Rest and Recreation

This will possibly be the last post in this blog. Everyone is now back in Geneva, except for Fred who's driving the car back. We had a great trip, and the rain and cold of the first few days have already been forgotten. We covered a distance of 1790 kilometres, for an elevation gain of 18,858 metres. In other words, we climbed more than twice Mt. Everest in twelve days!

Porto is a beautiful city, even though we didn't get the chance to visit it as thoroughly as we would have liked. Partying and the need for sleep curtailed the acts of tourism, although we did manage a 50 minute bus trip to see the bridges of Porto. People might find those pictures more interesting than the backs of the other cyclists!

When I get Vincent (check out the size of his left knee!) and Marc's pictures, I'll add them to the existing albums. I'll also get the geo-tagging sorted out. I should probably create a compilation web album by removing the rubbish pictures and adding some captions; we'll see whether I find the time...


My heartfelt thanks to coach Marc and my fellow cyclists for a memorable trip, and also to all our friends for their messages of support and encouragement throughout! Thanks also to Damien for the loan of the suitcase used to transport my bike safely back to Geneva!

Cheerio for now!

-John

P.S. if you haven't already figured it out, if you click on the "view details" link at the bottom of each of the (slightly truncated) Garmin maps, you'll get to the Garmin site where you can use the player tab. You can also, thanks to Google, switch to satellite view and drill down to see details of the regions that we passed through.

Day 12 - Vila Real to Porto 120 kms

We did it! Another very hot day (temperature hit 40°C) with lots of climbs and downhills, although it must be said that there was more going downhill than the contrary. Vincent suffered throughout and did most of the stage pedaling with only his right leg, but he made it!

An idiot almost managed to get Fred by opening his car door without looking, but Fred’s natural class prevailed and he swerved just in time. More nice countryside today, and then quite a bit of traffic as we entered Porto. We didn’t find a Porto sign for the group picture, but we decided that the terrace of the café opposite the hotel would do fine!

The blog ends here for tonight, because the WiFi connection is bad, we’ve already had five or six beers, and the others are waiting for me for a few more (not to mention dinner). More tomorrow – but everyone’s fine and happy to be here. Just under 1800kms in twelve days!

Day 11 – Bragança to Vila Real 159 kms

Well, yesterday’s prediction was correct- lots of hills! The good news is that the day’s rest allowed Vincent to get back on his bike today. He was suffering, but was OK when his knee was warm. The result was that he didn’t want to stop, and would cycle back and forth when we took breaks. At lunch, rather than stopping, he and Anthony headed off to Vila Real, and the rest of us took a bit more time. They found a great hotel (see pictures), and we also ended up having an excellent meal – with the first vegetables since entering Spain.

Today was probably the one with the most hills (over 2500m of elevation), but we’re all in pretty good shape by now! It was also the hottest day, with temperatures in the high twenties – reaching 33 in the afternoon! The countryside offered some magnificent views, although we had about 40kms more views than originally planned – due to the N15 being closed, and compounded by some navigational cock-ups! Check out the photographs here for the magnificent Portuguese vistas. There were also three sections of cobblestones, each one about 300m long – just like Paris-Roubais!

When we finally got to Vila Real, we joined Anthony and Vincent at a road-side café for several beers (5?), before heading for our luxury hotel 300m away. After refreshing showers, we drove into town and found a very nice restaurant – the result being that we all greatly enjoyed the evening.

There was no WiFi at yesterday’s hotel (more like a pension), but this evening I have not only WiFi, but a glass of Glenmorangie to keep me company! Coach found some cabbage leaves for Vincent’s knee (old wife’s remedy), and tomorrow the six of us will be riding into Porto.Coach Marc is a little disappointed that he won’t be there for the group picture, but he has to go and collect the bike bags from the transport company on the outskirts of Porto. Anyway, more tomorrow...

Day 10 – Benavente to Bragança 126 kms

Today should have been the nicest one of the trip so far, but it was marred by the fact that Vincent’s tendinitis had got worse, and he wasn’t able to cycle today. The atmosphere at breakfast was pretty morose, because not only did we feel sorry for him, but we all wanted to start and finish this trip together! It’s largely thanks to him that the rest of us have got this far in good shape, so it’s tough – but that’s life!

As we prepared to leave the hotel, Marc in his usual excitement managed to trip while packing the car and ended up head-butting the brick wall. Dr. Patrick was at hand to press his forehead really hard to avoid the formation of an egg, but it should be a pretty colour in a day or two!

