This was a two week trip, split into two parts. The first week was with a bunch of old work buddies on even older bikes pottering round the lanes near Saint-Lo, the second week was dedicated to trail riding near Gace with my mate Dougie.
Normandie Old Duffers
What started as a one off post COVID get together has now turned into an annual event, involving five retired engineers getting together to bumble around on unreliable old bikes. Last year we visited the Isle of Man and next year we are planning to head over to Ireland, but this year’s destination was Normandie. I booked an AirBnB near Saint-Lo to the West of Caen, which was about a seven hour drive for me. Keith “Deadrock” was coming over from Northern Ireland but caught the ferry from Dublin to Cherbourg and actually had the shortest distance to cover on the road – just as well as it turned out as he had the oldest and least reliable bike, a 1953 Francis Barnett. As usual Dougie “Bert” was running a bike collection and delivery service with his van and made his way down from Yorkshire to catch the Portsmouth-Caen ferry. Richard “Strad” rode shotgun in the van and Dave “Clothead” let the train take the strain down to Portsmouth. They were due to catch the afternoon ferry but a hold up on the M40 meant they were delayed and had to get the overnight boat instead.
Our visit happened to be a week or so before the 80th anniversary of the Normandie landings and there were a lot of preparations underway. Although we hadn’t planned it in advance we visited quite a number of the sites and museums of interest and learnt a lot about the preparations, the landings and the subsequent battles. This included visits to the American and German cemetries which were very poignant.
On the first day we took a gentle run into Saint-Lo to make sure the bikes were working OK and to take a look at the market. Dave was also keen to buy some local ingredients for the Normandie Pork, cider and apple dish he had promised to cook that evening. I was expecting to see an old market square with historic buildings and hopefully a little cafe but in fact everything was relatively new – a result of the town being flattened during the war.
The next day we set off for Omaha beach and the Overlord museum. The American forces had been allocated Omaha beach and it was here that the losses were heaviest, by far the worst of all the landing beaches. Once you see the beach you can understand why – the beach itself is flat but an escarpment rises up immediately and this was heavily mined and with German gun emplacements on the top.
Overlord was the code name for the overall landing operation and the museum of the same name gives a good overview of the preparations and progress of the landings.
On subsequent days we visited the airborne museum which told the tale of the American parachutists and glider landings, followed by a visit to the American cemetry.
Apart from a bit of fettling, the bikes had been running well, but it wasn’t to last. After visiting the cemetry Deadrock’s bike refused to start…
Carrying a full set of tools for such eventualities, Keith was quickly able to partly dismantle the engine and diagnose the problem – the contact breaker points that provide the spark for the engine had broken. Initially it seemed that this was going to need a recovery operation, but on closer inspection it appeared that they might be temporarily held together with some tie wraps and a piece of wire.
Amazingly the repair worked and held together all the way home, where Keith was able to make a more “permanent” repair using Araldite…
We did have one other minor mechanical issue during the week, if not an actual breakdown. I noticed that my Honda 500 was “popping and banging” in the exhaust more than usual and on investigating discovered that the bolts holding the exhaust clamp in place had come loose – a nice easy fix.
Keith’s Araldite repair seemed to hold up well for the rest of the week, but on his way back to Northern Ireland it broke down again in Dublin. Not clear yet if this was a new problem but he decided to leave the bike with friends and get the train home.
Part of the fun of these trips is that we take it in turns to cook for the group and most of us have little to no experience in the kitchen department. But with a bit of Googling for recipes and a “how hard can it be?” attitude some rather spendid dishes were produced
When we weren’t riding or fixing bikes we managed to amuse ourselves by discussing the finer points of bike design, or playing with the Scalextric that Dougie had brought with him.
The third museum we went to visit was in Arromanches, which is where Gold beach was located and was the site of the construction of the Mulberry harbour which the museum covers in great detail. The landing stages which were made of steel have long since disappeared, but the breakwater can still be seen and even visited at low tide. The huge concrete sections were floated across the channel and sunk into position to provide protection from the open sea.
When we visited the American cemetry we weren’t able to get very close as it was being prepared for the 80th anniversary commemoration. In contrast the German cemetry which contained almost 12,000 bodies was deserted and we were able to walk all round it with a feeling of immense sadness.
We went to visit Bayeux and the tapestry, which was very well presented with an audio guide explaining the story told by each of the panels. I certainly learnt a lot.
On the way back home from Bayeux we got pulled over by the Gendarmerie who wanted to check our papers and tell Dougie off for standing on the footpegs of his bike to stretch his legs and back. Apparently you have to stay sitting down on a bike in France ?
On our last riding day we took a run over to the west coast for a play in the sand in the sunshine.
It was raining on our last day so we elected to take the vans down to Le Mont Saint Michel.
And that was it for the Old Duffers week, so Richard, Keith and Dave set off for home and Dougie and myself relocated to our next AirBnB which was about an hour further south.
Normandie Trails
Dougie and I had previously been trail riding in Normandie on an event organised by Chris EVANS. This was some years ago and in November but our lingering memory of the trip was that there was mud everywhere. We had hoped that being nearly June the weather would be much imporved and that the trails would have dried out. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case and they were just as muddy as ever.
The weather during out trail riding week was a bit mixed with rain and some sun, but the temperature was reasonable. When we are away on these types of trip we tend to take it one day at a time, depending on the weather and level of enthusiasm. Dougie is the master of the routes and usually plans out a possible ride in the evening ready for the next day. I think he also uses the route planning task as an excuse to get out of cooking duties – as with the previous week this was a self catering set up. The trails were very muddy and we were regularly getting bogged down or having to wade through knee deep water. Dougie’s bike was fitted with 50/50 tyres (Anakee Wild) which are not well adapted to thick mud, but they were brand new and performed surprisingly well. There were just a couple of climbs he wasn’t able to manage. My bike was fitted with proper “knobbies”, but they were well passed their best so I didn’t fare much better.
The other difference between our two bikes was the weight, Dougie’s CRF was about 150Kg and much heavier than my 105Kg KTM. For road riding this makes no difference (in fact the Honda is better) but when you have to start man handling the bike through mud and water the weight makes a big difference.
And then it was all over… The next trail riding trip will be the VINCE in Spain in September. The next Old Duffers trip is planned for June next year and we are looking at exploring Ireland. As this will likely involve a fair bit of road riding, we have decided to relax the rules about “old bikes” – watch this space for more…