Easter afforded me the opportunity to take the week orf and fly to Nice for some sun, sand and surf. I went with my colleague Robin and we stayed in a caravan owned by one of his friends for a week, indulging in a spot of riding while we were there. I guess you could call it reverse slumming, as we were not that close to Nice, but hey...
We picked a good week to take off, as it snowed and was generally miserable in the UK over Easter. By contrast, we enjoyed lots of sun, although it only got up to about 10°Ré, no rain at all, but some insane winds on the first few days.
The riding was amazing down there. The roads we used - even the minor ones - were generally all lovely and smooth, unlike the rutted lanes and hard surfaces we get in the UK. There was plenty of climbing as well. No real mountains, but we did get up to 700m a couple of times. And nothing really steep either: it was all 4-5% gradients, which means you can spin up them at whatever pace you want, rather than being forced to work for it.
All up in seven days, including a race at Castle Combe last Friday (I was 12th), I managed 870km with 12,000m of climbing and roughly 30 hours of riding time. I haven't done that sort of kilometrage since 1999. Dunno yet if it did me any good but it was fun and it was nice to ride in shorts for a change.
Eucalypts! Just like home...© Jeff Jones
Early on in the ride and Robin is still smiling.© Jeff Jones
Scenery© Jeff Jones
A tree above La Garde en Freinet. We didn't have to climb up this far.© Jeff Jones
Alps (you need good eyesight to spot these)© Jeff Jones
Highlights and lowlights
Radio Monaco. The best radio station we found after touching down in Nice. That isn't as good as it sounds. But when in France... Alas, we couldn't get it in our caravan in La Londe, so we listened to Robin's iPod incessantly. The alternatives aren't really worth mentioning.
The wind. On the third day, we battled for three hours into a 50km/h headwind, and after a 175km ride the previous day my legs were complaining. We turned and climbed up to the Plateau de Siou-Blanc and had the wind behind us all the way home, which was a relief. Unfortunately, we made an error towards the end and ended up riding down a deserted farm road. It suddenly stopped, so we turned around. But as I was reminiscing about the team time trial in Perth, a big gust of wind blew a shower of stones into our faces, then stopped us in our tracks and blew us off the road into the grass. That's never happened to me before. Fortunately, in the last few days the wind died down a bit so we were a bit less battered.
A shed. This marked the turnaround on a very windy day.© Jeff Jones
Robin is pleased that we have a tailwind now© Jeff Jones
Pasta. How much do I love pasta? Let me count the ways... We had it in various forms for five or six nights, broken just once by goulash. Then I had it again when I got home.
One of the many versions of pasta that we consumed© Jeff Jones
Robin enjoys the first of several sandwiches© Jeff Jones
Maps. The ones that show all the roads are good. The ones that are dated 1989 are not as good. One of the roads we were going to follow was paved in 1989, but isn't any longer. I didn't do my usual trick and follow it anyway, after Robin and I spied a group of mountain bikers gingerly picking their way along it. We upgraded to a 2004 edition map after that.
Hmm, it says 'Here Be Beasties' for this bit© Jeff Jones
Bike path. There's a path that follows the coast between Hyeres and Le Cannadel, maybe 30km long, and apart from a few missing bits, it's fantastic. It's purpose built and uses quite a bit of land and small roads, following the main road very closely.
Wheelsuckers. On one of our 'rest days' we passed a guy in the headwind who jumped on our wheels. We didn't mind for a bit, but then we turned towards home and he followed us, not offering to do a turn. There was a small climb with about 20km to go and we picked it up a bit and finally dropped him and that was it, we thought. But he must have chased pretty hard and caught us again with 5km to go, gluing himself back onto our wheels. He followed us all the way to the bloody caravan park before we left him stranded, because the road we were on didn't actually go anywhere else useful.
Good descenders. On the last day, we were descending the final hill, which is fairly technical as all of them are. We both knew it well and weren't hanging around. I heard a wooshing sound past my left ear and a biggish guy flew past me, hands on the hoods! Then he overtook Robin shortly afterwards. We were impressed as we'd passed him on the preceding climb and he didn't look as though he was in a hurry.
The road down© Jeff Jones
The mighty Col du Fourches© Jeff Jones
Are we there yet?© Jeff Jones
Electricity. It got chilly at night, with the wind and the lack of insulation, so we experimented with the heater. There was a fan heater but whenever we turned it on, it overloaded the circuit. Even with just two lights on. So we were forced to try the gas heater. This worked, but you had to put your hand on it to tell whether it was on or not, so it wasn't any use at all.
You can imagine what happened when some builders tried to run a cement mixer off one of the caravan outlets. You'd think after the third time of it cutting out, leaving the whole area without power, they would have cottoned on.
Easyjet. A delay of one and a half hours on the way out, and another hour coming home. Alas, it was the only way. And they charge you extra for each piece of baggage plus more for a bike, of course. Still, it could have been worse. We could have gone via Heathrow and got this, which of course leads me to hum this.
Racing. I did the third round of the Hardriders series today, the Severn RC event. 28.4km/260m of climbing/descent with one 2km drag. With this going through my head, I had a reasonable ride to finish 4th in 42'08, with the win going to Gavin Poupart (again) in 41'14, followed by Nik Gardiner in 41'26 and my Chippenham clubmate Ben Anstie in 41'53. Not bad, as it was a better field than the last event at Gillingham where I was third, and Gavin put 2min into me. And we won the team prize again with me, Ben and Simon Snowden. Allez Chippenham!
I had to ride back down the mountain to get this shot, so I'm including it© Jeff Jones
Tiredness has set in© Jeff Jones
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