Le Tour Approaches

A reconnaissance mission on the route that Le Tour will travel tomorrow; through the Breton countryside to Rohan and Pontivy. It all started badly with me having to fix a puncture before even leaving the gîte, but all part of the cycling experience.

It was hot today, not helped by having to wear my so-called 'arm coolers', to prevent my bescabbed and healing skin getting serious sunburn to add to the roadburn. Needless to say, when the temperature reached the high 20s (OK, remember that this blog is by a someone who lives in Britain, so we are talking sweltering temperatures) anything worn over the arm has NO COOLING EFFECT WHATSOVER, unless it comes with built in rfrigeration or a private demon with acces to ice.

Along the route, the locals have been gearing up for the 'greatest live sporting event in the world' (as measured by spectator numbers along the route), and evidently, every old beaten up bike in evey garage has been turfed out and painted yellow, green, white or polka dot - and this chap holding out a spare wheel for any unfortunates who have a flat . . . only en France

We got to Pontivy, but were so knackerd we didn't even go and see the chateaux, but rather had a biere at the first place we saw. This might be somethignto do with haing to do some shopping every day and then cycle back up a bloody great hill with it - c'est la vie . . .