Day 3 - continued

Photo 18: One of the small French villages we passed through on day three.

Photo 19: Dave completes another leg of the final day.

Photo 20: The Deportation Memorial overlooking the Natzwiller-Struthof concentration camp near Natzwiller

Photo 21: The Beach Party Stall set-up for lunch and drinks at 100 miles!

Photo 22: Dave and Marc on the beach at 700m!

As we started the third round we were already passed the 51 mile mark for the day. The prize for the first hill of the day was to go to me. It was just a small summit at 483m and it seemed to go pretty quickly and I then had a long downhill to take me to 5 miles. As we were getting closer to the mountains we decided to shorten the ride time again to keep people fresh so we'd dropped into rounds of 5 miles.

Marc had the next leg and he carried on through a village and down a hill so fast we thought we'd missed him. We stopped after 7 miles and started Dave off and then carried on down the hill to find somewhere to turn so we could go back and see if Marc had been confused by the yellow arrow for the market in the last town. Just as we were about to turn around we spotted Marc going round a bend up ahead. We caught up with him and loaded his bike in the van just as Dave came shooting down the hill.

Ben finished that round off just as we came into the first steep climb to a summit of 787m. I took the first turn up the hill and the aches of the morning had disappeared from the legs and I was able to power up the hill by picking a cyclist up ahead of me and then pushing to pass him. Some of the riders were having to get off and walk and a lot were standing out of their saddle pedalling hard. I was able to push passed 6 or 7 riders comforted by the knowledge that we'd agreed just before the mountains to cut the ride time down to 1 mile stints while we were doing the steep uphill climb.

With this tactic we were able to keep a good pace going and keep up with all the other teams.

Marc did the next 1 mile push then Dave and at that point we reached the top and Dave steamed down a long downhill from the summit reaching a new personal top speed on his bike of 36.5 mph.

Ben pedalled through the next villages and took us up the start of the next climb. I followed Ben then Marc and Dave. This climb went up to our highest peak at 1015m and was another long, hard and very steep climb. We followed the same principle doing 1 mile stints each and then swapping riders. This worked really well until it was Dave's turn. Dave's ride took him passed the only German concentration camp on French soil and there was a sign approaching it telling everyone that the area had been designated an area of silence and a monument from which you could see the old camp buildings (photo 20). Maybe we got distracted by the sign but somehow we passed Dave on the road and as we got to 3 miles we stopped in the next layby and tried to ring his cellphone. We eventually got through and Dave told us he had seen us go passed and assumed we had seen him. We set Ben off on his bike and started driving back down the hill to find Dave and check he was ok. Dave was actually only a couple of hundred meters down the road so we were able to find him quickly. Finding a turning spot to go back up again to get him was a little more difficult.

From where Ben had set off there was a short climb to the top. After that there was a long, long downhill stretch. Ben had switched to his moutain bike for this leg and he sped down at 35 mph keeping up with the road bikes.

At the bottom of the hill we reached the 100 mile mark and one of the teams had paid for a stall to be erected serving drinks and sandwiches! (photo 21 and 22) It was a welcome break, unfortunately Ben had already left by the time we arrived so Dave, Marc and I had a quick drink and bite to eat then we headed off to find Ben.

Ben had completed another little summit then had another long run down to the valley. We caught him on the run down the hill and at the bottom he was grinning from ear to ear and just wanted to go back up and do it again.

We had just 36 miles left now and one more big climb. We were getting close!