Captain Havoc and Coronals summer trip.

Captain Havoc

Being the first person (as far as I know) to cycle from Kilkenny to it's twin town of Moret sur-Loing, I've now decided I want to be the first person to cycle from Kilkenny to up the Col de l'Iseran. Plan is to get the ferry from Rosslare to Le Havre and cycle down, mounting the pass from the south east. After climbing I intend on getting a bus through the Mt. Blanc tunnel to Chamonix and cycle through roads I've cycled many times of Valais and Vaud before flying out of Geneva. I intend on staying in Formule 1 and similar budget hotels. Next month the TdF route will be announced and I plan on taking in some of that also, so I will be needing to book one hotel next month with the rest of it being properly planned as the dates for the ferries come out in January. I'll be working on a budget of about €1,000. I don't plan on having any backup as travelling light worked fine for me this year.

Does anyone else want to join me?

Planet X

Don't think the Rosslare Ferry goes to Le Harve? It goes to Roscoff and Cherbourg, the Irish Ferries Oscar Wilde anyway.
Bets of luck. I'm building a touring bike and plan to head to France for a bit next year. Nothing massive, week or so.

Captain Havoc

It's the return of the Killer Zombie thread. I've thrown in a holiday request for two weeks in July and I've formulated a route.

Monday 04/07/11:
Kilkenny to Rosslare 92km get ferry to Cherbourg.

Tuesday 05/07/11:
Cherbourg to Flers 145km

Wednesday 06/07/11
Flers to Le Mans 111km

Thursday 07/07/11
Le Mans to Châteauroux 215km (copying tour route)

Friday 08/07/11
Châteauroux to Montlucon 95km (watching stage finish in Châteauroux then heading late to Montlucon)

Saturday 09/07/11
Montlucon to Roanne 135km

Sunday 10/07/11
Roanne to Isle d'Abeau 120km

Monday 11/07/11
Rest day, faffing around Lyon for the day.

Tuesday 12/07/11
Isle d'Abeau to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne 145km

Wednesday 13/07/11
Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne to Séez 130km (heading over the Col de l'Iseran)

Thursday 14/07/11
Séez to Geneva (and to the pub)

Afterwards I'm heading back to Montreux for a couple of day to break the record for recounting the same story the most amount of times.

The total cost is €600, flights + hotels. I believe I'm being joined from Roanne to Geneva. If someone wants to come it'll bring down the cost to €400ish per person.

TTFN

ashleey

Maniac. Enjoy it. Watch out for the hill out of Cherbourg!

bcmf

We sailed into/and returned from Le Havre 2 years ago. Pretty sure it was with Irish Ferries.

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

Captain Havoc

Thanks, you warned me of the hill last year and it was a piece of cake. I had to come back though as that road to Caen looked lethal and I took the coast road instead. Tour routes are announced in October yeah. I think a week around Brittany would be savage.

Diarmuid

The Etape du Tour finishing on Alpe d'Huez coincides with your trip. Not tempted?

Captain Havoc

Diarmuid wrote: »

The Etape du Tour finishing on Alpe d'Huez coincides with your trip. Not tempted?

Why not it is my rest day after all. Explains the lack of hotels around Modane.

ashleey

The coast road is always the right option round there. French main roads are real roads with lots of trucks as opposed to here with trucks on little roads

jwshooter

Im sure you would do it a lot cheaper if the ferry ticket was one way ..:D

Diarmuid

Captain Havoc wrote: »

Why not it is my rest day after all. Explains the lack of hotels around Modane.

A few of us booked a house 20k up the road from Modane for a week around that time. If you are in the region we should meet up.

Captain Havoc

Diarmuid wrote: »

A few of us booked a house 20k up the road from Modane for a week around that time. If you are in the region we should meet up.

Absolutely, you can climb the l'Iseran with us (and if someone has a car, cough, take our luggage, cough)

Captain Havoc

All booked, all paid for

Captain Havoc

Just thought I'd shamelessly bump update you all on the summer plans. I've plugged in about 2,000km since the start of the year (I'd planned for 3,500). I'm not feeling strong at all but much better than when I started after the winter last year, so there's hope yet. I think the two events I've done have stood me well as since them, I've been much better. I really wish I didn't have to work weekends and could be doing sportives every week but c'est la vie. Having the car though has been nice and I can take the bike with me when I'm heading away from Kilkenny, I'll be in Galway some day soon doing training for work in the morning so I'll have the afternoon to check out there.

