It all started in the Pyrenees. Imagine cycling up these massive passes, the ones they call 'hors categorie', beyond classification (personally I think that shows a lack of imagination or arithmetic or both, but it does illustrate how steep they are nicely), and seeing the names of the greats emblazoned on the road. It inspires one to feats of greatness, as we battled to the top of the Col de Marie Blanc, Col d'Aspin, Peyresourde, D'Aubusque. And it was all so beautiful; simply gorgeous.
And then, one hot summer afternoon, we stood in the baking sun for hours by a roadside in Nimes and were greeted by the specactle of .... a car shapped like a lion, and scantily clad women throwing things into the crowd. It was the cargo cult of the Tour, the caravan of cars and vans giving out little trinkets to the crowd, who fought to get the key chains, magnets, etc. It was incredible how much these people desperately wanted these bits of plastic (not that i was immune, I am now the proud owner of a yellow cap!)
And finally we saw 'our' Cadel and the whole peleton of greats pass to the
finishing line in a vivid flash, it was fantastic.
The next day we rode out to watch them again but from a smaller town 30 km down the road. The road was already closed off and lined with people waiting to watch them come through. The police were mostly happy for us to proceed cautiously, on the incorrect side of the road (it was closed
so there was no oncoming traffic), and as we road along those waiting crowds cheered and waved us. The whole thing was a hoot; the people were really cute and we played it up with some waving and victory dancing from the bikes. Felt like we were doing the Tour ourselves :-)
From Provence we headed away from the cities to national park for what
we thought would be some quiet country riding and kayaking. It wasn't
the least bit quiet. We shared the 'Remote Cevennes' with half a
million or so German; Dutch and Belgian camper tourists; having their
annual summer holiday in the south of France. Oh well, aside from the crowded roads and rivers and hideously noisy campsites, it was unimaginably beautiful and the kayaking heaps of fun (thanks for the present Clare!!).
Last week my front rack snapped and went straight into my wheel. It completely mangled itself, and bent and broke a few spokes of my wheel. Fortunately I managed to stop the bike immediately and I was fine. We (ok, Sean) managed to replace the broken spoke and true the wheel well enough to get into a town the next day. Unfortunately, replacing my rack is proving impossible and I'm riding around with my extra pannier strapped to the back.
Here is a picture of the rack after we had bent it back into shape in order to get it out of the wheel
Now after almost 10 weeks on the road and more than 4,500 kilometres on the bikes, Sean and I are finally having a rest. A wedding present was a weeks stay in Sue and David's place in a tiny hamlet in south west France. The timing of having it this week is perfect, for our bodies and our souls.
We have been luxuriating in the simple comforts of being in a house rather than a tent. It is so divine to have a super comfy bed, clean toilets with paper, shower with continuous hot water, oven, fridge, multiple cooking implements, music...
We still have our British SIM in the mobile if people want to text or call that. We sorry for not being in touch at all. Life on the bike is busier than we expected and finding payphones that take money (they don't accept our australian credit cards) or internet cafes that have computers (as opposed to wifi) has proven difficult.
