Day 12

Wednesday, May 10
Condat to Chaudes Aigues
92km

Another cool but scenic day with a lot of climbing.

I started the day with a flat tire at the B&B.  Its my first of the year, and I had been wondering if I was going to make it through this entire trip without one.  Oh well.  The B&B was a very convenient place to change a tube.  And Roger has had about 9 flats so far...so I've got nothing to complain about.

Steve and the girls waited for me, so I rode with them today.  I'll likely ride with them for the rest of the trip, as we all get along well and they ride faster than anyone else up the hills.  (They also wait for me when I've got flats...which is very nice.)

It was pretty cold again today.  The news suggested 13 degrees, but it might even have been cooler.  I didn't really bring any cold weather clothing, so I had to make due wuth arm and leg warmers.  It was a challenging day to dress for anyways, since you get hot on long climbs and then cold on long decents.

The scenery was lovely again as we climbed into the snow covered mountains of the Col d'Entremont (1210m) and then the Col de Prat de Bouc (1392m), which are the points of highest elevation on our trip.  The later takes you to the base of a ski lift, wich unfortunately wasn't actually running although there were patches of snow on the grass.  The road to the top is covered with painted signs of encouragement such as "Allez Thomas Allez", from a previous Tour du France route up the climb. 

Climbing at 9km/h for 10km climbs makes for a lot of climbing, but the 10km decents were a lot of fun again.  We stopped for lunch near the top of a big climb, then enjoyed a gradual 15km decent before stopped for coffee at the next town.  Rolling along through open fields and little hamlets without pedaling at all.  Some of the other decents were much more technical, which lots of sharp turns.

With the long climbs, we easily caught up with the rest of the group, and we leapfrogged each other all afternoon.  John goes down the decents very quickly, and I enjoyed following him as it gave me some advanced warning of the turns.

We're staying in a somewhat larger town tonight, so we will probably be able to find pasta for dinner.  I'm actually not as fussed about it anymore, as the french food is generally good...although a bit expensive.