Bikes and beer

You'd THINK France would be filled with stellar bicycles, because it hosts the Tour de France.  You really would. 

...and you'd be wrong. 

So I made it to Pontorson without issue - it's really quite a quaint little town.  A bit touristy, but hey -- it's near Mont Saint-Michel.  It's too be expected. 

Found my hostel, it's got no kitchen and no wifi, by the way.  Found the place to rent bicycles, convieniently right across the street.  Perfect.  Got a bicycle for 24 hours for only €10.  Even better.

...3 kilometres into using it, the chain falls off.  Fine, I fix it.  It falls off again.  I fix it again...and then I notice that there's an awful lot of slack in the chain.

Yeah.  The bike I rented: looks okay, actually looks like a proper bike, you know - not one of these silly vélib things that France seems to love so much.  Brakes work okay, tires aren't bald.  Good enough.  I start riding - the chain has too many links in it, the gears only shift into two of the 18 speeds it's got, and it's the two hardest gears.  Oh, and the rear derailleur actually broke on me during my ride.  The little cog at the rear of the derailleur that feeds the chain back towards the pedals...I touched it, and the plastic teeth crumbled under my fingers.  There's a huge crack in it, and I'm surprised it hasn't fallen off yet.

With all that, I've still managed to put 30 kilometres on that thing.  I got into town, got a bike, and found the trail (rather by accident) to Mont Saint-Michel.  So I rode all the way there (it's 10 km away), stared at it, went to the marché (store) and then rode back.  Found out my hostel doesn't have wifi, and grabbed my laptop and my phone and rode off in search of wifi.  I'm 3 miles out of Pontorson right now, at a MacDonalds, and I ordered a beer - which tastes awful, but there.  I did it.  I ordered beer at MacDonalds.

I'm not going to drink the rest of it, but whatever.  I still have to ride back to the hostel tonight, too.  That's dedication right there.  Tomorrow morning I'm riding back to Mont Saint-Michel to actually visit the monastery, and then I'm off to Saint-Malo, where I'll actually be sleeping in a REAL bed in a HOTEL!  I'm pretty excited.

PS:  Oh hell.  McD's wifi is too slow for me to add photos.  Guess you'll have to wait until tomorrow night.