Day 34: Plouvain to Noyon | 99km
2 July 2026
It was a rough morning session of biking. We left camp at 8 AM but were immediately faced with crushing headwinds. It was the first day we’d faced any real hills since Day 2 in Denmark, which in themselves were not much compared to the far north. However, as we started our climb up the barren plateau, where all you could see was farmland and wind turbines stretching as far as the eye could see, the wind picked up even more. It felt as though only half my pedal strokes actually propelled me forward. Irene was also struggling with the severe wind and elevation gain but pushed forward impressively.
“How often do you think about World War II?” Normally, probably not more than anyone else, but today I had reason to think more about it, at least about World War I. In the first small town we passed, we were greeted by a not-so-small military parade. But as we got closer, I noticed the uniforms were not French but Canadian. I asked a friendly-looking man (a trait Canadians are stereotypically attributed) what was going on, and he proudly told us about the Canadian infantry that helped secure this small town, Monchy-le-Preux, from the Germans during a legendary battle in World War I.
As we continued riding through the countryside toward Péronne and its surrounding areas, we saw more and more monuments and places commemorating and honoring the Allied forces who fought and gave their lives to defend the region over a hundred years ago. Despite the still violent headwind, it made me a bit more appreciative of the landscape we were slowly making our way through. It appeared to be a massive open-air museum. Everywhere we looked, there were World War monuments and graveyards cutting into the fields. When we arrived at our beautiful lunch spot, a McDonald’s restaurant right next to the highway, I went online to learn a bit about what actually happened in the region. It turns out this whole sector was the epicenter of the Battle of the Somme.
It’s pretty surreal to think that these peaceful roads were completely flattened a little over a century ago. We pedaled past the high ground at Mont Saint-Quentin, where the Australians had a massive, brutal battle in 1918, apparently using tanks for the first time in history. The cemeteries really stand out as you pass them. They change depending on who is buried there: neat garden paths with white headstones for the Commonwealth soldiers, dark stone crosses under the trees for the Germans, and rows of crosses with tricolor flags for the French.
On a rough day, learning a bit more about the area we had just biked through helped give the demanding landscape a bit more meaning. By late afternoon, we arrived in Noyon, another city that looked like it had seen better days. We stayed in a hotel, as there were no campgrounds anywhere close by. We also figured a night at the hotel, watching Spain play in the World Cup, would help give us the energy needed to make a final push for Paris tomorrow, where Irene will wrap up her adventure.