” was her father’s surname. Indeed, she was barely French, growing up in a village that straddled the then border between France and The Holy Roman Empire (Germany, in new money) in Alsace, named Domrémy, pronounced like the first three notes of the musical scale. To cut a long story short, she heard voices at 13 from various holy folk and then embarked on a divinely inspired mission (or psychotically-driven, as we would say these days) to make the young Dauphin, Charles, the next king of France. Our own House of Lancaster had been contesting the succession via Henry V, who was doing pretty well in the latter half of the Hundred Years War, slapping the French around at Agincourt, amongst other places, and he had had himself named as the heir to the throne of France by his father-in-law, Charles VI, before his untimely death at the age of 35 in 1422, leaving behind an infant son, Henry VI. The French King, who had earlier promised him the crown after his death, unsportingly survived him by a mere two months, thereby leaving everything up for grabs between their respective sons.

So, the war continued (for a around hundred years, all told), but the turning point came at Orleans. Orleans strategic position, with its proximity to Paris and its bridge over the Loire, meant that the whole game hinged upon it. The English had besieged it for seven months before Joan appeared on the scene in May 1429 and 9 days later it was all over. After overseeing the crowning of the Charles VII at Reims, she was captured by the Burgundians, handed over to the English, tried as a heretic trial and burned at the stake by in Rouen. Her ashes were scattered in the Seine. The French, however, upped their game after her inspired cameo performance and finally defeated the English in 1453 at Castillon.

All of this could have been avoided, of course, had they discovered chlorpromazine in the 15th century, in which case, everybody in this part of France would now be speaking English.

She was made a saint a hundred years ago after a campaign by a bishop of Orleans and is something of a local and national celebrity.

She is all over Orleans and much of my day off was spent absorbing her story, as there seems to be little else they the town has to brag about. Even the cathedral, which is magnificent, is decorated by a stained-glass windows telling her tale. My favourite was the one where she is burned, which has a legend referring to the “Anglois perfide” – our most endearing and enduring quality, I think.

It took three days to get to Orleans from Nantes, stopping overnight at Angers and Tours, neither of which I can write much about as I arrived, ate, slept and left.

But of course, it’s not about the destinations, is it, it’s the journey, and that has been spectacular – long, tiring, and, at times, stipendously wet, but well worth the effort. On the way I have only once had to deliver the traditional English Yeoman Bowman’s sign to one impatient French motorist, who beeped his horn at me, as I crossed a bridge from North to South of the Loire close to Orleans and slowed to look for a right turning. I also got a few beeps as I crossed a motorway bridge on the opposite side to the cycle path, but as there was a generous hard shoulder, I wasn’t too bothered. I don’t know why they were.

I did manage to leave behind some of the dye from my clothing on a white enamel towel rail in Tours (who knew that could happen?), which delayed my departure as I vainly tried to scrub it off with some soap and a micro fibre cloth, but, otherwise, the stopovers have been relatively uneventful. I ate a high quality burger at Chez Paul in Angers and Argentinian Empanadas. I also found another Irish Bar, but left after a pint as the feed I was watching the footie on (legally) seemed to work out I was in a bar and stopped working.

The Loire a Velo is a surprisingly varied route, constructed of many different types of surface. It mostly follows the river closely, occasionally crossing it, but also sometimes deviating up the valleys either side to the vineyards and villages above. There are lovely long tarmac stretches along dykes, and less fun sandy/gravelly paths, which can be a bit wearing when it has been raining, and occasional rough muddy tracks, and cobbles, they’re my least favourite and appear mercifully only for relatively short stretches.

On the way I have been treated to stunning river views, more architecturally interesting and even beautiful chateaus and eglises than you can shake your i-phone camera at, at least if you don’t want to stopping every half hour, and Leonardo Da Vinci’s last home (at Amboise).

I’ve also rode past several power stations, including a massive nuclear one at Chinon – also linked to Joanie, as it was here that she petitioned Charles the Dolphin and got him to give her the Orleans gig.

Funnily enough, on the ride from Tours to Orleans, immediately as I passed the first directional sign late that afternoon that mentioned Orleans (36km out), OMD’s “Joan of Arc” started to play on my 500 song Spotify trip playlist. Not the Mull of Kintyre sounding “Maid of Orleans”, but the other one. Truth.

