I needed to keep the training up on my weeks family holiday in Brittany unlike last year when I was on my post season break. I tried to add a bike to our Flybe flights from Southampton but after 15 mins waiting on a 25ppm phone line and getting no answer I decided to try and hire one (with Flybe you can’t add a bike at the time of booking it seems). Given that France is a nation of cyclists and this region famous for its cycle touring, this proved more difficult than I thought. Many emails before I arrived eventually got me a general holiday equipment ‘location’ in Morgat to try but no email address.
I was disappointed to find on the day of our arrival Camaret Sur Mer that the tourist info office had not told me about a 50km MTB or ‘VTT’ race starting at the local SuperU that day. I jealously watched the riders come in past our gite on the way into the finish feeling frustrated I had not known that the French use the term VTT when I had been googling MTB!
The next day I took the car to Morgat and a very helpful hire shop owner kitted me out with the best town bike he had, though explaining it was the end of the season and it needed a bit of a service. He changed the seat for something slightly more sporty (a decision I was later to regret) and gave it the once over as I watched from a cafe on the other side of the square.
Over the next 5 days the bike and I enjoyed many kilometres of cliff top rides together as I discovered that this budget town model was in fact loaded with many high end features. The bottom bracket has a very advanced built in power meter, which gives a series of warning creaks on each down stroke as you reach maximum power. It also 
has a speed sensor built in that gives you feed back via a wobble if you reach speeds in excess of 40 km per hour. Good for me too was the way that it turns left much better than right, perfectly balanced for negotiating French roundabouts and the way the seat was designed in such a way that it became slowly more uncomfortable after 40 mins of riding enabling me not to need a watch to know when it was time to head for home.
Crapato Bicyclo – the name of the hire shop, priceless!