Day 1: Excited eejits

-

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 7: Delirious Descending

-
Image
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...
Read more

Day 9 - demon descents

-
Image
  Mende made for a lovely evening stroll. Even here lazy Lundi was in full swing, but I managed to find a bar overlooking the (back of the) 14th century cathedral which I had first spotted a good few miles out of town; Mende sits in a hollow. Fortunately I’d booked in for dinner at the hotel so didn’t need to trawl the streets. Dinner was awesome. I’d pushed the boat out a bit (what with it being my birthday and the likelihood that I’d be in a campsite for the next 2 nights) but it wasn’t unreasonably priced. Having polished off my snails, lamb and ice cream I crashed into bed.  It’s not often you wake up with a blood sugar level of 1.8, but that’s what greeted me this morning. A handful of jelly babies and Lu biscuits later, I was back in the room, ready for my phone call home; 2 excited children wanted to wish Daddy a happy birthday. Breakfast was a hearty affair and I enjoyed munching through a whole host of culinary delights. Soon enough I was on the road heading out of Me...
Read more

Kit List

-
Image
  I aim to camp for 3 nights, so I'm going to pare down from the amount of kit I took across France .  I'm also acutely aware that on Day 3 I'll be climbing the Col de Vergio, 30km long, 1,500m up. With that in mind, I need to shed as much weight as I can.  For a start off, I'm going to do without the ability to self brew a cup of coffee. That's the stove, gas, pan, coffee, filters, lighter and aeropress out.  Do I really need a camping chair? Luxurious as it was last time, no.  Sandals? Nope.  Spare clothes? No. I managed fairly well showering at the end of each day in cycling kit, then rinsing the kit out and drying it overnight. Fingers crossed for good weather... Front & Rear Panniers and rear luggage rack? Get it gone.  So here’s what I'm taking, and where it will go: On the Bike (Somewhere...) Lock Frame Bag Tent Pegs Pillow Head Torch EyeMask + Ear Plugs Toolkit, comprising: Cable Ties Cables Brake Pads Chain Links Duck Tape Pump CO2 head + ...
Read more