Biking from Saint Lo to Granville

Friday, August 2nd:  Another 39-mile bike ride yesterday, mostly through the Normandy countryside with a few small villages.  We enjoyed a higher percentage of bike trails and roads with much less traffic.  Both things made the cycling more pleasant.  But we had over 2,000 feet of elevation change (thank goodness for e-bikes!).  And, we had a massive bike repair job made possible by a "bike angel."

The ride started early in misty conditions, climbing out of Saint Lo along a well-traveled urban street.  

An interesting place for the kids, we assume, in St Lo.

We were on undulating roads and after about 10 kilometers, on a sudden uphill, Betsy had a quick gear change which went "clunk."  She walked up the remainder of the hill saying her chain had come off.  But by the time she joined the rest of us, it was clearly a more serious issue - the pedals were locked up tight.  After some disassembly, it was obvious what the problem was - the metal bracket/plate that the chain cover attached to was bent into the crank/sprocket "spider."  Fairly early in our initial examination, Emanuel (whose driveway we were in) came out to help.  We initially tried using his pliers to bend the bracket back into place but with no success.  We decided we needed to fully disassemble the crank and remove the chain sprocket and spider.  Very(!) fortunately Emanuel had the tools to do this.  Here is his and my hands attempting to remove the nuts and bolts holding the spider to the sprocket.  This proved troublesome, and again fortunately, we ended up removing off the entire assembly.  Removing the bent bracket was now easy and we were able to bend it back into proper shape.  Meanwhile, the spider could now more easily be attached to the sprocket.  With some fussing with the shape of the bracket and testing to see if it rubbed, we got everything back together.  The luckiest thing of this whole affair is that Emanuel had a 'crank pulling device', which all bikes mechanics have but not  many other people.  Without the puller we would have been stumped.  The repair took about an hour to complete.  Our "angel" was thanked profusely, and we think, he enjoyed the opportunity to help out a bunch of Americans.  He and his neighbors may talk about us for months.

Fiddling with the 4 small nuts and bolts that attached the spider to the sprocket.

Emanuel, our bike angel!  He even had a tub of handiwipes to clean our hands.  We rode on with no further incidents.

We had lunched in Coutance, a small hilltop city with an impressive cathedral.  We had the good luck to arrive on market day, so there were lots of food  choices.  We opted for a package lunch - a ham and cheese galette, followed by a crepe with pear jelly, and an ice-tea.

The inside  looking up in the central tower

St. George slaying the dragon.

Gilded altar.

Many different designs of stain glass windows.

A very massive and old organ.

Lots of towers and buttresses.  We kept wondering whether there had been a coherent plan or if it was all random.

Additions were made to the cathedral over time.

We arrived at Granville (our overnight spot) about 3 p.m, staying at the Grand Mercure Hotel, which sits on a cliff overlooking the sea.  This is the view from our room's balcony.  We rested a bit and rehydrated before wandering around the historic upper town.

The hotel entrance.

Granville has a casino.

Granville is on a peninsula with a beach on one side and a port/industrial area on the other.  Our hotel overlooked the beach - at low tide there was plenty of sand (and many people swimming). At high tide, the water came right up to the sea wall.

Betsy and I wandered to the peninsula's far end, first by climbing some stairs up from the lower level of the city.  This is the view looking down to the square next to the beach.

A "dry" moat.

The end of the peninsula, known as The Roc.

The port side of the peninsula.

The Port.

Interesting architectural building.

Church perched in the middle of the peninsula ridge line.

A very narrow street.

The narrow street name.

A more typical connection between parallel streets.

The moat again, with a paraglider (one of three) that flew back and forth along the beach all afternoon (presumably where the updrafting winds were).

A colorfully decorated street from on high.

After some clean up, the group gathered for dinner at the Tender Inn, a small bistro/bar built into the stone foundation of the stairs that go up to the high ground.  The food was good and the service surprisingly efficient.  We were probably 1/3 of the total number of patrons seated in the inside.