Coronal will be joining me for six days, which I'm grateful for, it'll be nice that someone else will have to put up with my moaning. We've a van rented for the day of l'étape and we're going to l'alpe d'Huez to shout abuse at encourage the participants. I'm not looking forward to spending a day going uphill but I'm sure when I'm older I'll still be bragging about it. I'm also sooooooo looking forward to returning to Montreux, it's been ten years since I left there (fook, I'm getting old), I still keep in contact with my friends there and I can't wait to see them, how as ever, I think the road from Geneva is going to be very tough with the mother of all hangovers, Coronal you better watch out.

The charity side of things is slow, €242 has been donated to the mycharity page. The hospice fund in total has raised over €500,000 out of an approximate €3mil needed. Currently in Kilkenny and the surrounding counties of Laois, Carlow, Wexford, Waterford and Tipperary there is no hospice, so this would not just serve my own county of Kilkenny but also the surrounding counties. None of the money raised goes to me or the trip, I'm paying for it myself (it is my holiday after all ).

Thanks for all the support so far.

Coronal

Giving this a bit of a bump: I've just booked all my trains and hotels at last. I'm actually already in France the week before for a conference, in Strasbourg, which fits in nicely. I'm there for the weekend anyway, so I'm heading from there to Belfont, then on to Besancon and continuing as detailed here. It adds 60 km to the total distance, but means I don't have a 180 km day to start off on.

I should have well over 4000 km in the legs before setting off. I think every weekend in June is a long weekend, so I'll be out a few days each weekend. Hopefully enough that I won't slow the Captain down too much. The few days we're cycling together should be great to get a pull the whole way to Genevahave a bit of craic.

I've also set up a mycharity page, but have been a little poor at advertising the fact anywhere. So, bit of a bump for it; it's for the Jack and Jill foundation, to help kids with brain damage who suffer severe intellectual and physical developmental delay. Needless to say, most, if not all, government funding for this has been cut by now, so anything that can be donated is a great help. As above, all the money goes directly to them, this being a holiday for me!

Coronal

Gah, sorry for double post, had a minor browser crash and clicked "submit" twice.

Captain Havoc

If you slow Captain Sandbag down, you've got issues

Captain Havoc

Giving this a bit of a bump now. I can't believe how relaxed I am about the whole thing, I've done 4,000km of cycling this year, which is more than I did last year. It's now only three weeks away and I'm tapering a bit now but I'm not all that tired due to the lazy ass way I went about those 4,000kms, approximately 3,900 of those kilometers were spent in the small ring only going into the big ring for the odd decent, time-trial or tail-hurricane. It's also been a very dry year so far, so only one epic spin in the rain to mention. I don't know how I'll fair on the Col but I don't think you can prepare yourself for anything like that anyway.

The bike is not ready, there's still a couple of odd jobs to be done to it, including finding the remaining bolts for the rack and getting new ones, although my lazy ass ways tell me I'm just going to buy a new one thirty minutes before I'm due to leave. The bike again will be the lidl one, although I'm unsure about the aksium wheels I just got as the spokes are flat, which causes me concern about their strength, we'll probably go with them anyway.

Luggage, as per last year will be minimal, my leisure wear will consist of a t-shirt, a pair of shorts, sandals and two pairs of jocks. My riding wear will consist of two pairs of shorts, three pairs of socks, a base layer, a jersey (all MCC), shoes, fingerless gloves, sun glasses, race cap and helmet. Maintenance, I will have a multi-tool, chain splitter, large pump, adapter for petrol stations, tyre levers, four tubes and a spare tyre. I plan on bringing my camcorder and all photos will be done with my mobile phone which I hope to upload to my flickr account at the end of each day.

I'm pretty sure I've everything booked already, I'll go over that in due course and see what we've left out, all the important stuff is reserved and paid for. I haven't really looked ahead for things to do as the only thing I plan on doing is cycling and sleeping until we get to Geneva where I plan on horsing into steak tartare and pints of Cardinal. Despite having GPS on the phone, I'm not going to use it as my map reading skills are very good, I'll just buy these as I go along.