I arrived in Orleans late and during check-in managed to break the bolt to the bike lock-up at my hotel. If it were really that flimsy, I thought, then I did them a favour. There was also the small matter of the theft of a handful of grapes from the edge of a vineyard between Angers and Tours, which I may, or may not, have witnessed personally – I don’t know, officer, I might have been looking the other way. The culprit was reported to have said that they tasted delicious. My one-man wave of devastation came back to bit me hard on the backside today (see below). Karma, you know what your are.

I’ve had to spend some time messing with the bike a bit, adjusting the mudguards, cleaning and oiling the drivechain, adjusting the luggage fixings, cleaning the pedals so that the cleats will engage, and at one point adjusting the derailleur to stop the chain coming off the large chain-ring. That noise from the back wheel came back the last few miles into Orleans, with a worryingly metallic timbre, but as it was getting dark and was close to the end of long ride, I did not investigate. It was this noise that led to a chain of events that put the whole trip in jeopardy on the leg to Briare.

I’ve also had a couple of comedy falls, the first caused by the surface, a narrow muddy tractor track, and the second caused by a failure to anticipate a sudden need to climb up a ramp, leaving me unable to alter my gearing and disengage my feet in time, resulting in simply coming to a stop and toping sideways. Both these had soft landings and were of no real consequence, although the second resulted in the back of my shirt becoming covered in plant debris, which I did not notice until I deposited it all over the floor in the hotel room in Tours when I took my jacket off. I don’t think I’m going to be welcome back there in a hurry. Today’s fall was also comedic, although more consequential, at least for the bike.

I ate a great steak on my first night in Orleans then spent the next day wandering the sites – all about Joan – before an early night after a fabulous meal at an Afghani restaurant.

I felt really good as I got myself together to set off this morning, despite the persistent rain. The journey was relatively short and I was away at 9:30. I was looking forward to a straightforward ride and an early arrival at my destination. The river bent south east and there was forecast to be a strong north-westerly at my back. That did materialise, which was very helpful, but other factors slowed me down.

The metallic noise from the rear wheel was apparent early on and so, about four miles in, I decided to pause, take my luggage off, flip the bike over and investigate. I took the back wheel off and cleared some debris from the mudguard. I reloaded the bike and as I was about to set off, noticed that the Garmin device, which I use to guide me on my way and record my trips, had decided to do a full reset in my pocket, erasing all my profiles. On top of that, the noise from the bike was still present and the rain was getting heavier.

In between trying to readjust my device and trying to see what was causing the noise from the bike, looking down to see if I could spot what sounded like it was catching in the spokes, I pottered along slowly, attending to both problems, and occasionally glancing up to see where I was going. Then, BANG, my head went over the handlebars as the bike came to a sudden stop, having smacked into a gatepost attached to a gate across the path. I was not injured (I’ve got a bit of a twinge in my lower left back), but the front forks of the bike were badly distorted, so much so, the that the front wheel was pushed behind the main frame and could only turn to the left. My first thought was, “Could this day get any worse?” (Well, I won’t mention the football result this evening), and my second thought was, “I’m going to have to go home.” Well, after about an hour, on the path with nothing to assist. I managed to force the forks back into some sort of alignment, at least to take the front wheel, minus the mudguard, which I discarded, and was able to get going again.

A young Swiss cycling tourist stopped to ask if he could help (none of the Lycra clad boy-racers passing me had shown any interest). This gentleman had been all over France for the past three moths and was now heading back to Zurich, so the same way I’m heading. I took the opportunity to ask him about Covid restrictions in Switzerland, and he said there was a quarantine requirement from France, but I could always follow the Rhine in Germany. I have since looked and have found that the Germans are also imposing quarantine restrictions in travellers from certain regions in France, including those I am passing through, so it looks like I will be altering my plans.

I got to my digs, an Auberge on the edge of Briare, where there is an aqueduct crossing the Loire, at around 5pm. I showered, watched some football, ate an average meal, then came to my room to finish the first draft of this blog, after the woman running the restaurant/bar rolled her eyes very visibly when I asked for one more drink at 8:50pm. I was not the last customer in the place – there was an old French bloke supplementing his desert with items he pulled from his left nostril. That was enough for me to elect to take my last drink to bed. Have to say, I have had better days.

It is forecast to rain again tomorrow, and the nearest bike repair shop I can see on my route is just a couple of miles short of my destination. So, I will want to be away early to get there in time to ask them to straighten my forks and, perhaps, sort out whatever it is that is making that infernal noise. (My money is on some crap in the rear wheel hub). I’ve got lots of pictures to add