Sunday 11 May 2014

Day 1 & Day 2

Apologies for the delay in blogging. I've been hungover and cycling, mostly at the same time. Who says men can't multi task? It turns out a 13 hour drinking session wasn't the best thing to do before day 1 of the big event, but it's better to regret something you did than didn't do, especially when there's booze involved.

Day 1 started with some fairly savage hangovers, and fairly early. The day started with a rather chilly but beautiful descent down from the Alps. All was going well until Max, careered into the back of me. Apparently this was my fault for not shouting 'slowing down', rather than his for not looking at what was in front of him. The collision caused a broken spoke on Max's bike, rather than to me or my bike thankfully. A quick pit-stop to get the spoke mended at a nearby bike shop meant we weren't delayed too much. The pace after our stop was very fast, and we got to Montreux for lunch early 12 noon. Shortly before lunch some members of the group broke into a closed swimming pool complex and then jumped into lake Geneva off a 7m diving board. I'm told it was very cold. I guarded the bikes and took photos.

The second half of day one was more hilly. Ryan's knee was giving him trouble, but he accidently took 800mg of ibuprofen not realising they were double the strength of the normal dose. Complaints about his knee pain soon stopped. We arrived at out destination: La Sarraz at around 4:30, several biere normales soon followed. Names were drawn out of a hat for who was sharing with who that night. Joe was sharing with Amsterdam's number one snorer Max. Ryan with Jonny, and I got Paddy. Everyone was delighted with the result with the exception of Joe who looked livid, especially because he also had to share a double bed with him and the rest of us got twin rooms.

Dinner was tres bien. We were in bed by 8pm due to extreme fatigue. We even managed to sleep through the terrible Kareoke night that was going on in the hotel bar.

Click here for the map and stats for day 1


Day 2

How is it possible to sleep for 11 hours, and still feel absolutely knackered the next morning? Breakfast was OK, the mademoiselle that served the breakfast was tres magnifique. The day's cycling started well, a good steady pace, but it did get a little bit cold. A nice lunch in Levier followed by coffee in the local cafe warmed us up. We hit an awful thunderstorm shortly after lunch. It started hailing, just as Jonny said 'the hailstorm looks like it's going', it starting hailing harder than I've ever seen it hail before. It actually hurt. We quickly dashed for a nearby church and huddled for warmth. The hailstorm started to subside, then Ryan farted, so we quickly got on the bikes and continued.

Most of the group were absolutely drenched, and very cold at this point, so we were incredible pleased to see some decent sized hills to cycle, up to warm us up a bit. The sun then came out, and we had a much more pleasant ride into our destination; Besançon. Now hitting the pubs and clubs. See you on the Flipside mes amis.

Click here for the map and stats for day 2

2 comments:

  1. Didn't you have spoke shenanigans on the last Long Way tour, if I remember.
    Still, it sounds like the approved approach to cycling hydration and fuelling is par for the course. :-)

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  2. Love it. Sounds like a blast of ice and farts and ibuprofen.

    ReplyDelete