It was cold in the morning, but as the day progressed the layers came off – and we ended up in the high twenties on some of the climbs in the sun. The roads were amazingly devoid of traffic, and the short trip of 120kms went quickly. The countryside was beautiful, with rolling hills and valleys – and we also saw several storks’ nests, along with a donkey-drawn cart when we passed through a village.

We reached Portugal today, but there was no border – just a sign at the side of road. It was sad that Vincent had to spend the day in the car, but we’re hoping that he’ll at least be able to ride into Porto with us. We arrived in Bregançia by a road which resembled a motorway with no traffic. Tomorrow might be a different story though, because Portuguese roads don’t have a great reputation.
Vincent and Marc avoided the 4-star high-rise hotel on the outskirts of town , and opted for a 3-star instead. However, it would seem that the stars are self-assigned, because it’s really nothing special. No WiFi, no restaurant, and not much going for it at all.

We drank five or six beers on a neighboring terrace, and we’ll head into town for food later on. We haven’t yet adjusted to the notion of eating after ten, because we’re starving by seven! There was even a bit of concern last night as we drove into town to find a complete lack of restaurants. The bars were full of merry Barcelona supporters and smokers, but there didn’t seem to be anything going in terms of places to eat. Fortunately we discovered a place which turned out to be quite nice – good food, excellent house wine, and Anthony even tried what we think was a bull’s tail!

Only two days to go, but I have a feeling that tomorrow will be tough. Although we’ve only got short stages left, Portugal seems to be nothing but hills! We’ll see...

Today's pictures are here.

Day 9 - Osorno to Benavente 130 kms

Finally! Sunshine all day today, even though the morning was still cold (7-9C). The coffee at breakfast obviously had an effect on Patrick and Fred, because they must have stopped fifteen times for a toilet break at the side of the road! The road was relatively flat, and with the wind behind us most of the way, we made good progress. The wind seemed to change directions several times, but we nevertheless covered the 130kms in good time. There was hardly any traffic today, as youll see from the pictures, which you can find here. Note how blue the sky is!

This being Sunday, not much was open - but Marc still managed to stock up on Kit-Kats, coke, water and some biscuits. We had a very light lunch at a bar where we saw the start of the Monaco Grand-Prix, and we arrived at our destination just in time to see the end.
Unfortunately, Marc had left his jacket and camera in one of the places where we had stopped yesterday, but when he phoned, no one had seen anything. He caught a stomach bug (probably the Crême Catalane at the Chinky) and hadn't been his usual state of excitement for the past two days. Today, however, everything was "Majuscule, Tip-Top" again!

Vincent has developed tendinitis in one of his knees, but he's gritting his teeth and suffering through it - but we're a bit worried as to whether he'll be able to make it to Porto. Only three days to go, so we're crossing our fingers! Fred's ankles which were troubling him in the rain and cold were OK today. The only other "bobo" to mention is Gwenn's tendon, but he keeps playing around with the height of his saddle, and things seem to have improved.
The sun makes so much difference! Today was really enjoyable, and after more than 1000 kms, we're all in pretty good cycling shape. Apparently, Portugal is quite hilly, but since we've stayed at around 800m all day today, the 1000m bumps in the map might not be too bad.

Upon arrival in Benavente, we found a terrace in the sun and had a few beers. We weren't greatly impressed by the hotel that we'd selected from Internet yesterday, so we moved on down the road to a very nice 3-star hotel. The bikes are locked away in a garage for the night, and after showers/baths to remove the Shimano tatoos, we'll head out for some more beverages and some food. This is bull country, so a serious piece of meat could be in order! In the meantime, the Madrid tennis final is on TV, so we'll see how Federer does!

A demain!

Day 8 - Miranda de Ebro to Osorno 141 kms

Today was the day to sort the men from the boys! We woke up to sunshine, and Gwenn (now nicknamed Philippe Janneret) informed us that Spain was basically a square, and most of the square was looking pretty sunny. We therefore dressed for a sunny (albeit chilly) day, and headed for a hypromat to wash the grime off the bikes. No sooner had we set off than the skies opened, and the morning was probably the wettest that I've spent on a bike. The temperature was 5C, and when we stopped in a place in the middle of nowhere, I couldn't feel my fingers anymore, my shoes were water-logged, and I was shivering with cold. I even managed to forget my sunglasses when we set off again, and although I realised quite soon afterwards, I couldn't be bothered to go back for them. At that stage, I wasn't quite sure how we were going to get to our destination, because there was another hill ahead, and the morale of the troops was low. Fortunately, the clouds started to break up, and the odd ray of sunshine appeared. During a steep climb up to a plateau covered with wind turbines,
we were doing about 10 kph, and the destination was still over 100kms away! Luckily, our fortunes turned, and the road was more or less flat, and the wind was behind us! Nothing was open, so we survived on the coke and Mars bars that Marc had in the car, and made good time.
Anthony punctured, and while he changed his inner-tube, Patrick and Vincent found a place with a little shelter from the wind and took their shoes off to dry them a little in the sun.

