Le Mont-Saint-Michel

Today we cycled to Fougères. We made our own route up out of Saint-Malo, then used the official routes from the tourist boards. The official routes have some annoying features, preferring cycle routes over perfectly usable roads, and using long sections of the voie vert.

The problem with cycle routes is that they are often slower and the surface is often worse than the road so it makes for slow progress with a lot of stops.

The voie verts are mostly dedicated cycle lanes on disused railway lines. In theory they sound excellent but in practice there are lots of problems with them:
1. They are very flat so very boring and any climbs are very long and gentle so very tedious whereas a steep climb is quick and over and then you get a nice downhill.
2. There is no view because the trees block the views. That does make for a rather dull day.
3. The trees block the sun so you don't overheat on a hot day, but on a cool day it's very cool/cold and after the rain it means you still get dripped on for ages even though the rain has stopped
4. The sand/gravel surface coats everything in fine dust and it's horrible for the mechanical parts of the bike

Today's back blip is Le Mont-Saint-Michel from somewhere near the boarder with Normandy. The Normans stole the Mount and the land near it from the Duke of Brittany. All day was a bit hazy and grey so it's not the best picture possible, but at least it doesn't have scaffold on it!