Expenews

Day 10

Total miles covered today: 54

Total miles covered: 779

There's something pretty cool for you waiting in the bathroom, DISCO SHOWERS...

Firstly an apology for yesterdays low quality and short post, we were all suffering from mild heat stroke.

Previously we'd been quite happy with the low end budget Formula 1 hotels, however as we got further south the lack of air conditioning became quite an issue... last night we had the worst nights sleep in living memory. Instead of cacheing our energy for the next day, Windell was up into the early hours cacheing his GPS in anticipation for another fun day of getting lost. The water was boiling in the pipes. To slake our thirst we had to resort to wringing our sweat sodden bed sheets into our dry gaping mouths (Disclaimer: Exaggeration used for illustrative purposes) nahhhhhh it was hot.

We awoke from our sweat soaked slumber, and ere the sun rose revealing that the neighbourhood cats had feasted upon Chris's spilt spaghetti from the night before as the prophecy had foretold.

As if being in full lycra with offensive tan lines wasn't enough, the early morning mist forced us to wear our sexy high vis jackets, alas they couldn't go as far as preventing team pile ups resulting in a mangled mess aluminium, carbon fibre and viscera (Disclaimer: We were al fine, Chris only suffered a gear shifter up his derriere).

We ate our breakfast in the company of ants the size of terriers, and Chris swears he heard a bear, although none was officially sighted but it was generally accepted it was a honey badger instead.

Late morning was tainted by our first puncture in France and Tom made his way through his fourth tyre, developing an unsightly bulge.

After a nearly unsightly and unexpected ride onto the motorway we decided to reroute into town which we navigated with uncharacteristic ease. Little did we know of what was to come. A brutal 2km slog led us into the foothills of the alps, with a gradient of at least 63%, even the most hardened mountain goat would have declined the challenge. We though of the Dalai Llama and Salisbury Cathedral and made it to the top in one piece, enlightened.

We videoed our final descent and ended up in our air conditioned hotel shortly after. There is no shade near the hotel as it is currently sitting roughly 2km from the surface of the sun, so we had an air con picnic indoors.

Tomorrow's hotel choice has been dramatically altered at the last minute after yesterdays awful debacle. This has led to our distance lengthening yet allows us to take the coast road appeasing Poseidon. We appeal to him to shower down upon us the rains of the great Mediterranean. We may or may not pretend to be James Bond as we cycle this historic route.

Over and out,

L2M