After four days of biking with three over 100 miles, we were beginning to feel a bit "beat up" yesterday. While I had been hoping to get "sronger" as we approached the mountain sections, I am finding that we "older" people don't built muscle the same way we need as kids. Apparently, we need some rest periods between workouts for our bodies to recover and build. Climbs that seemed fairly easy on the first day were forcing us into lower and lower gears with lower and lower speeds.
Cognisant of our potential limitations, we set out yesterday with the intent to meet Gwen in Provins, about the half way point of the 116 mile stage. We then would decide how much further to go, possibly to Nepiers, about 30 miles from finish. The trip started off pleasantly with lots of rolling hills, the major climbs occurring early in the stage. We were cooking along, reaching 30 miles relatively easy, although our average speed had dropped about 2mph from the previous day. We passed through a charming little town and found a bicycle shop where Roy could pick up a couple more tubes and we both needed new cleats for our shoes, having worn them out through all the stopping and starting.
(As an aside, I would never again bring road shoes. My shimano cleats on a mountain bike shoe would have worked out so much better, wearing the shoe rubber rather then the cleat. The tour bicyclists probably stepped out of their pedals once for lunch and once at the finish line. We were finding with all the stopping and starting necessary when the route is not shut down, that we were stepping out of our pedals hundreds of times during the day. Lots of wear.)
About 10 miles further we passed through a larger village with a big "Pizza" sign out front. I suggested we try some pizza for a snack. We ate a rather large pizza, very good, felt ready to move on, but still had about 20 miles to go to Provins, and it was already about 1:30pm. We contacted Gwen, she was just arriving in Provins, and would have to wait around. She took matters into her own hand, backtracked, went right by us, she says. We never even saw her, we were most likely taking quite an interest in the tarmac directly in front of us. But, we did see her pass us, she stopped ahead, we were both glad to see her, and decided after about 50 miles, to take the rest of the day off and see Provins and Nepiers via Van. My goodness....we stayed on the tour route for the next 60 miles and it made us all so very aware of how much territory we were covering by bicycle. It seemed like an eternity, even by Van, covering the remaining mileage. I was very glad when it was over and I had not covered the distance by bicycle. Were we really covering over 100 miles each day? It now seemed impossible what we had been doing...
Again we got caught in rush hour traffic, and while we had hoped to reach Montargis by 4pm, we didn't arrive until almost 7pm. We settled into our second story lodging (hauling those suitcases up all those stairs was really something) and went looking for (you guessed it) PASTA!! And, boy, did we find it. Gwen had spaghetti bolognese, I had Lasagna. It was a ton of food, we were absolutely stuffed when we returned to our lodging. Maybe this will be like Ragbrai and I will actually gain weight while cycling these distances each day.
Cognisant of our potential limitations, we set out yesterday with the intent to meet Gwen in Provins, about the half way point of the 116 mile stage. We then would decide how much further to go, possibly to Nepiers, about 30 miles from finish. The trip started off pleasantly with lots of rolling hills, the major climbs occurring early in the stage. We were cooking along, reaching 30 miles relatively easy, although our average speed had dropped about 2mph from the previous day. We passed through a charming little town and found a bicycle shop where Roy could pick up a couple more tubes and we both needed new cleats for our shoes, having worn them out through all the stopping and starting.
(As an aside, I would never again bring road shoes. My shimano cleats on a mountain bike shoe would have worked out so much better, wearing the shoe rubber rather then the cleat. The tour bicyclists probably stepped out of their pedals once for lunch and once at the finish line. We were finding with all the stopping and starting necessary when the route is not shut down, that we were stepping out of our pedals hundreds of times during the day. Lots of wear.)
About 10 miles further we passed through a larger village with a big "Pizza" sign out front. I suggested we try some pizza for a snack. We ate a rather large pizza, very good, felt ready to move on, but still had about 20 miles to go to Provins, and it was already about 1:30pm. We contacted Gwen, she was just arriving in Provins, and would have to wait around. She took matters into her own hand, backtracked, went right by us, she says. We never even saw her, we were most likely taking quite an interest in the tarmac directly in front of us. But, we did see her pass us, she stopped ahead, we were both glad to see her, and decided after about 50 miles, to take the rest of the day off and see Provins and Nepiers via Van. My goodness....we stayed on the tour route for the next 60 miles and it made us all so very aware of how much territory we were covering by bicycle. It seemed like an eternity, even by Van, covering the remaining mileage. I was very glad when it was over and I had not covered the distance by bicycle. Were we really covering over 100 miles each day? It now seemed impossible what we had been doing...
Again we got caught in rush hour traffic, and while we had hoped to reach Montargis by 4pm, we didn't arrive until almost 7pm. We settled into our second story lodging (hauling those suitcases up all those stairs was really something) and went looking for (you guessed it) PASTA!! And, boy, did we find it. Gwen had spaghetti bolognese, I had Lasagna. It was a ton of food, we were absolutely stuffed when we returned to our lodging. Maybe this will be like Ragbrai and I will actually gain weight while cycling these distances each day.
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