After an overnight ferry from Portsmouth, we arrived in St Malo at 9am at the start of Stage 7. The plan was to see the race at Dinan, about 15 miles south, through where the peloton would be passing @ 1:40pm. It was clear that loads of others had a similar idea judging from the number of bikes on the ferry.

After disembarking the ferry reasonably quickly, given all the cyclists, we followed our noses and then the general flow of people down to the Port area adjacent to the Old Town and Le Grand Depart. The travelling TdF circus was in full flow as we arrived. It’s amazing to think that all that all this is set up and dismantled on a daily basis for 3 weeks around France. It was 3.5 hours before the departure and hence there was not a great deal to wait for in the baking heat.

We wandered through the walled old town to catch the ferry to Dinard to commence our journey south to Dinan.

Thanks to a tip from Matt, we followed the shady and flat Voie Verte virtually to Dinan, where we arrived at the port with the spectacular D795 road bridge spanning the River Rance, up to which we climbed (after checking the TdF stage route to make sure that it wouldn’t be wasted energy). That then took us into the centre of town and ‘route barree’ signs indicating the road was closed for the TdF.

The timing was perfect. While we had missed ‘le caravan’ of sponsors freebies, we found a good spot on a bend about 30 minutes before the breakaway containing Geraint Thomas (and Ewan Costiou – see Day 2) arrived. About 2 minutes later the main peloton passed through followed by the team cars and neutral vehicles. And then they were gone and 30 minutes later Dinan was back to normal. Amazing !

After a brief baguette lunch we departed towards Broons. It was 32 degrees. We initially benefitted from a descent out of Dinan, but which unexpectedly then started to climb up again. Climbing on a tandem is hard work and inefficient and it is important to consider both parties. We made a good effort on the steep and narrow L’Avenue de Saint Esprit, but really needed some divine intervention which we didn’t get and so after a brief stop had to walk up to the rest of the hill. After Dinan we still had @23 undulating miles (according to Google) to our evening stop in Rouillac, exacerbated by the heat on the exposed D793 through Brusvily and Yvignac. As such we broke it down into 5 mile segments with short breaks. The final one of these was in Broons to watch the end of the TdF in a bar.

It was nice to see the full French coverage of the finish, with all the jersey presentations and the French cycling greats of yesteryear as commentators (Thomas Voeklar and Larent Jalabert) weirdly listening to French / Euro pop. Strangely, most of the locals were interested in the horse-racing on another TV which, similar to my trip in 2024, seems to be more popular these days (perhaps because the French haven’t won the TdF since 1985….).

Given our accommodation was rural, the plan was to get a meal in Broons, but with nothing open til 6:30pm (at the very earliest) we opted for a takeaway buffet of salad dishes and some bread from the local delicatessen for consumption later.

After 40 miles, we arrived at our farmhouse accommodation @ 6:30pm to a warm welcome from the hosts and the weather; it was still over 30 degrees.