Our day started with a 5km climb to the Col Croix St Robert (the first col of the day), it was a lovely climb to the summit which stood at 1451m...as I arrived at the top I could see that there were two men taking the col sign down because of a car rally in a couple of days, not sure why it needed to come down but I'm sure they have their reasons! Thankfully I managed the "col photo" before it was removed. The descent from there was amazing, beautiful smooth tarmac and barely any traffic, just perfect. We cycled on over ups (some cols, some just ups) and downs. It was a hard morning in the saddle with all the climbing but a very enjoyable one
Our stop for lunch was in Marcenat, where sausage and pasta were very welcome after the morning's effort in the Restaurant de Post.
The afternoon's cycling began with a 15ish mile descent, not steep but very flowing, unfortunately we had a hellish headwind for company so much pedalling was still required. There were lots of large birds overhead, circling and hunting and eventually by seeing them a bit closer we worked out that they were kites...just beautiful, these kites were with us for all of the descent.
As we crossed the main road into Neussargues and started climbing again you could begin to see signs of a more Mediterranean climate with Cypress trees and terracotta tiled rooftops. We stopped for an afternoon brew stop with around 10 miles to go. After a quick cuppa we set off for Saint Flour, with about 3.5 miles to go I was taking up the head but the road started to feel strange. Zach then told me my rear tyre was flat. It seemed to be a slow puncture rather than an all out flat so we pumped it up in the hope that I could just roll the last 3 miles, it managed 2 of them before we gave it a final pump up to get me to the Hotel. When we arrived the puncture was very kindly fixed by Neil and Bob, for the very small price of a beer each!
Tonight we are all in the Hotel de L'Europe, there have been one or two beers drunk and burgers seemed to be the food of choice tonight! A really good day in the saddle.
https://www.strava.com/activities/363579250
Miles - 66
Ascent - 1650m
Rode with - Mostly Zach, Becky, Fran and Bob
Cols - 3 today...Col de la Croix St Robert 1451m, Col de la Chaumoune 1155m, Col de la Malmouch 1141m
Weather - Hot and sunny again,top temps of around 38 degrees
Extra interesting bits - Maryland cookies give an extra burst of energy on a climb...fact
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