Anyway, we finally made it to Osorno (there was no more fuel in my engine!), to
discover that we'd booked in a really nice hotel. The restaurant looks good too, so we won't even have to venture out for food - and I can catch up on two days of blogging!

The pictures from today are here, but they don't reflect how tough it was. When I'm suffering, I don't take pictures!

Day 7 - San Sebastian to Miranda de Ebro 163 kms

"Quelle Misère" were Patrick's words when looking out the window this morning. It was pouring with rain! We had a light breakfast since that was all that was
available, and started the day with a steep climb out of San Sebastian.
Today was tough: 160kms of ups and downs, with at least three "cols" and 2100m of vertical ascent. Not much for boys from Switzerland, but it was pouring with rain - during the morning anyway. The temperature was 5C to start with, and then stayed at 10C for the rest of the day.

When we finally got to Mirando de Ebro, Marc had been unable to find a hotel, so we decided to calm down and warm up with a beer at a Chinese restaurant at the entrance to the town. The Chinky had wireless, so I used the laptop to find a hotel for tomorrow & booked by phone. Meanwhile, Anthony and Marc had gone off to the Tourist Office, and got there just before it closed. We obtained beds for the night in a pretty tacky pension, but since that was all that was available and we were all pretty exhausted, no one complained. For dinner we returned to the Chinese restaurant for an excellent meal, a few more beers and some excellent red wine. We got there at 21:15 but, of course, the Spaniards only started to appear for dinner after ten!

Today's pictures are here.

Day 6 - Dax to San Sebastian 118 kms

This was meant to be the short, restful stage - but was hampered by less than optimal navigation and quite a few hills. We stayed dry, but it was overcast and quite cold all day (10°C). Who said that it would get warmer the further south we got???

The corniche just after Bayonne offered beautiful views of the sea, and we even saw surfers - despite the lack of sun and the temperature.

Anyway, we made it to Spain today and had our first Spanish beer of the trip at the Buffet de la Gare of San Sebastian! That's also where we're staying, and while everyone else is having a nap, I'm uploading pictures and typing this to keep all of you informed of our progress! Therefore, I'll stop now and go and have a drink! Pictures are here (captions will be added sometime later).

Everyone is tired but in good spirits, despite the aching muscles, sore bums, and the fact that we're only half way!

Day 5 - Marmande to Dax 152 kms

Today didn't start off in the best possible way. We managed about 40m before Patrick discovered that his back tyre was flat. Back to the hotel and our friend Bison Futé for repairs! Our bikes were filthy, so we found an hypromat which swallowed our 2€ coin but didn't produce any water. Anyway, we finally got going and until lunchtime we made excellent progress. We each took 5km relays to keep the average speed above 30kms (even yours truly!), with Patrick giving the signal for each change. We had a good lunch at Mont Marsan, and were caught just afterwards by Anthony who'd been given a lift to Marmande from Bordeaux by Marc. It was good to have him with us again, and the afternoon proceeded in the usual way - up and down, with several stops to put on or take off the "pelerines".


The number of photographs taken is inversely proportional to the amount of rain that we get, so there aren't many for today. Those that I took are here.

Hotel Calypso didn't have WiFi, hence the delay in getting today's stuff posted.

Day 4 - Brive-la-Gaillarde to Marmande 168 kms

Shame for Anthony - he missed the nicest day so far in terms of countryside & scenery. He also missed the fact that we discovered that he'd picked up a puncture in his rear wheel. Tomorrow Marc will meet him at Bordeaux airport and hand him his bike, and then he'll ride from there to Dax to meet us. That means that Marc will leave the hotel at six tomorrow morning, and will then come back & pick up our bags. The alternative was that we'd load our bags tomorrow morning and have breakfast disguised as cyclists, but breakfast won't be ready that early. Instead, we'll take the bikes to a hypromat to remove all the dirt and grit, and then have breakfast. Either way, it's pretty cool to have someone as flexible and friendly as Marc with us!


We had two additional punctures today: Vincent in the sun, and then Gwenn in the pouring rain after lunch. We preferred Vincent's timing!

We were lucky again in that everything stayed dry until after we'd had lunch. Marc had just finished telling his daughter that we'd had lunch on a terrasse in the sun, when the big black clouds rolled in.

