Wednesday 10th July 2024.
We were greeted by bright sunshine when we rose on Wednesday, but by the time we had finished breakfast, it was cloudy. Not fluffy white cloudy even, but dark, black clouds. We prayed it would stay dry, as was forecasted. Heading out of Arras we visited the fabulous Vélo Secteur Pavé bicycle shop and took an opportunity to check our tyre pressure and buy some supplies. Within six miles of leaving the hotel, we were once again surrounded by farmland as far as we could see and once out in the open countryside, the headwind hit us. Almost at the same time, the clouds cleared and the sun was shining brightly and warmly. The pattern for the day was set, even this early, it was goung to be bright warm sunshine but a strong gusting headwind.
At 23 miles we arrived at our first stop of the day, the Thiepval War Memorial to the Lost Soldiers of WWI. A huge, impressive monument to the fallen men in the battles around The Somme region, whose remains have never been found. There are some 72,000 names inscribed on the memorial itself. We took some time here and paid our respects, quietly reflecting on what feelings this place evoked within each of us. For me personally, while it is an impressive structure, I was just filled with sadness for the reason why it is there. We adjourned to the rather beautiful visitor café Cottage Geneviève et Auguste, for a toasted sandwich and a drink, before heading back again onto open roads and into the headwind. At 34 miles we stopped once again at the viewpoint over The Somme River itself. The 11 miles we had ridden from Thiepval to here had been littered with signs for memorials and graveyards to those lost in WW1 and now here before us was the stretch of water that all those people had died trying to defend or capture.... a river! Albeit a very picturesque river.
As we again headed south and climbed up, the now familiar headwind buffeted us once more. We were now on slightly busier roads, but they were instantly recognisable French roads, with a row of trees on our right hand side, giving us shelter from the warm sun. After 45 miles we were all feeling slightly tired and hunger was once again starting to creep into us. We diverted from the route to visit the town of Chaulnes, where we could see a supermarket on Google Maps and a pavement picnic ensued in the car park. We still had just under 40 miles to go to reach our destination. At mile 65 we entered the village of Canny-sur-Matz and found that the entire road had been skimmed in preparation for a new surface to be laid, but what had been left was a basic gravel road. Luckily we escaped this part of the route without any punctures. This was actually one of the few places where we saw people going about their business, and on the whole we saw more people on this day, than we had the previous day.
Entering another village at 76 miles, Monchy Humières, we stopped at a small bridge crossing the L'Aronde River, which was part of the Chateau d'Humières estate and golf club. A very pleasant place to stop and grab some food and some more pictures before completing the final 10 miles to Compiègne, finally arriving at our hotel at 18:35. A longer day on the bike, and we had stopped a few times. It seemed that the wind today had sapped our energy more than the rain of the previous day. To be honest we were all feeling pretty tired by now, with most of us not used to multiple days of cycling but as we sipped a nice cold beer, the underlying thought was that by this time tomorrow, we would hopefully be in Paris.
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