On the charity side of things, I'm pretty disappointed at how much I've raised, €627 out of planned €2,770. I know I don't need to be too disappointed as none of the cash is going to myself but it is a cause I feel strongly about so if you have any spare change, I'm rattling my tin can here for the Susie Long Hospice fund. There are other ways though you can help by linking or updating this to your facebook pages, if you have a business perhaps you could promote it by updating it on the business facebook page or printing off one of these posters and putting it in your shop (especially if you're in KK). In another attempt to raise cash, while I'm gone there'll be a sticky auctioning a "Cycling" magazine from January 1982 which has Stephen Roche on the cover, thanks to thebouldwhacker, we got it autographed by the man himself at the recent Tour de Cure, so we hope it's worth a few quid, again all money goes to the Susie Long Hospice Fund.

Right, that's it I guess, thanks for all the help to date and a pre-thanks for all the help I will get, I'm sure Coronal will have his update soon enough.

Hermy

Is there a bank account I can lodge some money in? I don't has a credit card.

Captain Havoc

There is indeed.

www.susielonghospice.com wrote:

Make a Donation
You can make a donation by:

Directly lodging your donation to the fund bank account:

Bank: AIB High St., Kilkenny
A/C Name: Susie Long Hospice Fund
A/C No: 34627051
Sort Code: 93-31-98
IBAN: IE70AIBK
Swift: AIBKIE2D
Note: Please include your name and the word “donation” in the narrative of the lodgement slip, as this helps us keep account of our funds.

Acknowledgement:
If you would like to receive an acknowledgement, please send your lodgement slip and your contact details to our Treasurer at the address below.

Setting up a Direct Debit with your bank

Complete a standard Direct Debit Mandate Form from your bank

Sending a cheque, payable to the “Susie Long Hospice Fund” to:

The Treasurer
Susie Long Hospice Fund
&s Rioch's Terrace
Kilkenny

Tel. 087 948 6636

Note: The Susie Long Hospice Fund has charitable status and as a result, donations in excess of EUR250.00 per year can be claimed back against tax. Charity Number: CHY 17950

Hermy

Sorted.

Toblerone1978

Captain Havoc wrote: »

Maintenance, I will have a multi-tool, chain splitter, large pump, adapter for petrol stations, tyre levers, four tubes and a spare tyre.

I thought this was supposed to be a cycling challenge, you're making it too easy bringing all this gear with you

Remind me to give you a well deserved donation before I go on my hols next wk. When are you going?

Captain Havoc

Toblerone1978 wrote: »

I thought this was supposed to be a cycling challenge, you're making it too easy bringing all this gear with you

Remind me to give you a well deserved donation before I go on my hols next wk. When are you going?

Yeah, the challenge is seeing how long I can get Coronal to let me slip-stream him :P

I will.

Coronal

Hah, if you're slip-streaming me, who's gonna get me all the way to Geneva? I suspect we're going to end up trackstanding outside Roanne to see who takes the first pull :pac:

Captain Havoc

There's something I didn't break to you yet.

Coronal

Oh, I see. Interesting. I'll get me bigger cassette then. And a triple. And then stay in front to get pushed up break the wind for you :pac: It doesn't look that steep anyway, does it?

Captain Havoc

Coronal wrote: »

Oh, I see. Interesting. I'll get me bigger cassette then. And a triple. And then stay in front to get pushed up break the wind for you :pac: It doesn't look that steep anyway, does it?

The photo might clear up the steepness thing. That road going through the mountain is a motorway that we can't use.

Coronal

Awesome. Yeah, that one's gonna hurt alright. The Col d'Iseran is the day after as well, isn't it? Ah well! I'm sure we'll laugh about it later.

hahah


hah


hah

Coronal

OK, update at long last! I'm off to a conference in Strasbourg today, which is where I'll be starting my portion of the tour from. The bag is packed, as is the bike for train transport. The total weight of bike+bag+all my crap in it, as seen below, (including bike kit, but minus helmet and shoes) is 12.5 kg, which isn't too bad. I can't see anywhere to drop any more weight off it.



