My Tour De France

Well, after my last post debating on whether to go on holiday to France, you may have gathered that we all got off ok in the end – yippee! I know that it can be boring reading about other people’s holiday so I will proceed with a brief note form report:

Set off 0230 Thurs morning – yawn – arrived 1900 Thurs evening in Annecy (French Alps!). Note to self: make sure I disable the ‘No Toll Road’ setting on the SatNav!

Tired!

View from my mobile home!

Friday – Tired but wasn’t going to waste the chance to ride big mountains. Rode Col De Forclaz. Man! This was a hard climb. Found out later that it is the hardest around. Tried to save a gear for when I felt on the limit. 1 min 30 sec into the ride was on the limit and in the 39/25 for the rest of the ride. Big sense of achievement at top. Loved it!

Great views from the top - not the bike I used!

Saturday - Got up early and rode Col De L’Epine. Not as hard as yesterday but equally enjoyable!

Sunday – Rode Col De Arpette. Quite hard and a longer ride. Jumped on the back of the local bike club ride! Rode up to the Col with a 60 year old super skinny climber finishing with him at the summit. Had to wait a while for the other riders. Got dropped immediately on the descent and felt like I was going to kill myself. Melting tarmac and gravel all over the place. I am a bad bad bad descender!

Monday – Wanted an easier day so rode round Lake Annecy and then up Combe D’ Ire at just 796m. Easy!



Tuesday – Rode Col De Tamie and visited the Fort at the top. Awesome place but an easy ride!

Wednesday – rode Col De Leschaux. Wanted to go higher to Mt Semnoz but the weather had broken and it was clouded over. As I stopped near the bottom of the Col De Leschaux to strip off a few layers a very tanned lean cyclist flashed by with a Bonjour shout as he disappeared upwards. The chase was on! However, I lost a good 2 mins struggling with leg and arm warmers. The climb was not difficult but I was going full gas to try and catch the French dude. I pushed and pushed but no sign of him. The climb is about 14k and I resigned myself to not catching him. Then, through the trees ahead I caught a glimpse of him! I caught him soon after and I thought about riding straight through to see if he would take up the chase. This seemed rude so i rode with him and chatted with my very bad French. The guy was either from St Tropez or riding to St Tropez! We said fare well at the summit and I proceeded to descend the lovely sweeping road down into Annecy. A great ride, made more enjoyable by having a chase!

Holiday over and back to the drudgery of life! I am going back as it was just the best for riding and family time too. Julie picked up and I hope that she remains on the up! The kids loved it too, so happy people all round!

Oh, and it wasn't all play you know!!

My Achilles is still no better so I must get some treatment this week.

Catch up with you all soon.