More than overdue for another post. The last couple of days, the blog has been refusing us entrance - well, that's my excuse.

The last few days have been interesting, enjoyable, occasionally frustrating and certainly educational. These pro riders are amazing athletes, to be able to reel off miles and miles at speed and over difficult terrain (hills, of course, but the quality of the roads isn't great in many parts - except in the Netherlands; have I told you that I think that it is heavenly cycling there?), and to do it day after day at speeds which we can not conceive of for more than a few miles, if that. I also think that they must have shock absorbers engineered into their bodies, for we keep encountering stretches of road that threaten to shake us and our bikes to pieces. We've also done a couple of short stretches of cobbles - the thought of riding at 25 mph over those (as the pros do) is just unimaginable.

So, Brussels to Spa was our first introduction to the rigors. Heading east for most of the day, and wouldn't you know it, the wind chose that day to blow from the east. So we fought into a brisk breeze for the whole day, riding in rolling country and along the scarp/ridge line for much of the time. Riding wasn't difficult, we often had a bike lane separated from traffic by a white line, and sometimes had a separate, but narrow lane to ourselves. The problem with the latter was that they were littered with glass - I think that Belgian drivers must have some minor sport of throwing beer bottles from their cars. Whatever, we often found it easier and safer to ride on the roads themselves and avoid the bike lanes, especially since we found that the drivers were courteous and generally deferred to cyclists. It's rather nice to have a car slow down and stay behind you until there is a clear passing opportunity, and even nicer to have drivers let you go through roundabouts before making their pass..

The highlight of the day for me was to ride on a Roman road that had been converted recently (since last year's Tour?) into a kind of bike/walking/driving trail - nice road surface and hills that you could climb without slowing too much. Dale and I have discovered that as long as the grade is below 2/3 degrees, we can drive up a hill for a fairly long while, but our speed drops suddenly and sharply once the grade gets above that. We fairly trucked along that one stretch.

As Dale has posted, we made it as far as Amay, where we spent time trying to find our hotel - I wonder what we would do without the Garmin, but even with it, it is sometimes difficult to find our way, especially in compact towns with many narrow streets. By that time, it was late in the afternoon, and it was obvious that Spa was beyond our abilities, unless we wanted to ride in the dark. When we discovered that the hotel was as delightful as it was, and there was a friendly bar down the street, we found it easy to stop for the day. The hotel manager was friendly, and he gave us a recommendation to a small restaurant where we had a very good meal.

The following day, we started in Huy (pronounced as "we") and were aiming to ride to Cambrai, a town just inside France that was a central part of the first world war hostilities, bombarded by the Canadians and occupied by the Germans for a while. And, of course, since the ride was towards the west, that's the direction from which the wind came - so we had another day riding into a stiff breeze. (Am I sounding slightly fixated about wind?) Rolling countryside all day, but with relatively few sharp rises, and we were able to register a century (108 miles all together, including wandering around at the conclusion for a place to meet Gwen and a cold beer). Cambrai, on the basis of our brief stay and limited coverage, is not a particularly attractive place, although the Chateau de la Motte Fenelon was. Built in the 1860s, with high ceilings and period decoration, it escaped the Canadian bombardments in 1919, but was captured by the Germans who used the concrete basement as shelter. In the second world war, it was pillaged by the Germans, who took a lot of the art work, etc, and after the war the chateau fell into disuse, until in 1978 the decision was taken to restore it and ultimately to convert it into a hotel. And very nice it is, with a fine restaurant.

Next morning, we started our ride from the "rough" side of town - we didn't get a very positive impression of people's friendliness on the streets, and headed for Epernay. Again rolling hills and head winds (south-westerlies this time), but again managed more than 100 miles for the day. Lovely ride, passing through what we had imagined would be picturesque Belgian villages, but they turned out to resemble ghost towns - old houses, many modernized but seemingly the villages were without people. And none of them appeared to have any stores, let alone cafes where we could get something to eat (we are reliant on energy bars all too often). As we rode towards what on the map appeared to be a slightly larger town in Liesse Notre Dame, Dale said "I could really go for a bowl of chili about now". I scoffed about his chances of finding that. As we rode into town, I suddenly decided to go right instead of left, rode into a little square, and lo and behold, there is a bar and cafe. And, miracle: the "plat du jour" was chili con carne. After a very large bowl of chili, we got on our bikes with renewed vigor. My first puncture - a sliver of glass through the tire, but it took only a few minutes for us to fit a new tube - thanks, Dale, for the help, and we now know Dale has a better pump than I do.

We hit Reims in rush hour (where we encountered the first unfriendly drivers, who made our lives a little more uncomfortable - must have been a bad day in the office), and decided to push onto towards Epernay, so that Gwen didn't have to fight traffic. But a couple of miles south of Reims, Dale's rear tire suffered an "embolism", and that was the end of the day's ride. We found a roundabout, with a McDonalds (Dale went hunting for a milk shake, returned with a sundae, bummed out that they no longer sell shakes), and were picked up by the SAG wagon again. But a second successive century day, and one that didn't seem to have killed our legs. Epernay is champagne central, with a central town area where all the big producers have their "factoires". After staying in these quaint and beautiful chateaux, we had our first encounter with a modern hotel - a Comfort Suites that occupied a couple of floors of an extensive modern building that seemed to have a number of other hotels in it also. But we didn't get a chance to do much sightseeing, given the time we arrived, although Dale and I did drive around after dark searching for our hotel after a Chinese meal, and I can relate that there are a lot of streets and not many street signs, particularly visible ones after dark.

The following morning, an earlier start from Epernay, heading south towards Montargis, and the discovery that my legs were feeling the effects of the past centuries. And we soon settled into climbing steeper and longer hills than the previous stages had provided. Again, rolling country - "are we in Iowa yet?" has been a regular comment of the past few days, and pretty, acres of oats and mustard extending to the horizon as we rode into Ile de France. In previous days, the ride was a bit like going through Kansas, except that it was potato fields rather than corn waving (if that is the right word for potatoes) in the breeze. We knew that it would be a stretch for us to do another century - and Montargis was considerably further from Epernay than that, so we rode to Provins, and Gwen picked us up for the final miles into Montargis. This morning, I felt bad that we had not been able to do more miles yesterday, because I was sure that the hills we had climbed would not be steep/long enough to be classified by the Tour. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised to find out this morning that the climbs were rated 4th and 5th category climbs, so at least we know that we can manage those. It's those 1st and 2nd categories that we will be worrying about after the weekend.

So, last night, we stayed in this little hotel (La cloche de Briare Canal), which is in the centre of town in the Place de la Republique. An old building, but with modernized bedrooms and a hard wire internet connection (every place we have stayed to date has wireless for free), and what appears to be an excellent restaurant. Last night, we had a very good dinner in a local bistro in the square, and slept late. This morning, we visited the little farmers market in the square, and we check out by mid-day to do some riding, as long as the rain stays away.

So time to check out.