And all packed up in two bin bags with zip ties and duct tape:



I might get out for a few spins on it this week, but I think my fitness is decent enough in any case. There will be some tough days, but it should be fine. The captain has a lot of hills in his legs, so between the two of us *ahem*, we'll get up them all.

I'll be posting progress here and on twitter (@mikedunneIRL). I think there'll be some nice pics

Captain Havoc

I'm off in the morning, the bike is ready to rock and roll. I was up until 1am fiddling around, I got very cheesed off and left it, thinking I had another evening of tweaking and playing around, I turned a couple of screws and a few seconds later hey presto, all is good. I still have to pack EVERYTHING (into that bag in the photo) . I feel funny also, like meh, last year was überexciting, this year it's all planned, I learned from last year what surprises could arise, I've done a bike course in the mean time so I'm covered technically also, lacking a fear of failure seems to have taken the edge off. Out of boredom, I'll be updating here and through my flickr account with photos as until I meet up with Coronal next Saturday, I'll be on my todd.

I'll be doing up a thread in a few miuntes (or hours) auctioning a 1982 "Cycling" magazine signed by the man on the cover, Stephen Roche. All the money raised will go to the Susie Long Hospice Fund.


The bike done up, I'll give ye a weight when I'm loaded up. It has new Aksium wheels, new tyres, new pedals, new white bar tape and one new bottle cage (the white one).


The magazine that is being auctioned. Thanks to thebouldwhacker for getting the man himself to sign it at the recent Tour de Cure.

Hermy

Can I ask who the other fella is on the magazine cover?

Lemag

Hermy wrote: »

Can I ask who the other fella is on the magazine cover?

If you win the auction you'll probably be able to find out

Captain Havoc

Hermy wrote: »

Can I ask who the other fella is on the magazine cover?

I hate you for this, it's 1980 Olympic road race champion Sergei Soukhoroutchenkov (or something similar).

Hermy

Ah yes, know him well...

Captain Havoc

Hermy wrote: »

Ah yes, know him well...

When I saw his name, I was like :eek:

Captain Havoc

Weigh in done, 17.2kg luggage and bike

The tax man

Best of luck Captain H and Coronal. Hope ye have a safe journey.;)

cdaly_

Are ye gone yet? Good luck and have fun...

Captain Havoc

I'm the king of the world on a boat like Leo, if you're on the shore then you're sure no me-o. 95km in 4 and a half or so hours. Uneventful except for meeting a mate in Wexford and one in Rosslare. Oh, I forgot standing with that weight on the back isn't good and I also need to find a bike shop in France as my cassette seems to be loose.

Coronal

I unfortunately had to bail on week one of my trip and took a train back from Strasbourg on Sunday. The conference took a lot more out of me than I thought it would... The revised plan is now to take a train to Lyon and meet CH a day later than intended. So I still get to do all the fun parts

The small bit I did on my bike also demonstrated that my in-sy bag isn't working out very well (it kept slipping down to the point where there part of the bottom is burned through from the wheel), so I need a quick fix for that before the weekend!

Captain Havoc

I've just got into the Le Mans and about to have a shower. I've a long one coming up later about yesterday.

Beasty

Captain Havoc wrote: »

