Twin Towns Challenge – Day 2 009-07-26  

Day one pictures now posted – apologies for the delay.

We boarded the ferry in Portsmouth close to 11pm on Saturday night, the objective, for us all, was to get to sleep as quick as possible – docking time in Caen was scheduled to be 6.30am and we were told that we would be woken 2hrs before docking!!  We all made mad scrambles for the best bunks – most of us were in shoe cupboard sized 4 bed rooms and as far as I know, most of us were asleep before our heads hit the pillows!  Of course there are always exceptions – especially when the bar is open!

Fortunately we weren’t woken 2hrs before arrival – actually, it was 30 mins before arrival, leaving us 30 mins to dress and breakfast and get off the ferry.  By 7.30 we were rolling but by 7.32, we were already lost – 3 laps of Caen later and after walking across a busy dual carriageway, carrying our bikes over the barriers in the central reservation, we were on our way to the famous Pegasus bridge, site of the famous WW2 Allied victory.

Although the sun was out, the temperature meant that jackets and arm warmers were order of the day.  Our route today took us through some beautiful villages including Falaise and Fresnay sur Sarthe.

On paper, today’s route didn’t look too difficult but unfortunately, paper doesn’t always present the reality – as was the case today, today was full of rolling hills! By 9.30am, the jackets were off and the sun did its best to grind us down. We don’t know the actual temp but estimates were high 20’s (28?).

The support crew did a stirling job and lunch was superb – great view, great baguettes but they did let the side down when they decided to leave us stranded, without water – as they were simply, dying for an ice-cream!!  They even took pictures of themselves gorging on the stuff so they could show us later in the evening!

We rolled into Le Mans, famous for its 24hr motor race after 7hrs and 30mins of actual riding, covering 174km/108miles.  Special mention to Jaime, riding his longest ever distance, he was also in the bar until 2.30am!!!

Everyone tucked into their Rego (post ride recovery drink) and then quickly swapped drinks for cool Kronenbourg whilst watching our hero Mark Cavendish win his sixth and the final stage of the Tour De France.  Fred did his usual job of beating us up, sorry, massaging our tired limbs in a conference room by the hotel reception – the screams could be heard over the Tour commentary!

The hotel couldn’t cope with preparing our team meal so it was a short walk to a great local restaurant where huge salads, steak and chips and crème brule or profiteroles were the order of the day washed down with medicinal beer and wine.

Breakfast is scheduled for 7am tmrw and departure is 8am.  (177km/110miles tmrw as we head to Poitier.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 26th, 2009 at 8:36 pm by wayneb and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.