This post recounts the second day of my English Channel to the Mediterranean cycle tour in France with Peak Tours in June 2025. Read Day 1, Ouistreham to Bagnoles de l’Orne.

Today was our first long day in the saddle: nearly 80 miles. Unlike yesterday, most of the climbing was in the morning. Fortunately, I was still fresh, and climbing reasonably well. I still had a slight twinge in my leg from the Bryan Chapman audax last weekend, but that disappeared without me noticing over the next day or so.

It was a pleasure weaving through French villages that were as quiet as you’d expect on a Sunday morning. (I’ve always been puzzled by the absence of people in these small communities.) They were characterised by distinctive churches – typically very different from those in Britain – and often handsome stone buildings. Our first brew stop was opposite a large church in the village of Saint-Cyr-sur-Pail.

The landscape was one of soft, rolling hills – we’d see a great change as the tour unfolded, and we reached the volcanic, mountainous land of the Auvergne. The climbing meant a slow average speed, but the compensation was a gorgeous lakeside location for lunch at La Plage (the beach) at Sille-en-Gillaume. I grabbed a coffee from the bar, and took my lunch to eat on a picnic table overlooking families enjoying their Sunday swim in this lovely lake, and chatted with the others.