Day 6 Brive Ussac – Cahors - Rogue Mechanics and Mountain Towns In all the hill climbing that we went through yesterday, I neglected to mention a couple of important mechanical issues which happened. On one of the brief, flatter moments of yesterday, the cogs below Owen’s back wheel gears sheared off. Thanks must go to Ryan for letting us use his bike as a replacement. Guy also managed to snap a spoke – making the wheel wobble when it shouldn’t. Thankfully, spares were on hand to keep everyone on the road – a particularly large thanks goes to Saf and Mark for getting us the necessary supplies during the day!!! Today, on one of our shorter days, I was put in charge of the navigation again. I’ll be honest and admit I did make a couple of mistakes… nearly taking us onto a motorway within the first mile of the morning, and accidently adding 7 miles onto the day via a detour, before our first checkpoint. The weather warmed up and the hills kept coming. We stopped for regular water drenches and we were all feeling better about the day than the one we had the previous one – despite the pretty horrendous hills. Owen remarking at after one particular beast “Who the hell would want to live at the top of that hill?!” The mechanics though, didn’t get better; Jonnie’s tyre blew out – initially patched with ducktape before replacing the whole thing. Liebs got a thorn wedged in his tyre, but decided to pull it out before the hill - causing a lactic acid build up for the last hill climb of the day. Compared to yesterday, it was as if we were on holiday. The climbs were less (but on significantly longer roads – +5000ft for the day), and the downhill’s were long and with beautiful scenery. Day 6 is done, and we’re looking much closer to Barcelona than we are to London! :D
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 19:13:40 +0000