The bike is boxed (or Time to say Goodbye)

Considering the Tour de France was here yesterday I find it astonishing that I couldn't find one of those fancy bike bags that even bike-rental places deliver bikes in.  I was lucky to even find a banged-up and torn bike-box (cardboard shipping box). For a while it did look like I wouldn't even find one of those and I was considering wrapping the bike in 2 Yoga mats ;-).
Of course, the place where I found the box was 5 kms from my hotel. And I had travelled there on the bicycle, of course. Now how to get that box back to the hotel?
Simple? Attach the box with packing tape to the backpack. Then wear the backpack and cycle to the hotel.
Unfortunately Saint Malo is quite well known for its strong winds. They don't go kite-surfing for nothing here ;-)  So going downhill with a savage headwind pushing against the huge sail on my back was quite an adventure. But hey, nothing to what the Chinese can transport on a bicycle!

Naturally I went to my favourite restaurant again twice today, 20 meters from the Hotel Le Jersey. Not only is the food great; the people running the place are fabulous as well!

Meli-Melo salad (anything that lives in the ocean ;-)

I forgot what it was called but in the fish-shaped bowl below the mussel can be found anything that lives in the ocean ;-)

When back in the hotel, I fixed the box with more packing tape, used the Velo one last time to buy my train tickets for tomorrow, and then went about the sad task of dismantling the bike. After all, this baby carried me from Brest to Mont Saint Michel. But I'm sure it will be resurrected in the near future, maybe even in Saint Malo again ;-)

The fenders and the rack already came off yesterday

pas de pedals

Bloody handlebar 

Too bad it doesn't weight any less

Tomorrow I will take a TGV to Paris (~3.25 hours), somehow in one hour move myself and my bike from Gare Montparnasse to Gare du Nord, where I will catch Thalys again to Cologne (~3.25 hours). Time only will tell if Thalys insists on their limit of 1.2 by 0.9 meters for luggage brought aboard.  My bike box is about 1.7 meters long, but has some empty room inside (the bike is about 1.4 meters long).  If they insist, I will have to somehow leave the box in Paris and take the train to Cologne to get to the Neil Young concert on Friday, or I will stick with my box, take a slower train, and miss the concert.  Right now I'm still undecided on what to do in that case, but I'm hopeful, because this is France where rules exist for some reason, but not necessarily to be followed ;-)