I've a long one coming

Please Captain, spare us this level of detail ...:D

Captain Havoc

Get on ferry all is good, it's a pleasant crossing, watched Little Fockers in the cinema, plenty of little fockers running around the boat also. Had full Irish on the boat. Arrived into Cherbourg on time at 11h00. Pulled up outside the port did some readjustments and hit the road. The sun is shinning, I pull out my map to see where I'm going, this cute French lady sees me and asks where I'm looking for, I resist the overwhelming urge to say something witty that would get me a slap and I tell her where I am actually looking for, she tells me but I don't find where she's on about, I do find that bastarding hill that leads to the national road, so I decide to take an alternative routing at a casual pace. After casually cycling for a short period, I see signposts for where I want to go, la Glacerie and then Valognes. The route I originally planned was Valognes, Carentan, St. Lo, Vire and Flers, I decided I didn't want to go to Carentan again so I headed towards Periers instead. Coming out of Valognes, I'm going towards national road again I make a turn and hit a piece of road that probably hasn't been done up since before D-Day. I go on a bit, I pass a German cemetary and about 5-10kms down the road it starts to rain, I have to untie my bag and get my jacket which takes ages with all the opening straps and that, further on and it's bucketing down. I stop for water and a sandwich in Periers, I keep going through the horendous rain, through Coutances, after which it lets up for a bit, as in a bit as I'm climbing some hill, I take off my jacket and five minutes later it's back on again. After another heavy section of rain, it stops coming out of Vire. I'm going up a hill when suddenly I feel my rear gear lever loose, ah nuts. It slips off, I put the chain back on and decide to continue in the small ring, I eventually get annoyed at going so slow and move into the middle ring, which makes the chain at the back come out. I pull hard on the cable and push in the derailleur but I can only get it on the small cog. Another couple of kms up the road and it's gone again, I push the derailleur in, accidently push the cable out of the barrel adjuster but notice that derailleur is staying in place, I don't touch it, turn the bike over and head on. I get to Flers just as night is falling, it's ten and a half hours since I started my timer, I feel like complete carp, I go to the hotel address I saved in my phone but there's no hotel, thankfully I remembered seeing a sign for the hotel outside the town and head the direction on it. I get to the hotel and the machine asks me to insert the credit card I made the reservation with, it tells I don't have one, there's also a sign on the door saying the hotel is full, rage is building, I get my reservation number, tap it in and the relief when I finally get to the room. The wifi isn't working but after a laborous 180kms, I couldn't care, I buy a can of coke, chocky biscuits, sponge cake, fruit cake and a hot chocolate and fall directly to sleep.

Captain Havoc

Woke up around 8h30, couldn't leave early as I needed to buy cable, cutters and a spanner for my freehub, which is loose. Yesterday, I bought a cassette tool to try and tighten the cassette but that wasn't the problem (I would have investigated first but I was wet and just assumed). Instead of a spanner I bought a multitool with various sized yokes on it. The tightening doesn't work either and I still have rattling down there. I change the cable and I'm good to go. The route is up and down like yesterday only with good weather, frequently a few drops of rain fall and at one point it felt like the beginning of a shower but it never materialised. The wind wasn't in my favour and slowed me down a bit. I had a bit of a mickey swinging contest, I'm passing a cross road and there's and older guy there on a race bike with deep section wheels, so he catches up with me, starts chatting, wind is bad etc.... any way he helps me keep my pace up for a bit, I tell him the next town I'm going to and then he says he's taking a left, chicken. When I thought there was going to be a shower I stopped for lunch in La Ferte Mace, had a pizza and coke for a tenner which gave me back my energy. Headed onto Javron where I cycled 1km on national road and was reminded why I prefer not to take them, loads of lorries, Sille is next, there's a good bit of a climb before it, head through Conlie next and then I see the sign for the town where my hotel is, St. Saturnin, I search a wee bit for the hotel. I head and have a nice evening meal in a near by restaurant. It took me 7h30 to do 115kms which is half what I have to do tomorrow, so the finger will have to be pulled out. Alarm set for 5h25, breakfast five minutes after that and then I hope to be gone just after six.

