events

I'd stopped at Sauxillange and bought some more fruit and four little pots of semolina, my new favourite snackette but then began the first long climb of the day.  It was going to be up to 1050m to get to St Germain-l'Herm and the tarmac was the thick sticky stuff where even on the very few short downhill sections you had to peddle.

It was also the area where there were a lot of cyclists on holiday to do the Etape du Tour, all of whom came barrelling past me on their super-light carbon steeds.  I was thinking of trying to persuade one of them that the best training is resistance against a weight and I was willing, for their greater good, to let them push me up this neverending damn hill.  Trouble was they were going by too fast for me to successfully sell the idea.

Got passed here by three english guy's, one on a bike and two on a tandem, both going like the clappers.  We stopped at a small bar/restaurant at the top of the hill just in the village, owned by an english guy and a woman who I thought might be german or dutch perhaps.  They stopped for refreshment, I stopped because I could.  I refilled my water pouch and was off again.

Another drink/food stop, a pretty place to eat semolina pudding I must say.

It would take me 3 hours to final hoist my'self up to St Germain l'Herm and then, just after it there was a 25km steep descent.  Lots of fun but I couldn't help think of the damn height I was losing since I knew that my next destination, La Chaise Dieu, was also at the same height, 1050m.  Still, don't think about the road to come, just enjoy the moment; that's the way to do it, to quote Sootie, or was it Sweep?

Finally, La Chaise Dieu, although the second climb to 1050m wasn't so tough as the first one to St Germain l'Herm.  From here I remember it as being a gentle descent to Allègre.  I was wrong.  It was much further, with a few climbs to boot, on a busier main road to Sambadel.  Then from there it was a shorter distance, largely descent.  I'd done from Chaise Dieu to Sambadel a couple of years previously, and camped at Sambadel Gare, my memory had shortened the distance.