The odd-ball pair 😃

I dunno, Steve and his drinking...😃









Now we are in the heart of a cycling honeypot it is more clear than ever that people, particularly other cyclists, view us as a bit of a novelty act. You can count the other loaded tandems we have seen on the fingers of, let me think about this, no hands! We have seen precisely two other tandems: one descending Ventoux and one on D'Aubisque - both of these were bare with hardly a spare tube never mind a pile of overnight luggage like ours. The cyclists coming down whatever hill we are puffing and panting up seem to like to shout something along the lines of "allez, allez, allez" as they whiz past on their way down. They don't do this for ascending solo bikes. Earlier today we passed a bloke on a climb and he said something in French - Steve thought it was something to do with packhorses. Incidentally, how it is that two oldies on a loaded tandem can pass someone on a bare road bike (fancy carbon Wilier on this occasion) on a climb is completely beyond me. It doesn't happen often but this wasn't the first time.

Today we set ourselves two significant challenges in the shape of the Col D'Izoard this morning and then the Col Du Galibier in the heat of this afternoon. Neither seemed too bad to be honest - both are fine cols which I shall strive to repeat before I am too old and decrepit to swing a leg over a bike 😃.

We are resting up at Valloire tonight (betwixt the Galibier and the Telegraphe). Our plan was to get a new tyre for the bike but the shop here didn't have a single 700c28 tyre in stock (in fact I don't think they had any 700 tyres at all). Never mind, we are told there is another shop just down the valley - fingers crossed.

These last few days we have heard the whistle of the marmot quite a lot in the higher places. This afternoon there were, what I can only describe as a 'stack' of eagles, (not sure what type?) riding the thermals near the top of the Galibier.

Today we have pedalled 117km and climbed 2684m (it is pretty hilly around here).

Stop Press: Having typed all that stuff about other tandems at lunchtime we saw s couple descending the Galibier on a tandem this afternoon - they even had one small pannier 😞.



www.justgiving.com/fundraising/100-cols-for-cancer