Discovered the drawback of being in a small mountain village with 4 churches - 4 sets of church bells. 3 of them were turned off overnight - but not the fourth - where's the logic in that???
Woke to a very gloomy misty morning. Fooled myself into thinking it was like mist back home in the UK - if it's there in the morning it will usually be there all day so took my camera our of my little bike carry bag and packed my wet weather gear instead.
Spent the first hour cycling through the cold and damp mist, little rivulets of dew running off my hair and arms, visibility no more than 50 meters. And then of course the sun burns off the mist and you see what you've been missing - just stunning scenery, huge gorges and canyons with the road twisting down one side and up the other, along with picture perfect little villages sitting alongside sky blue lakes. Cursed myself for having taken my main camera out of my bag, took some shots with my cameraphone which don't really do it justice.
Once again Bike Adventures excelled themselves with their choice of route, saw no more than a dozen cars all morning. One the mist was burnt off I spent the rest of the morning cycling along with a huge smile on my face, just the best cycling weather, roads and conditions you can get.
The chain started playing up again very first thing this morning, did 100 metres out of the guest house and turned around, resigned to have to write the morning off finding a bike shop but very quickly it started to behave. It then spent the next few miles going clickety click, a distinct improvement on crunch crunch, and then seemed to sort itself out altogether. So we will see what tomorrow brings, fingers crossed.
A relatively prolonged five mile climb out of the gorge in the morning sun very soon had the sweat running everywhere, stopped at the top by a mountain spring. In most villages round here they have a spring outlet and it's lovely to pour some of the cool water over your head and fill up the drinks bottles.
Had another "La Fanny" moment later in the day, a group of four female cyclists coming the other way had stopped, one had popped behind the bush. Alas whilst she may have been perfectly shielded from the road in the direction she had just come she was in full frontal view of myself and Simon heading towards her. She did see us but rather too late. Sometimes life is so much easier being male...
A really nasty climb just before the end of the day, alas not really announced on the route sheet other than "climbs steeply". After 400 metres in the midday sun I was a little pooped and thinking I was at the top stopped for a breather. Set off again looking forward to the downhill bit but alas around the corner it just got steeper. Stopped again after a mile, this time completely pooped. Reached the top at 1.5 miles. Stopped again. There were certainly both steeper and longer climbs last year in Lands End / John O'Groats but the heat today was the killer, I think it was around 26 / 27 degrees with no breeze, just nasty, really difficult to get a proper breath. Last ten miles a gentle cruise through the lavender fields which alas have all been harvested.
Big day tomorrow, Ventoux beckons in the afternoon. Fingers crossed that the bike is OK in the morning.
Stats for day:
Mileage: 61.8 miles
Time: 4 hrs 22 mins
Average: 14.1mph
1 comment:
Nice pictures although it does look pretty mountainous.
Hope the chain gets fixed. I checked out wiggle.co.uk and new chains are only 20 quid. Why not buy one? Or did you spend all your money in "Le Fanny"?
Ewan.
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