One More Croissant for the Road. Felicity Cloake

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Prologue

      A green bike drunkenly weaves its way up a cratered hill in the late-morning sun, the gears grinding painfully, like a pepper mill running on empty. The rider crouched on top in a rictus of pain has slowed to a gravity-defying crawl when, from somewhere nearby, the whine of a nasal engine breaks through her ragged breathing.

      A battered van appears behind her, the customary cigarette dangling from its driver’s-side window, and shakily she rears out of the saddle, grubby legs pumping in a surprising turn of speed. As he passes, she casually reaches down for some water, smiling broadly in the manner of someone having almost too much fun. ‘No sweat,’ she says jauntily to his retreating exhaust pipe. ‘Pas de problème, monsieur.’

      The van disappears round the next hairpin. Abruptly our heroine dismounts, allowing the heavily laden bike to crash into a pile of brambles, describing an arc of chain grease across her bruised shins en route. Grumpily slapping away a thirsty horsefly, she reaches into the handlebar bag and pulls out a half-eaten croissant.

After peeling off a baby slug and flicking it expertly onto her own shoes, she sinks her teeth into the desiccated pastry, and squints at the map on her phone. Only another 40km to go before lunch.

      In the distance, there’s a rumble of thunder.

      It’s not like I wasn’t warned. I’d witnessed the danger of turning a hobby into a job first-hand at a magazine publisher I’d once worked for, who regularly offered a bonus for anyone willing to give up their weekend to help with photoshoots for some of their more niche titles. No one ever did it twice.

      As the new IT manager wearily switched my computer off and then on again one Monday morning, I asked him how his first gig for Mega Boobs had gone – he’d been so excited about it on Friday. He shook his head: ‘Believe me, Felicity,’ he said in a small, sad voice, ‘you really can have too much of a good thing.’

      Poor Hamid. Almost a decade later, I can still see the betrayal in his eyes – but those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and, hard as I tried, I just couldn’t shake the urge to eat my way around France. (I’ll be honest, I didn’t try that hard.)

      The absurd notion of doing it on two wheels came later, in the summer of 2017, when I rode from the Channel coast to the Mediterranean with a friend who’d recently quit her job in London to move to Provence. In the interests