T1me to Ride

The Wild Atlantic Way - Part 1 Christ. Really? If I've been unprepared for previous tours it's not a patch on this one.  I've been eyeing up the Wild Atlantic Way (let's just call it the WAW given that I'll be typing the blog on my phone) for a few years. With family living in Ireland I've been perilously close to it but never really able to ride it.  Cue father in law's 80th birthday.  "We're all off to Gregans Castle on the west coast of Ireland" says my better half.  The cogs are already turning. How long would it take to ride from Cork to Gregans Castle?  1 week. Lovely. "Oh that sounds like a great idea!", says I.  Locked and loaded, I have a plan. Or at least half a plan. The full WAW starts in Cork sure enough, but it follows the west coast up to the north coast and finishes in Donegal. I reckon I can do about half of it and then skirt inland for a few miles and meet the family for lunch. Job done. I can worry about the 2nd par...

It was with a mixture of sadness and blessed relief that we packed the bikes this morning. Our final day would take us to Nice over the Cols of Braus and Saint Pancrace before swooping down to meet the sea.  The weather, true to form, was hot and sunny - even at 9am. We found a shady spot and devoured our newly christened “breakfast of champions” - 2 croissants and a coffee.  Once done, we did a final bit of faffing before heading down into Sospel to start the climb up the Col de Brauss. The climb itself passed relatively easily: 11km at an average of 6% was a pleasant change from some of the beasts we’d tackled in the previous few days.  The top of the climb was fairly bleak so we quickly pointed our bikes downhill towards L’Escarene, 10km of downhill delight losing 640 metres through no less than 17 hairpin bends.  At L’Escarene we found a cafe who’s owners made such a fantastic job of ignoring us that we headed to the spar shop and enjoyed a brunch of coke, a muff...

  Groundhog Day.   Alarm: pack tent: breakfast: pack bike: ride bikes.  It was all becoming very straightforward. No less unsafe and efficiency, but straightforward nonetheless.  Breakfast was - by the high standards set by the Refuges - disappointing. Stale bread, jam and a bowl of coffee, which I eventually managed to convince them to pop some milk in. Yes, cold milk would be fine, thank you.  Sharing our breakfast table was a French couple who we’d met at dinner last night, and were exploring this part of the alps by e-bike. Good on them, it was fantastic to see them enjoying the trails, something which they both confessed they would be unable to do without the aid of a motor.  The ride had an unforgiving start, climbing for about 3km at around 8% across the gravel. Dare I say - it was already hot.  We were anticipating around 12km of gravel before hitting the road down to the Rova valley, and then following the turquoise river through a gorge....