As snow still sits on Greenbelt, with more frigid weather ahead, a resident shares the summer adventures of Greenbelters, cycling abroad, so we can dream of electric bikes and warmer days.
After the ride from Paris, France, on their rented ebikes (see the August 29, 2024 issue), the Meetres kept their bikes and headed southwest from Mont St. Michel to the walled city and port of St. Malo and the ferry to Guernsey.
Cycling in Guernsey
Guernsey is almost exactly the same size as if Greenbelt, College Park and Beltsville were combined into an island – an idea that may bear consideration – there’s nothing like a good moat. Guernsey sits on the ferry route between St. Malo in France and Poole in Dorset, England, and is easily reached from either. But Greenbelt book clubs should know that the movie The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was mostly filmed in Clovelly (in the U.K. county of Devon) because Guernsey’s main town of St. Peter Port now looks too modern. It does however have a very nice co-op grocery store housed in a remarkable domed building.
Cycle on the Left! Oops!
Guernsey is British – its currency is the pound sterling and cyclists have to remember to cycle on the left. It also has some very good cycling – once out of St. Peter Port, an extensive network of country lanes had little or no traffic and what there was kept at slow speeds because of the narrow surface and many sharp bends. A poem by G.K Chesterton states, “The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road” and it could scarcely be more accurate.
Guernsey is about six miles tall by three miles wide and the cyclist is rewarded with frequent beaches and cliffs as it’s all edge and little middle. For walkers, there’s also a well-groomed 39-mile coastal walking path that circumnavigates the island.
Guernsey and WWII
The Channel Islands (between 14 and 30 miles off the French coast) were the only British territories in Europe occupied by the Nazis – from June 30, 1940, until May 9, 1945. Some may wonder why it was held for almost a year after the D-Day invasion, when nearby Normandy was liberated.
Hitler, convinced the Channel Islands would be the D-Day landing point, fortified them to the hilt. With massive gun emplacements (many still there) and up to 25,000 troops (plus at one point 15,000 in forced labor camps while the fortifications were being built), the allies wisely bypassed the islands. Hitler backed the wrong horse.
But the islanders paid a high price for Hitler’s error during that year, suffering near-starvation – mitigated only somewhat by intermittent Red Cross parcels. The Occupation Museum on Guernsey enshrines thousands of letters, artifacts and stories that document this harrowing experience throughout the war.
From Guernsey, the Meetres took the ferry and the Train a Grand Vitesse (TGV) to return to Paris with the bikes. The French TGV is an extensive rail network achieving speeds of 186 mph on rails the same gauge as regular trains. When close to cities, it goes slower and uses the regular tracks but high-speed sections between cities are usually separately routed on purpose-built tracks that are especially smooth and whose curves are designed for high speeds (who needs maglev?).
Paris Revisited
The Meetres and the Bonnells regrouped in Paris, eating a final dinner and heading for the airport. The trip was declared a success – only minor injuries, lots of good weather and good times. The remaining question is, where next?
Is Riding an E-bike Cheating?
In the Tour de France, yes. But battery power complements the rider’s level of fitness, enabling those with widely different levels of fitness to ride efficiently together and the individual to regulate the energy they contribute thus avoiding exhaustion. The e-bike opens up possibilities otherwise denied to older or challenged riders. Purists and ascetics are welcome to turn the power off or use a regular bike.
Greenbelters Can Do This Too
Those planning a similar trip are warned that e-bike batteries cannot be transported on planes so taking one’s own bike is not possible, and though workarounds have been extensively investigated, nothing viable has surfaced. Rental e-bikes are available in most European cities but it’s important to distinguish between those rentable by the day or week and the bikes in the local bike rental scheme which go by the hour – like Capital Bike Share.
The electric touring bikes are heavy (sometimes 50-60 lbs.) and can go up to 100 miles of riding at the lowest power setting.
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