Jason, now known as the Armenian Bullet, has joined the trip and was thrown in at the deep end. First couple of days were spent climbing from Antibes up through the Gorges du Loup and Verdon through Provence. Stunning riding and beautiful scenery. Remember the car chase round the mountain roads in the opening scenes of Goldeneye? We cycled it. Photos really don't do justice to the vistas we we treated to.
And Jason came off his bike. Twice. Both were minor, fairly stationary stacks. And unfortunately neither Cheeks or I were able to get either episode caught on camera. Unharmed and enthusiasm undimmed, the Armenian Bullet continued to live up to his name, on the downhills at least.
We had our first donation on the move too as we were finding our way out of Antibes, with an English couple shoving €5 into Cheeks outstretched hand as they overtook. Awesome.
That was only the start of a good run of on-tour donations. Firstly, as we stopped for a hot chocolate in St Remy, we were approached by Kenny from Inverness who had a similar experience of his father being cared for in a hospice. As we set off, he gave us €50 towards our target.
And then in Arles towards the end of the day, a Canadian and an American couple both donated after chatting to us and hearing the story about Dad and why we are doing this. The kindness of complete strangers continues to amaze me.
St Remy was also notable for us Jason getting lost. With pannier management causing all sorts of problems, he fell behind and took a wrong turn. There followed a steam of frantic texting and phone calls to get on to the right road. Eventually, having gone into the back of a car that stopped suddenly (definitely the driver's fault but we won't mention that J was looking at the GPS on his phone at the time) he crested the top of the hill, just as I was about to instigate an international search and rescue operation.
We then had a glorious ride through the farmland national park to a campsite in St Giles as the sun was setting across endless fields of barley. I wonder if i can get any more Sting songs into this blog post...
And Jason had his third stack after failing to get his feet out if the clips before stopping. His panniers are taking a real pasting. He blames me for stopping too quickly and the video evidence is being scrutinised by the tour committee. Cheeks caught it all on camera. Brilliant. But the funniest thing about it was whilst J was lying prostrate in the bushes contemplating appropriate braking distance between bikes, a car of four equally swarthy lads pulled up looking like the local mafia. They happened to be Armenian. In France, on quiet country back roads. They spotted Jason's Armenian flag is still fluttering resolutely from his upturned bike. What are the chances of that? I mean, I've never met an Armenian in my life, and probably wont meet another one. Are the actually any more? Anyway, this bizarre meeting was more than enough to get our bruised but wonderfully colour coordinated hero off his feet and launching into the strangest attempt at a Armenian/English/French conversation. No one really understood a word butane thing, but it was very amusing to watch.
And with bikes, panniers and cyclists just about in one piece, we rolled into the campsite at St Gilles.
The final day, Saturday was a cruise through the Caramgue region along the coast. Some lovely flat coastal cycling enabling us to cover good ground, mixed in with some rather less than ideal hurtling down main roads. Avoiding the endless glass on the hard shoulders/bike paths and the traffic in the road became a little bit too hectic. Especially when one of Jason's panniers comes off and bounced along the dual carriageway. This started a bizarre 10 minutes which ended with Cheeks having his first stack of the whole trip, just as he approached the road sign to 'Palavas'. It summed it all up perfectly!
Again, panniers took the hit so thankfully no lasting damage done. And with energy draining after 120k, we cruised in to the beach town of Agde where we have camped up to have a rest day. And it just happens to be in a nudist colony. Brilliant.
Considering our state of disarray, uncleanliness and general raggedness, if most of France won't allow us in pools without wearing speedos due to 'hygine' issues, I can't imagine they'd want 3 bedraggled hairy bikers muddying their pristine waters.
So, stats for Jason's first four days on the tour:
4 days
3 stationary/barely moving stacks
1 incident with a car (went into back of)
1 pannier found bouncing down a motorway
4 fellow Armenians brothers/mafia
1 croq (shoe) lost, probably forlornly sitting on the side of the road to Palavas
All told, a cracking four days. And we are a couple of days away from Spain. Can't wait.
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