Despite not staying out late at night with the scantily clad young Swiss men and women in the centre of Lausanne, it was still a rough morning.  Layton decided to go back early to get a scan (since confirmed as ok), Dik’s knee had blown up in the night so he got an early flight too. 

We split into two groups.  A friend of John Lane’s who lives in Geneva had come over to take one group on a very scenic ride through the (hilly) vineyards above Morges and Nyon.  A second group decided to take the even more scenic (and almost flat) route from Lausanne to Geneva along side the lake. 

Unsurprisingly, I was in the scenic (flat) group and we had a lovely ride along the lake.  It was slightly strange for me because all the towns like Lausanne, Morges, Nyon and Geneva all have people that I’ve seen professionally.  It turns out that the towns are lovely.  All the Swiss out in their finery in the sun, boating, promenading, just having a nice Sunday morning.

The ride was pretty flat and we took it pretty easy and finally rolled into Geneva and all met up at the Jet d’Eau.

That day was 62km and 349m of ascent (more than I expected).  Stats here: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/92081564

So we were done.  A few beers and then we all packed up our bikes and got changed on the promenade in front of the lake.  I think the Genevoise were somewhat non plussed by a bunch of hairy men in lycra stripping off in the middle of the pavement and packing away the bikes.  JJ and I drove the van back to Cambridge (getting to Cambridge at 2:30am) and everybody else flew back.

So…

Another boys cycle trip is over.  The total distance covered in 3.5 days was 551km (342.5 miles) total climbing 5898m (19,351ft) and average speed of 21.1km/h (13.1mph)  (for me: much faster for others).  19,000 calories although the Garmin’s calorie algorithm sucks.

Like every other year it was a a true joy at times.  The cycling was tough and probably tougher than many of us expected but the joy came from the camaraderie, the running jokes, the witty, funny or plain interesting conversations that one has on these trips.  I for one am willing to put up with a lot of pain on the cycling because the company is just so good.

As always thanks to John Lane for doing the routing.  Literally days and days of work goes into arranging the routes and despite my comment at the top of one of the 22% hills (“I didn’t f*cking sign up for this!”) John judged it almost perfectly.  Right at the limit of what the whole group could manage although maybe a little less challenging for the elite cyclists.  It was a huge amount of work for him and we were all grateful. 

Mick drove the van again this year and we quite literally couldn’t have done it without him so the entire group is always grateful to Mick.

And John McNeil probably should get the biggest thanks for corralling 20 rather opinionated middle aged men into a coherent group, arranging hotels, flights, meals, coffee stops etc etc.  Every year it is a logistical tour de force and we’re all happy that it’s not us that has to do it. 

Will there be another year?  Who knows.  I think after the first two days there were a lot of people who didn’t think we’d ever do it again but, the exhilaration, joy and sheer pride in having cycled 550km in three days might maybe encourage another trip.  The WAGs reading this should be extremely proud of their “worse halves”.  This was a serious physical challenge and every one of us made it.

Photos coming soon.

The best thing to say about today was that “It didn’t rain…much”.  A long long day.

We started out in two groups.  A “fast group” and “the rest”.  I was in “the rest” so can’t really comment much about the fast group.

It started badly with a big climb up some cobbles and just got worse.  We probably could have taken an easier route but we ended up going up *two* hills which at one point were 22% gradient.  Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of getting off the bike and walking (oh the shame!).  You know when things are bad when you’re walking up a hill and your heart rate is 140bpm.  It was just unpleasant and horrible.  After two of those hills and the “off road” cyclo-cross sections afterwards, the “slow group” had a bit of a mutiny and bailed out of the John Lane route which involved another hill of the same calibre.  We bought all the croissants and pain chocolats at a tiny bakery, stuffed out faces and then headed down a much easier route.  And then we ran out of water.  And food.  And motivation.

Around 140km, I lost the will to live.  There were knees popping all over the place, Achilles Tendons grumbling, sore bottoms, feet…the litany of woe just couldn’t get worse.  At least the last 50km was fairly flat and so at least it wasn’t too bad but after the brutality of the first half of the day, it just went on and on.  We stopped occasionally for

By the time we reached Lons (our stopping point), Christopher and I just bailed out because we couldn’t find the hotel.  We decided to have a beer at a local bar but sadly were accosted by the village idiot who made what should have been a quiet beer extremely unpleasant. 

So, finally made it to the hotel.  No energy to write any more.  I’m told that John, Godric and Ed managed to do all the hills without getting off (which is a huge achievement) but very few people are looking forward to another day of this. 

The stats: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/91408885

175km, 1724m of lift, average speed, 21.0km/h.  The average speed includes at least half an hour of walking!

After 190km yesterday, this was probably too hard a day (at least for the slow group).  Oh and we have the Alps to look forward to tomorrow when we go to Lausanne.  What joy.

No photos again.  No time to stop.  I’ll collate everybody’s photographs tomorrow and post a nice photo album.

Weather was bad today so we had a quiet day not doing much.  I rented the helicopter for a while and took it up for a fly.  I was surprised how much I’d forgotten about flying helicopters but also how quickly it came back.  A lot of fun.

Then the afternoon involved a cultural tour of Hazelton which is the nearest town (c 50km away!).  We drank coffee, saw the local cultural museum (which was actually pretty good!), saw some totem poles, drove back and saw a dead plane in a big hanger.  Then more pool, more red wine, more pool.  Met the local Kastle rep (called Lorraine) who arranges “Big Mountain Ski Camps” both here and in Europe.  They sound like fun so we arranged to do one of them in Europe next year.

Boy I hope the weather clears tomorrow.  However, still pretty enjoyable being here.

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