As usual, by the time I write this, Patrick (with whom I share rooms) is fast asleep. We had a very nice dinner after having spent quite some time trying to dry our clothes as best as possible. The hotel barman was an interesting character with a missing tooth, and a definite penchant for alcohol - quite amusing, but we were quite pleased that the hotel wasn't serving dinner!

As usual, I've uploaded a selection of pictures here. I realise, as has been pointed out, that most of them are taken from behind, but it's also true that I'm not in front very often! There are also no pictures when we're really motoring, because I'm flat out just keeping up. Neither are there any when it's pouring, because water and cameras aren't great friends! I don't know why the geo-tagging isn't working, but I'll sort that out some other time because, right now, I need to sleep! Good night!

Day 3 - Clermont-Ferrand to Brive-la-Gaillarde 187 kms

A tough day today! Nice countryside, but the country of volcanoes - so everything goes up and down, and the wind is constantly in the wrong direction. The good news is that despite the weather forecast, we had no rain and quite a bit of sunshine. However, we learnt that it had snowed here last week, and since we did at least one col over 1000m it would have been interesting. We did over 2000m of vertical climbing during 186kms today, so it's no wonder that everyone's tired! I've also got a sore bum!

Anthony left us at Ussel to race ahead and rent a car, since he has to be back in Geneva tomorrow for the funeral of his wife's grandfather. He'll fly back to Bordeaux the day after tomorrow, and will catch us up one way or another.

I had a tough morning, but after a good lunch, things were much better in the afternoon. Vincent seems oblivious to headwind - he was in front all afternoon pulling us along at 35km/h!

Fred had to stop to change his rear wheel because the tyre was worn out due to a defect (they were quite new tyres). Fortunately, Marc our "coach" is never far away.

It's late again, so I'm going to be brief. We have another 6:30 wake-up tomorrow (did someone say that this was a holiday?), and the forecast isn't good. At least we had a dry day today!

We had an excellent dinner in Brive, and the prices are a lot lower than in Geneva!

As usual, the day's pictures can be viewed on Picasa Web here.

I'll be able to edit the blog posts when I get back and add some detail (e.g. that Tarare (yesterday) used to be a famous curtain-making town).

The stats for today are below. They're from Fred's GPS, because mine didn't last the day. At least our maximum speed is correct today (check out yesterday's!).

Day 2 - Tarare to Clermont-Ferrand 145 kms

The day started off straight away with a 10km col, and then they kept on coming until about lunchtime. At least it stayed dry until then (more or less). We had a great lunch at an Auberge at the top of the last col, consisting of home-made paté, large slices of dried ham, followed by omelette & a crepe (all home made).

The afternoon was a bit wetter. There aren't many pictures of that, because there was water everywhere! It wasn't too bumpy however, so we made pretty good time - apart from a bit of confusion in Clermont-Ferrand, where we saw the Stade Marcel Michelin several times (you can see the confusion if you zoom into the Garmin map).

Everything is wet, so we're trying all sorts of tricks to dry things out, including a coat hanger in the entrance to the restaurant with overhead heating pointing at it. We're going to get wet again tomorrow, so it almost seems pointless; at least we'll start off dry though!

Anyway, we've just had an excellent dinner at a Campanille restaurant, and we're about to crash because it's an early start tomorrow and rumour has it that there are even more hills than today. Everyone's fine, although it wasn't a great day for Fred - but he always bounces back!

Photos from today are here. Some of the pictures are geo-tagged (we're getting there), but wireless and local disk access seem to be mutually exclusive on the PC so everything's a little tedious - so no embedded pictures today.

Anyway, here's today's map (from my GPS watch - I was able to recharge it at lunchtime while we ate!):

Day 1 - Satigny to Tarare 177 kms

We're off! After having dropped off our bags the evening before at Fred's place, we assembled in Satigny at 8:30 for a pain au chocolat & coffee (for those who like the stuff). Marc had already loaded the car & we were quickly ready to go. We were accompanied for a while by Damien, Cathy & a guy that I didn't know.

Today's entry will be quite short, because my watch died after just under 7 hours, so I played around trying to get the data from Fred's Garmin. It's already 22:30 and I'm tired. The embedded graph is from Fred's 705, which shows our route to Tarare - 177kms (plus 13kms to get from my house to the start).

The weather wasn't too bad (a bit of rain during the last 10kms), but there was quite a lot of head-wind. Nice that we have two locomotives (Anthony and Vincent). The roads and views were very nice, and this being the 8th of May, we were treated to Remembrance ceremonies in several villages - and the Marseillaise in one!

Pictures from today are available here.

We're all quite tired, but the hotel is nice and dinner in town wasn't bad either (€15 for a three-course meal).



Good night!