Sunday, 17 May 2015

Day 9 – The Big One!

We awoke bright and early on a sunny Sunday morning to set off up the ginormous mountain overshadowing the house. With it being a beautiful May morning, there were a few other cyclists out on the road doing the same thing. The team splintered off as we all developed our own rhythm to get ourselves up the hill. The awesome Uncle Bazoit (his new French name) was up and down, taking photos of us all gurning as we worked our way up the mountain. It was very hard work and just kept going – relentless as Filipe had warned us. 



We all made it up to the top to find an amazing view and smug sense of satisfaction. Things got even better as we headed down the mountain, flying past the other cyclists who hadn’t been quite so keen to get up early and get on the mountain!  That descent was ridiculous – hard earned and amazingly good fun.  Brakes were wearing out quickly, and we were knocking on the door of 50 mph. 
After some well-deserved lunch in Bedoin, we had a relatively short journey to the beautiful Avignon where a very cold swimming pool awaited some tired cyclists!

Route details can be found here; I’m really not sure how you can recreate the experience of immense pain, so maybe you could just bang your head against the wall for a bit and then jump out of a plane, followed by a bike ride along a big river.

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