The Tandem Crash
21 km
Thursday 29th September
Breakfast at the baker in Mèze market square, watching people prepare their stalls for market day. Then after packing our bags we left Hotel Thau and bought ourselves some good bread, fruit and cheese in the market, which was now coming to life. Then we set off for Montpellier.
Once again we took the beautiful cross-country cycle route to Balaruc-les-Bains. The flamingoes were at the far end of their lake but we saw two egrets flying – they had big wings, a bit like barn owls.
We took the small road (D129) over the hill to Frontignon. We reached the Canal du Rhône à Sète and crossed the canal bridge and went under the railway. We were planning to take the piste cyclable along the outer edge of the étang.
But it was not to be! We turned off the road onto a cycle track and soon went over a small hole, whereupon the front of the tandem started to dig itself into the ground and as we yelled “the tandem is broken”, the bike keeled over onto the right and we hit the ground. George landed heavily on his right shoulder and Jean’s face hit the path. Within a day, George’s arm and ribs were black and blue and the shoulder was painful – it took several weeks for full mobility to return. Jean’s face showed only a scratch but her right cheek soon went quite blue. Sunglasses broken and lip salve blown to smithereens.
As we were sitting up and wondering if we were alright, a kind motorist stopped and came around the bushes to see how we were. He pointed out that the frame was broken and told us that we were close to a sapeurs pompiers station. He accompanied us there as we dragged the bike whose front wheel no longer touched the ground. The kindly paramedics took us inside their ambulance and spent some time checking George’s shoulder and said that as he could lift his arm, the collar bone must be OK; they also sterilized our various grazes.
The paramedics called a large capacity taxi for us. While we waited, we had a little snack and separated the bike into three pieces. We soon covered the last few miles into Montpellier in the taxi and managed to drag all our bits and bobs – 3 panniers, 3 pieces of tandem and a handlebar bag into the the accommodation we had booked. We ate our picnic lunch in the room and then extended the sofa bed and burrowed in for a couple of hours while we recovered from shock.
Later on, we walked to the centre for a coffee and renewed our memories of Place de la Comédie. We returned to the flat via an Intermarché where we bought supplies. After a meal, we tried the french TV but it was too much trouble to understand the poor audio.
We stayed at Appart’City 29 rue Berthelot
We had a small studio on the second floor at 79€ a night: a room with table, 2 chairs, desk and cupboards and a sofa bed which when extended filled the entire room. It had a small side kitchen and a bathroom off the entrance corridor. It was about two blocks away from the southern edge of the pedestrianised area. The tandem parts were left in the basement car park. One drawback: they have no WiFi.
On the day we left, we left our bags and tandem parts in the baggage room and later they ordered a capacious taxi to take us to the Bike Express bus pick up point by the MacDo’s in St Jean de Vidas.
