Average speed: 17.34, Max speed: 53.54
June 7th, 2009
Today was our “rest day.” A short ride of 39km, plus the 21km from yesterday meant that we could get an early night for once.
Checkout was at 11:00 so we had to be gone by then. We were ready by 10.30 and then Chris turned up. He’d fallen asleep in a field yesterday along the way so when he rocked up with his eye’s all bloodshot and his jersey all dirty we quickly feed him some breakfast and he was good to go again.
Navigating around Montpellier was a nightmare! We got utterly and horribly lost. It was alright on one hand because we had to make up k’s from the day before but it was also frustrating because after two hours we’d managed just under 20km’s. Our day was made up with constantly asking people which way to go, looking for street signs, backtracking and getting fed up with riding.
At one stage when we got to yet another intersection and had no idea which way to go we turned around to see team Columbia Highroad behind us. They were practicing for the stage as it was a team time trial. The boys hoped on their tail and followed them and I kept the boys in sight. They were gone in a flash though so we gave up but were very thankful that they’d shown us the right was to go.
Five minutes down the road one of the team had a puncture so we ended up catching up with them anyway. Some cheeky photo’s and a few not overly well received questions later they were on the road, with the boys on their tale again. They could have taken them to, if it wasn’t for me unsure of which way to go so they chased them to the next intersection and then waited for me.
Thank god there was a highlight because in the end that 60k’s took five and a half hours, which equaled one little dehydrated lobster Marika.
We learnt from this that following the route exactly is not going to get us anywhere fast, and decided if we accidentally deviate from the route we just make sure we get back on it as soon as we can and we do the k’s for the day, there is no point spending hours making sure that every single meter is covered.
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