Lions rugby and a coffee

Every morning there is a wonderfull ritual that takes place on tour. Wherever we start from, the bikes are set out for us. You have to wander around and find your bike and get ready to ride it. When the tour is at full capacity you have 100+ bleary eyed riders trying to locate their pride and joy. Fatigue can play a part and it can be easy to walk right passed it. When you do find it you need to prepare yourself for the day ahead. Today I didn’t have my shoes on as I left the hotel so when I located my bike I sat down to put them on only to find I didn’t have any socks. I raced back to get some out of one of my day bags and was relieved to find a spare pair. When I returned to my bike and shoes,  somebody had put my original socks back inside my shoes. I asked Robyn if she was messing around and she just ignored me. As I say fatigue can play strange tricks on you.

Apart from the start today’s, the  riding was a casual affair.  There  was cloud cover and not too hot and the first part of today’s 180km was flat. We even stopped for a coffee and were delighted to catch the last 10 minutes of the British Lions Rugby on the cafe TV. Watching it with the locals who were very interested in who we were and what we were doing was great.

Beer o’clock on a Saturday afternoon

We spent the rest of the day riding some quiet roads and enjoying the fact we had no big mountains to climb. About 5 km from the finnish we were even shouted a beer by another group on tour who had stopped as it was Saturday afternoon and beer o’clock. The proper way to do it.

Tomorrow is another challenging day but the reward is a rest day. We also have our family coming out to see us and we will spend the rest day together which will motivate us to get through whatever the stage dictates.

French town