After breakfast we head out of Joinville into the first section of hills, our prelude to tomorrow’s mountains. It feels great to be out of the industrial regions and into “Heidi countryside”, picturesque valleys with old stone farm buildings and cows. Our first rendezvous and we find that Germay once hosted a stage of the Tour de France, this makes us all feel like Championship cyclists (yesterday a group of French cyclists passed us by to which Bob P-D made the comment that they were the first proper cyclists we had seen – what are we then Bob? A Freudian slip i believe). The amusement for the rest of the morning came in the shape of Oliie’s strap-on?!? He gaffer-tapped a camera to his handlebars and cycled after us taking photos – amazingly some of them were in focus with the target in frame. Another problem we have been encountering is the French detour. Not to be deterred we figured we could just carry our bikes over the little trench the workers had made and cycled to the barrier. Derek commented that it was unlikely that there was a bomb crater in the road – well, that’s just tempting fate isn’t it. The bridge was gone and we had to carry our bike down one side of an embankment and up the other side. We figured it was lucky that it was Saturday or else the French workmen wouldn’t have been too impressed.
After lunch, Derek and Ollie went off on a little adventure (neither is noted to have a particularly astute internal compass) and ended up missing the rendezvous and travelling straight to Epinal. Following the D166 their route took them to the motorway (Ollie’s favourite) but luckily a marshall from a cycling timetrail showed them the cycle path that took them unmolested (figuratively) to Epinal. Many thanks to that man (we have found the French particularly accommodating). The other guys followed the country lanes to Epinal through more beautiful scenery, even if some of the roads would have been better travelled by mountain bikes (the MTB guys are getting twitchy as we see the mountains in the background – “roads are boring” seems to be the consensus in the Challenger 3 (Derek, Stu and Mark)).
Accommodation is Spartan but we are joined by a group of the timetrialists so the Premier Class hotel feels a little bit like an Olympic village (ok, a tiny bit). A dinner of grilled meat and off to bed we go. The mountain awaits.
After lunch, Derek and Ollie went off on a little adventure (neither is noted to have a particularly astute internal compass) and ended up missing the rendezvous and travelling straight to Epinal. Following the D166 their route took them to the motorway (Ollie’s favourite) but luckily a marshall from a cycling timetrail showed them the cycle path that took them unmolested (figuratively) to Epinal. Many thanks to that man (we have found the French particularly accommodating). The other guys followed the country lanes to Epinal through more beautiful scenery, even if some of the roads would have been better travelled by mountain bikes (the MTB guys are getting twitchy as we see the mountains in the background – “roads are boring” seems to be the consensus in the Challenger 3 (Derek, Stu and Mark)).
Accommodation is Spartan but we are joined by a group of the timetrialists so the Premier Class hotel feels a little bit like an Olympic village (ok, a tiny bit). A dinner of grilled meat and off to bed we go. The mountain awaits.
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