Captain Havoc

I wrote my report on this the evening I finished it but internet crashed and I was too tired to redo it. I woke up and I started out at about 8h00 which was already an hour later than intended. The weather wasn't great and as soon as I started to roll the heavens opened, kept going. In the centre of Le Mans psssss, puncture, I changed that. I decide to skip the start point and find a point on the map where to join the tour route about 5km in. As soon as I get out of Le Mans I decide to pump up my front wheel properly, and then the back one, pssssss, puncture, I wiggled the valve too much. I decide to head to the next town which is around the corner to get some tubes. I ask a guy there and he gives me directions to a Decathlon, I can't find it but I do find a shopping centre at the edge of Le Mans and get tubes in a supermarket. Coming out of the centre, I see a sign saying the road ahead will be closed for the TdF, I follow it and end up at the MMA Arena, where the tour starts the following day. Four hours have passed, it's midday and I've 220kms of cycing ahead of me, gonna need some effort. I see a couple of groups heading off. The one huge bonus for this day is that my whole route is marked, so there'll be no searching of maps. 30kms in, I decide to stop for lunch as it's 13h30 and afterwards, there'll not be a chance of getting anything. Starter, main course, cheese, desert and coffee for €11. I met a couple of older gents there that were doing the course over two days, an hour later I catch up with them and as they're stopped, I also stop to make sure they're OK and they are. The lunch made a huge difference to and I'm starting to motor (not in the Cancellera sense :pac:). The route has a couple of hills but nothing of note, there's a couple of patches of dead road but that's it. The wind is from the side but sometimes in my face and sometimes on my back. There's plenty of nice things up for the tour, a bicycle made from bails of hay must have taken some effort. I'm getting plenty cries of, you're in the lead. At about 17h30, it becomes very evident that todays stage is over as campers with a variety of plates pass and I begin to pass parked campers, there's a kid at one who asks if I'm racing, I tell him I am and he says see you tomorrow, which I thought was cute. With about 75km to go, it's looking like I'll be late, I'm also starting to feel pain, further up and I'm in a world of my own, my legs are turning, maybe fast or maybe slow, it all feels the same, I get some haribos into me, which makes a good difference. I'm just outside Chateauroux when night falls and I put on my red lights. I find my hotel 15 and a half hours after I left with 257kms racked up. I shower, get my meal of vending machine food, write my report and crash dead, I fall asleep with my legs on the back of a chair.

Captain Havoc

Got up, cycled into Chateauroux, there's plenty of cyclists around. I find a much needed laundrette, there's aussies there, going to their first tour stage. I get close to the finish line, over pay for some food, lock the bike up and take position. I get chatting to a guy, he's following the tour for the first week, he's followed the full tour a couple of times but can't anymore with work, he always gets a place near the big screen. He's part of why the tour is a bit special, why people follow it, there's a certain ambiance, seeing different parts of France but with a familiarity. This familiarity is backed up by the joking that goes between some of the fans and some of the promotional staff, they see each other every day. I'm 215m from the end, as the day goes on the temperature rises. The screen shows the race coming in, you can hear people saying, they're here, they're there, they're outside someone's house. I get my tricolour out, doubt it'll get noticed but anyway. It's all set up for Cav, from the beginning of the day and when Farrar fell behind, it increased this even more, so no shock when he won. One thing I didn't think would happen was they would get in about quarter to six, I was sure it'd be a quick stage. I had planned to be cycling in the dark, even if the tour got in early. I somehow wanted to get to Montlucon quickly, it's 100km away. I get out of Chateauroux at 18h30, the traffic is heavy and I take advantage, for 50km the traffic is jumpy, caused by villages and a tractor, which I stay behind for 5+km. My buddy from earlier sees me and beeps, he's moving slowly so we have a bit of a chat. I pass the Leopard hotel but don't get to say hello, I'm in head down mode. The road surface is the most perfect I've ever rolled on, I'm getting fantastic speed in, making good time on any descents, if there's roads in heaven, this is how they're surfaced. I get into the Etap in Montlucon four hours after I started which is impressive, considering that includes my searching for the way out of Chateauroux and looking for the Etap, the only problem is I'm staying at the F1, so I have to go searching again. Montlucon looks like a lovely town, very old.

Coronal

Well, day one did not go so well. Not at all. The plan was to arrive in Lyon via train at around19.30 and then roll on out to the hotel. This did not happen. I arrived about 90 mins late, still with my bike to build and the hotel to find

Lyon is a hard place to get out of. Even with the aid of GPS, it took me about an hour to reach the edge of the city, still with 20 km to travel, by which time it was pretty much dark. On with the lights and I press on. After about a half hour of this, I regretted not taking my fenix with me. Especially when it started to flicker later on. I arrived at the hotel at around 23.30, totally knackered and more than a bit strung out. Not a good start.

Today went a lot better. Out early and we got a rental car and rocked on down towards Bourg d'Oisins. We parked up on the back road of l'Alpe (i've simplified this greatly. There is a village there which, along with Lyon, we have sworn to never visit again). We decided to cycle around the mountain and cheer on the participants doing the Etape. Of course, since we happened to be there with bikes, we pressed on upwards. Fortunately, we were already half way up, so there was only about 5.5 km of climbing to do. I felt a bit bad about passing the people on the climb, since I have done a lot less cycling in the last two days than they had done so far today... But oh well. I shouted encouragement at any irish jerseys I saw. Fair play to those that did it!

