Photo 10: Ben's wheels slip on the first steep hill of the day and he grinds to a halt.
Photo 11: Sunrise across the vineyards outside Epernay.
Photo 12: Dave grabbing a drink at the end of his ride.
Day 2 was supposed to be a lot easier than day 1. Shorter and a lot flatter...... with the exception of the first couple of hrs of riding out of Epernay which was supposed to have a very long steep climb followed by lots of undulating hills.
During dinner on day 1 we'd agreed that Ben would do the first ride. Feeling guilty that I'd had two rides cut a bit short on day 1 I'd offered to do it but Ben was psyched and ready for the ride so he set off. As we reached the outskirts of town and saw the hill ahead sitting it out in the van suddenly began to seem like a good move.
The hill was long and steep and just as you thought you'd made it to the top there was another steep climb. On the last climb Ben's back wheel started to skid on the leaves and he lost traction. The bike stalled and Ben had to get off and resort to pushing it up the last 100 metres.
Ben cycled on for another few miles after the steep climb. We were targetting for each rider to do 13 miles, but we decided to cut Bens short as we knew the hill would have taken a lot out of him.
I took the second ride of the day which was beautiful. The sun had come out, there were blue skies, vineyards undulating hills and the wind had dropped. The route we were taking was marked as the Champagne trail and I cycled past lots of factories with the smell of champagne oozing out. There were some steep uphill sections to test the legs out and some long downhills to get a nice breeze to cool you down again. As I approached the end of the ride I came up one last hill and ahead was an amazing sight - flat land!
I swapped with Marc and he headed out for his ride. The flat land meant he kept a good pace up and he cranked out 15 miles in 55 minutes. Dave was on next and he cranked out 15 miles in 50 minutes. The flat land was making a huge difference and was a welcome change for our tired legs. Round 1 of the day was complete.
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