Day Un: Turn that damned thing off

I'm sitting in the bar of the Gite we are staying in, enjoying a lovely cold 1664, staring up at Puy de Dome, at 1465 m the highest thing around here - but there are lots of high things. I know this because today we rode up a lot of them - some more than once...

Remember the GPS unit on Simons bike? You can programme it to avoid busy roads, and also to find more scenic routes. The problem comes when you lose signal and it goes squishy.

We left the station at Clermont Ferrand at about 2PM. The recommended route to Laschamp, our selected evening stop is 16.5k. Thats it.

But if you rely on a GPS that has no common sense, triple that, plus hills. Incredibly quiet roads, very pretty but hilly oh so hilly. I ran out of water with an hour to go, very dehydrated but beer will help :)

We passed through some lovely little villages, one including the original communal washing area:



And the usual suspects you would see in any small French village












And, just like England, even tiny little villages have large WW1 memorials


This tiny little village, Orcines, had over 100 dead listed from battles such as the Somme.

Time for dinner soon and an early night I suspect.

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Location:Rue Montlosier,Mont-Dore,France