Jun 18: Mont St Michel to Chateau-Grontier

The ride today was 147km from Mont Saint Michel to a town we picked on a whim (and with the help of Airbnb) – Chateau-Grontier. We were a bit sad to leave Mont St Michel but surprised to find another long, sign-posted bike path encompassing probably 80% of our desired route. The ride out of town followed a small river and later through small towns on back roads. The 20% of path not following a sign-posted route was brought to us by the wonderful Google Bike Route algorithm which often mistakes a seldom-traversed farm road for a bike path (see picture below – this one is actually in decent shape).

We emptied out a small grocery store for lunch, which was perfect timing as everything in that town closed at 2pm on a Sunday, about 10 minutes after we arrived. We were hungry and thirsty which led to some…poor decision making for lunch (Andrew regrets nothing).

Once we reached Laval, we had about 30km on a path following the Mayenne river to reach Chateau Grontier. Just a few minutes south of town, we start to notice a few cyclists in the opposite direction wearing clothes from the 1930s. Suddenly, an enormous wave of cyclists appeared and we found ourselves fighting upstream on a relatively narrow path (Still wider than Chicago’s Lake Shore Trail though!). This was clearly an organized event so we got it of the way and enjoyed the scene. It appeared to be a retro apple picking bike ride.

We really enjoyed the bike scene and had a great time continuing along the Mayenne. That is, until Caitlin’s rear tire decided to have another issue and ripped open a huge gash. Luckily it was in a picturesque spot. We used a 5 Euro bill to plug the tire and replaced the tube. We were 1.5km away from the Airbnb when her front tire wanted in on the fun, and also got a flat! Fortunately it was just a tube (and not tire) issue but still not the best timing. Again, though, we had a great view of our destination town which turned out to be a really beautiful place.