We pushed hard yesterday, to do the very thing we never wanted to do on this trip… race to a pre-determined destination. There were plenty of places we could’ve stopped at before it got dark but we both decided to push ourselves and get to Clermont-Ferrand, we could make life easier for ourselves on the remaining days by having less miles to ride if we did this. Little did we know then that this would turn out to have the opposite effect.
When we got to Clermont-Ferrand it was about 19:15 it was pretty much dark (pictures were taken the following morning) and we were both fairly tired and cold from a long day of riding. All we had to do was find the Premiere Classe and settle down for the night, we’ve done it several times before, how hard could it be? On this particular night, very. After riding around for a while with no luck we stopped outside a McDonalds to steal their Wi-Fi and find out where to go and as we were backing the bikes out the spaces I heard Gen struggling so turned round only to watch her drop the Gladius, I was too slow to help her. We picked it up and found the brake lever had snapped, though this sucked it wasn’t the end of the world and Gen wasn’t hurt so we carried on looking for the hotel.
We took yet another wrong turn at a roundabout and I knew we needed to turn round so I tried to find somewhere to do so. I should never have taken us up that hill, I knew it was a bad place to turn but I carried on anyway, Gen keeps saying it’s not my fault but I can’t help but feel responsible when I’m the one leading her. Crunch the bike goes down and all I hear is a long, never ending scream, it was horrible. At this point I’ve already turned and am facing down the hill, as anybody who rides knows you can’t park a bike facing down a hill so I’m stuck there listening to Gen crying in my headset and I couldn’t do a thing to help her.
I eventually managed to get the bike up and over the central gravel island and facing up the hill just as the first car (and the most important of the night) would pull over to help. Gen had got herself out from under the bike and the lady who had stopped spoke English (thankfully) and asked if we needed a doctor etc, she was very nice but eventually we said we were ok and she left us. What the hell do I do now? The Gladius wouldn’t start (same kill switch problem we had at home), we are 1,000+ miles away from home, we don’t speak French, we still have nowhere to stay and I have a battered, bruised, crying Gen, we were in trouble.
I started looking around for a better place to put the Gladius, we were still in the middle of the road with hazards on at this point and I though the best thing to do would be to at least get to a safer place. just as I came back from this hunt another car stopped to help (not another one…) but this one was different, we had seen this one before, it was the English speaking lady who had just picked up her daughter and was heading home. It turns out this English speaking lady was an English teacher (I kid you not) and she lived ~600m up the road, she told us where to find hotels and she even told us there was a Suzuki garage around and most importantly she offered us her garden to store the bike.
I pushed the Gladius up the hill (do not try this at home) and down the road to the lady’s house and she then drove me back to Gen and my bike. I rode my bike there while she took Gen in the car. We were offered drinks and were given all the info we needed to find the hotels, garages and our way back to her house in the morning. We both owe this lady and her family everything and we will be ever grateful to them for their kindness that night, decent people do exist.
I rode us two-up and we found an Etap hotel one road along from the first road we tried that evening.
Cumulative Miles: 2,881.8
