Day Four - let there be light, and there was light
And hills and still a bit of headwind!
Anyway got up early to an excellent breakfast buffet at hotel Campanille - great value and location!
The breakfast was so good that we did not get going until 0830 - inspite of the almost blue skies and less malignant movements of the air (wind just in front of a sidewind - a great improvement.) We got lost getting out of Reims and the canal path had been cleaned with soap or similar over night - very wet and very very slippery. We stayed upright, found the route and quickly lost it again but did make progress. The French countryside and villages have very few cafes/restaurants/shops and we therefore stopped at the only one we came across after 35'ish miles. We had a great starter buffet (enormous), chicken and pasta, pudding, coffee and as our WSW friend Geoff had caught up with us a caraffe of vin rouge. Total bill for 4 - 60€ !!! The lunch did take a bit longer than our average snack and we decided to limit our travel distance to 75 miles and will be spending the night in one of these modern IKEA-type hotels built on top of a hill - to get there you have to self -assemble a ladder and scale an open drainage canal and a grassy embankment - I have photographic evidence to publish when I learn how to do that! We expect Geoff to join us for a meal in one of the nearby hill-top establishments providing he remembers to bring a ladder! Anyway - the first good day of cycling where the only moisture was created by sweating up the hills -641 metres of ups and very very few of downs (and none of eider!(sorry))
Good to catch up with you guys. Hope the mechanicals are done and dusted with now. A good day at the Crits...masses of riders, a good crowd and Tom S won the 4th Cat race which was keenly contested. He rode very well.
ReplyDeleteHope that the wind turns in your favour soon and that you have a second, better day today Tuesday.