We're cracking on bright and early tomorrow morning to st. Jean de Maurienne, which is about 145 km or so. We should get in before the end of the tour stage, so we'll hopefully get to see some of it. Tomorrow is the first real day of my trip, so i'm looking forward to it :-)

Captain Havoc

I will get up to speed on these, it's just writting on the mobile is a pain. After my feel good effort to Montlucon, it's back to hard slogging. Todays route sees me leave the beautiful town of Montlucon, down to Vichy and onto Roanne. The day kicks off with a fairly big but gradual climb. The weather is nice but quickly changes to rain. I stop for lunch in a place that gets 10/10 for food but 0/10 for service, I'm in there for almost two hours, which has me raging as I need time. I decided to go to Vichy as I thought I'd be annoyed with myself if I didn't. Vichy is OK, wasn't overawed. Next I look at the route from Vichy to Roanne, there's a town on the way called Chatel-en-Montagne, the "montagne" part sticks out to me. The weather has changed again for my climb to good, then back to wet for the last few. The Col de la Croix du Sud is about 775m high and the decent off it is awesome with nice bends. I get into Roanne not too late for once, I find the hotel easy enough. Looking forward to one last day of cycling before I rest my tiring legs.

Captain Havoc

We've had to abandon our attempt to climb the Col de l'Iseran today, there's a thunder storm here and we've deemed it impassible. We're just at the foot of the Madeleine in Lanslebourg and we intend to cycle to Geneva tomorrow (220km)

Coronal

After a horrible first day (though a great second day at l'Alpe), the first day of proper cycling kicked off. The plan was to set off early, and roll into St. Jean de Maurienne by 4.30 to watch the stage finish. Needless to say, things did not go according to plan. Owing to extraordinary delays at the restaurant, we had to fix up the bikes the morning, then drop the van back and then get rolling for 130 km, hopping over the Col de l'Epine.

We didn't get cycling until 10, and then spent a while getting a map and faffing about with our route for the day. This was followed by some prolonged climbing, descending, climbing... We tried to stop around Lac for lunch, but the prices were a bit much, so we pushed on to the nearest town.... which turned out not to be a town and only had a church and a fouintain. Which meant we'd wated about a half hour climbing up to it, only to descend to the next place, which had great pizza.

After sitting around maybe a few mins too long, we made for the col. We arranged to head over and down at our own pace and pass through the city of Chambery to meet on the far side. This was fine. I went up in about 45 mins, then rolled down and straight through the city. Unfortunately, there were some navigation eorros which cost us a bit of time at this point. We eventually left just after 7, with 70 km to cover to the hotel. Since it gets dark at 10ish, this left us with little time for hanging around.

Fortunately, this section was all on a decent road, with a downhill slope, so we made good time, pushing over 35 km/hr for the first while. Until a one inch nail found its way into my tyre. Swap the tube, pump with CO2, pop the wheel back in, *BOOM*. New tube popped :-( swap second tube and pump by hand. Back rolling again, now losing time. We hit into team time trial mode, hammering away in the drops for the next hour or so. We decide to take it down a notch, since we had a long day, and would have a long one the next day, so we roll on for another while.

Eventually, we come along inside 20 km to the hotel and take the speed right down. We're starting to lose some daylight, so the lights go on. The road is very quiet as we're right beside the motorway, so it's not too bad. We roll in at the hotel just before 10, which is apparently when reception closes. It got dark about 15 mins later.

It was a pretty tough day all round, with a lot of climbing. The Epine was about 7-8 km long, I think, with a gradient between 8 and 10 percent for most of it. We assured ourselves that nothing could go wrong today, as it's all on the one road, then up the col d'Iseran, then down and finished. Oh hah.

Highlight of the day: pizza from a vending machine at the hotel. I kid you not. It was actually decent, too.

Lowlight: having to TTT most of the way to the hotel. Not fun.

Tomorrow's update will be just as fun as this, I promise :-D