Pau - Castelsarrasin
Smelly and tired is probably not the best way to start a day’s riding, but at least there are no mountains to climb.
Today’s stage goes through rolling fields of corn and sunflowers over six relatively small climbs and at last they have a tailwind.
Both riders are now generally fatigued and as the day wore on the joy of cycling wore off. There was some fun to be had on some of the earlier descents where the tailwind helped the boys achieve speeds of 70km per hour, but sore bottoms made the rest of the day a bit of a chore. Mick declared the entire day “pointless” as he was already missing his mountains, although how he would have felt if he had actually been presented with one remains to be seen.
Cahors is a beautiful place on the banks of the Lot which may go someway to explaining why it was so hard to find a campsite that wasn’t full. On the third attempt someone took pity on us and allowed us to park up in the carpark and use the facilities. Everone was extremely thankful as, quite frankly, we were starting to smell like one of those nuclear French farm cheeses.
By the time we had eaten, attended to the bikes and the riders’ legs it was very late and we were lulled to sleep by campsite kareoke that brought to mind Edith’s singing in “Allo Allo”.