Circuit des Champs de Bataille

 

A few images from my recent trip to follow the route of the 1919 Circuit des Champs de Bataille, one of the toughest bike races ever staged.

Packed and loaded

Ready to roll

Franco-Prussian battlefield at Froeschwiller (August 1870)

Fort Cassot on the Maginot Line

Saint Avold US Cemetery

Franco-Prussian memorial outside Metz


German fortifications at Thionville


The daily ritual - ride, unpack, wash clothes, charge lights and satnav, eat, sleep, repeat



On the road to Bastogne


In the footsteps of Easy Company (Band of Brothers)


Bois Jacques, Bastogne...very moving to be there in the snow


Snow in the Ardennes


Proper, authentic trench-foot


The author climbing the iconic Kapelmuur at Gerardsbergen, Belgium


Joe at the Canadian cemetery in Adegem


Essex Farm, where John McCrae wrote the poem "In Flanders' Fields"


At the Menin Gate, Ypres


Trenches at Sanctuary Wood, Ypres


Riding the Roubaix velodrome, scene of so many extraordinary events


And on the cobbles of the Paris-Roubaix race


High Wood on the Somme, where 8000 bodies lie, unrecovered, among the bluebells


Phil and Joe at the Thiepval Memorial


A few of the 73,000 names on the Thiepval Memorial. We will remember them.


Thiepval


Chemin des Dames, scene of Nivelle's suicidal offensives in 1917


Muslim and Christian soldiers buried side by side at Cerny-en-Leonnois


Christian Lapie's moving tribute to the Senegalese troops - Constellation de la douleur


German cemetery at Soupir, Chemin des Dames


The ruined abbey at Longpont


Beautiful countryside and empty roads...France at its best


A strategic withdrawal from Paris to heal my broken ribs and prepare for visits to the Marne, Champagne, Meuse-Argonne, Verdun and St Mihiel battlefields. Heading back in mid-June.


Poppies on The Marne


Belleau Wood on The Marne


Memorial to a New Zealand Cyclist Battalion at Marfaux, south of Reims


Destroyed French 75 at Fort de la Pompelle, Reims


The detritus of war, Fort de la Pompelle


The Zone Rouge, considered too dangerous to be cleared of munitions after WW1


Trenches at La Main de Massiges on the Champagne front


Now THAT'S a cheese trolley!


Inside Fort Vaux at Verdun, scene of terrible fighting in 1916


French cemetery at Douaumont, Verdun


The awful reality of war, laid bare at the Douaumont ossuary, Verdun


Thunderstorms over Mort Homme, Verdun


Period vehicles on the Voie Sacrée between Verdun and Bar le Duc


Poppies along the Voie Sacrée


French trenches on the St Mihiel salient


Place Stanislas in Nancy


Lac de Gerardsmer in the Vosges, poisoned by tonnes of explosives dumped there at the end of both World Wars


Misty mountain top...over the Ballon d'Alsace


On the Route des Vins d'Alsace, with Viele Armand (the southern-most battlefield of WW1) in the background


Eguishheim, another ludicrously picturesque Alsace town