by Philip

Miles : 45. Ascent : 2,231’.

Running total : 883 miles

Well here we are! The final day’s riding on La Vélodyssée. Today we leave Ondres and cycle south to Hendaye, a French town right on the Spanish border. Our accommodation is close to the border, and we aim to see/touch the border to mark the end of this part. We do have two more days’ riding to come to get to Bilbao after a rest day in Hendaye. 

Today looks like a fairly hard day’s riding – we face a headwind from the south, and nearly 2,000’ climb over the day as we approach the foothills of the Pyrenees. We had a gentle if purposeful start, and for the first time our hosts inspected the house before we left, declaring it “Bon”.  Didier and Valerie live in the house next door – Didier was born here, and his father had converted the old stable block some time ago. Didier has refurbished the block and now has a long term rental and the AirBnB flat. It had a huge, modern, kitchen and everything we needed. When I needed some foil, a quick message and Valerie arrived bearing a roll. This morning they both came, and told us about the deer which visit regularly in the fields around the property. 

We headed off, stopping at a bakery for bread and pastries. The lady serving was very friendly and chatty, saying how much she loves living in Ondres and in particular how much she likes the town of Bayonne which we would come to later. Provisions stowed away, we negotiated a mile or so of busy roads before finding EV1 again, turning onto a trail through deciduous forest for a while. Unusually compared to recent days, this path is what Komoot describes as “compacted gravel” but it reverted to tarmac after a while. 

The forest didn’t last long, and we rode for a few miles through a couple of towns, past several schools and a couple of holiday parks before entering the industrial zone with huge factories. The route went alongside a railway line for some time, with pampas grass naturalised along the way. Turning one corner we got a glimpse of the Pyrenees in the distance, and then the twin towers of a church in Bayonne, a pretty town on the wide, fast flowing Adour river. Komoot wanted us to cross the river and head out of town, but EV1 went into town so we followed that. The next bridge along had hundreds of protesters marching with colourful flags – we chatted to a lady watching and she said it is a teachers’ strike, protesting against a lack of teaching staff. We went under the bridge to find a bench for our elevenses, with the sound of the river, cars and the occasional siren of police accompanying the protest and amplified voices from the march. It’s a warm day with full sun and our bench, originally in the shade, became too hot so we continued on our way, looking for a footbridge over the river before heading the other way along the opposite bank to leave the town. 

This gave us 3-4 miles through the town with its pretty architecture, and then out through the docklands we seemed to be heading north at this point which gave us a welcome tailwind. We passed a dry dock where an old warship is berthed and being restored – there’s a museum built around it but we satisfied ourselves by looking at the information boards outside. The dock areas had many huge piles of (at a guess) construction materials, and one pile which looked the colour of sulphur (indeed, a later google confirmed that Bayonne has historically been a hub for sulphur, produced from local gas fields and processed here – storing it next to the river in huge outdoor piles is somewhat controversial).  As we got to the estuary, we turned left and straight back into the headwind, which required a fair bit of e-assistance. 

Riding through Anglet we were back on the coast, with many surfers enjoying the (to our eyes) huge waves. From there we came quickly into Biarritz – a name which seems to conjure an image similar to Cannes on the south coast – indeed it does come across as a bit posh! It’s also hilly, but the views are amazing. We stopped looking out over sea and mountains and were joined by Michael – a Belgian man who we came across at the supermarket yesterday. He has a very heavily laden bike with trailer and large dog, and flies a Tibetan flag from his trailer. He was medically retired from Belgian railways – he’s all of 30ish – following a diagnosis of ADD, and has been on the road ever since, for the last 18 months. He intends to cycle 500,000km before he stops. He describes his full pension as like winning the lottery. 

The views are fantastic – the ocean a vibrant turquoise, with crashing waves, and the mountains becoming clearer as we get closer. I particularly like the mountain which looks like a person lying on their back which I’ve chosen as the picture at the top of this blog post. We found a little area for lunch looking out over the sea and enjoyed our curious baguette with twin tails, wondering why they make them like that. The wind was intermittent and the sun increasingly warm. 

We bumped into Michael again at lunch and were introduced to his large fluffy dog, talking about where he stays and how he charges his bike and other devices. Then we headed off, the route following the cliffs all the way along the coast. This is where the day’s climbing came in, with me needing Turbo mode along with my lowest gear for one of them. We came across a viewpoint with a sweet little church and asked a man on a bench to take a photo of us – up to now we only have selfies. The cliff road was almost always through or next to houses, and we went through a very pretty port town, skirting round the harbour. 

As a last hurrah for how we had experienced most of La Vélodyssée, we had 3 miles climbing over the last headland, on a quiet road through forest, before descending and riding along a lovely beach with surfers, hydro-foilers and swimmers. We decided to follow EV1 until it crossed into Spain (La Vélodysée is just the French part of this much longer route), and while there was no “España” sign, we took photos at a road sign to St Sebastian. From the sublime to the ridiculous we then rode in heavy traffic to the supermarket to buy dinner before going to find our last French AirBnB where we will have two nights. 

So there we are. The end of La Vélodyssée. There have been many echoes of the Pacific Coast Highway from last year and many differences, which Liz touched on yesterday. As we’ve got further south, there’s been more Spanish and Basque in evidence – similar to approaching Mexico. Rather than waxing too lyrical here, particularly as we still have some days riding to go before our ferry home, we have enjoyed fabulous weather here as we did in the USA – too hot at times, but with a sum total of half a day’s rain. It has been a delightful ride with the best companion, and the ending, while celebrated, is understandably slightly sad.  

Now for our dinner and a rest day in Hendaye (pronounced On-die-yer, according to last night’s hosts) before we cross into Spain for more than just 5 minutes as we did today.