at Florac early, without breakfast and in the rain, uphill. It got slightly better when we discovered an open cafe about 5k up the road.
Getting out of the rain was nice, looked like brekkie would be croissant and coffee until the baguette man arrived - yay! Spread with butter and jam we started to feel a little better about the day ahead - 30k of climbing another mountain, this one Col de Finiels, at 1541m another monster.
But then it turned ever so slightly sour again - Simon had the sheer nerve to fill his bottles from a tap in the toilet, closely followed by me doing the same. Mdm Grumpy packed a wobbly compounded by me presenting a 100 Euro note in payment - must have been having a bad hair day...
Anyway, back to the climb, relatively easy but our rest day had left us out of our pattern and it took a good hour or so to find it, and going up hill thats hard work.
We stopped at Pont de Montvert for a cold drink as we knew the climb was about to get serious - about 700m vertical in 11k. Most of it was fine, a few sharp pinches as we slowly made our way up.
By this stage there was a cold wind blowing, but the rain had stopped and it was clearing.
Finally summited
and it was freezing! Luckily I had my merino running top, threw it on, we made quick work of a couple of spare emergency ration sausages we were carrying, and started the descent - ah, if only we really knew...
11k of fast and furious downhill later, we arrived in Le Bleymard, hoping for a late lunch. With a shrug we were told we might get a ham and cheese sandwich - in France that can be ordinary or it can be a work of art - we scored the latter
You could place that Sanger in a contest based on size alone, let alone the quality, fabulous.
We were sitting in the sun, neither of us wanting to move, when we finally called time at 3PM and moved our old and tired bodies.
Leaving the village we saw the sign saying 29k to Villefort, our destination. Mental math had us reckoning 530PM for hitting town, as we slowly got the legs moving again.
We climbed a small rise, went through some really deep gravel road works, and then, blow me down, a miracle happened. We started descending, and it just didn't stop. Peddling very briefly on the flatter bits, maybe a bit of brake in the corners, but down down down we went, k after k; watching the k markers click down every minute or two was magical.
On the way up, our slowness had allowed us to smell great lung fulls of the fields of flowers we were slowly going past. Our downhill had us gliding past chateaux and lakes with a huge grin on our faces, we were flying, the roads were smooth and quiet, cycling heaven. 10k, 15k 20k it went on and on, as we plunged to the valley floor.
We passed under a railway bridge, crossed over a bridge over a lake, turned right for the final 1.5k in to town - another lovely downhill. Superbe.
We have found a great and cheap place to stay, and all is good. Now THAT was a ride :) Oh and we did that 29k in 90 minutes - that felt nice too. :)
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Location:Place du Bosquet,Villefort,France
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