Heading out again on Daisy, 4500 km round France

With panniers and bags piled up ready to go tomorrow Wednesday, Jutta and I are heading out again for a couple of months, taking our trusty tandem Daisy2, now nearly 20 years old, first to Portsmouth and then all the way round France+N Spain for 4500 km.

Or thereabouts.

We’ll blog a bit as we go, especially with pictures, knowing that a few friends and colleagues did enjoy these last year when we did pretty much the whole of Germany, five-and-a-half-thousand km, over a slightly longer three months.

Friends may remember the disasters of sourdough baking in the Brayne household during the first two years of lockdown.

Well, I cracked it finally, and there’s proof in the picture – though the loaf this time is so huge that we’re going to have to leave most of it behind…

We start out from Cherbourg on Thursday after the overnight ferry, and stop off first at the gravesite a few km to the south of Jutta’s uncle Hans, her mother’s only brother.

Hans was killed shortly after D-Day in June 1944, serving very young (he never wanted to join up) with the Wehrmacht.

The letter his commander wrote to his mother (Jutta’s grandmother, Rosina Mundigl), ending as these things had to in those days with Heil Hitler, is quite touching and kind.

I won’t translate it in full, but he writes that Hans died a hero’s death, killed instantly with a shot to the head through his steel helmet five hours after being honoured with the Iron Cross 2nd class for particular bravery.

“Hans was the youngest of my men, but I can tell you in all good conscience that he was also my best. Despite his youth, he was a shining example to all others of loyalty, bravery and courage… Even now I see his bright eyes before me as I congratulated him on his award…

“He gave his life for Führer, Volk and Vaterland.”

Jutta and I then pedal on across Brittany to the mouth of the Loire, where we will visit another poignant World War Two grave, this time of another fallen family member, my own mother’s favourite uncle Mark after whom, as the first-born of the post-war generation, I am named.

Hans was just 17 when he died. Mark was, as soldiers go, much older, at 25, and one of the British commandos who attacked and disabled the dry dock in St Nazaire in March 1942 in what was later called the Greatest Raid of All.

As captain of a wooden torpedo boat tasked with taking the men back to safety, Mark was heading out of the harbour with several commandos aboard when, like Hans, he took a direct hit.

Our family story is that, mortally wounded, he asked a friend and fellow officer to finish him off with a mercy shot.

With Ukraine aflame, and with our own grandchildren a mix of German, English and Russian, the legacy of war runs fresh in our little international family. Marking almost exactly 50 years since Jutta and I met in Moscow, this will be an important trip for us.

Till then, though, some more pictures of the here and now, and how we’re going to manage things technically.

Daisy2 is in the best of spirits, having been significantly upgraded with a new disk brake on the back, the existing caliper brakes refashioned with a separate handlebar lever to slow us down on hills – and with cameras.

The one thing that Jutta hates about tandeming, which she otherwise loves (though sometimes through gritted teeth), is that looking forward she only ever sees my back.

So, this year, we thought of mounting a WiFi-enabled camera on the front handlebars to broadcast the view ahead, live to Jutta’s suitably-mounted smartphone out back.

The solution we have ended up with is even better.

Checking online for rear-view mirrors to fix to the end of our handlebars (we’ve previously just turned round when needed and/or trusted our hearing to alert us to vehicles behind), I found a device which actually hardwires a camera to a battery-powered screen.

It’s designed for a solo cyclist in place of a mirror to show a rear-facing view. But hey, put the camera the other way round, facing forward, and Bob’s Your Trailer (Bob being what our literal trailer is called, of course…)

So, with some pictures of Daisy still in her Sheringham stable ready to head out, here’s illustrating the tech, regarding which you may have to survive a lot more photos in the coming weeks.