The day dawned surprisingly cool and cloudy, which was actually not unwelcome. The first order of business, however, was foraging for breakfast inasmuch as most (perhaps even all) of us decided that the 14 euros it would cost at the hotel was a bit pricey. And so we descended en masse to the boulangerie and emerged with croissants, quiches, and sandwiches for later in the day. Prior to setting out I noticed that yesterday's pounding had loosened my headset, so I spent a few minutes rectifying that before heading off. The initial ride wasn't bad: a full 2km of pure descent before we turned south to resume our progress towards Nice. And that wasn't too hard to take either: rolling terrain featuring long gradual climbs that yielded sweeping panoramas followed by highly enjoyable downhill runs. Just ... read more

Updated Thursday June 15 (twice, as I lost my work again!) Morning of course came far too quickly, and Day One unfolded in typical fashion: after gathering for the ceremonial photo shoot we headed off en masse in rush hour trying to figure out how to get out of the city and away from all the traffic and route-finding challenges. Unlike Robert Duvall's character in Apocalypse Now (roughly adapted) I hate the smell of diesel in the morning (I can actually taste it), and Paris being the metropolis that it is, even though we were in the suburbs it still took almost all day to consistently shed the cars. Especially in light of yesterday's long ride and sleep debt I was quite unsure of my legs, and after about 35km or so I opted to leave ... read more

And so it begins again. Unfortunately I left the camera cable in my luggage so I can't post a photo from the airport but I will at least see if I can get this post published. Updated Wednesday June 14 - the good news: I successfully uploaded a photo! The bad news: In trying to figure out how to actually insert it into my blog (which I still haven't accomplished) I somehow managed to lose my text edit. This learning process with travelblog (made even more frustrating because it's coinciding with getting used to my new chromebook) definitely sucks. But I may have enough figured out to give things a go for now. To recap quickly: I left Ottawa in a bit of a rush (my ride had arrived a few minutes early and I felt ... read more

The day started interestingly enough: when we went to check out we found that our room had already been paid for. That may have been the high point of the day. It started well enough, with a number of us (not all, unfortunately - something I didn't quite understand) posing for closing photos in our tour kits before joining the commuters through downtown Girona. Somehow for this very last day of riding I had developed a saddle sore, possibly because yesterday's delay in getting into my room left me remaining in sweaty cycling garb for a while. At any rate, following a rather easy exit from town (at least from a route-finding standpoint) I broke away from the group to ride at my own pace, enjoying the relative coolness of the morning and pausing occasionally to ... read more

I had some leg cramps during the night. Thinking perhaps that was because I hadn't had my usual post-ride pretzels the day before, this morning I salted my coffee (cafe au lait, actually - I am still not a full-fledged coffee drinker, although I'm starting to appreciate its value as a pre-ride stimulant) before heading out on what I intended to be a leisurely, knee-saving ride. Ignoring the map and navigating purely by gut feel (recall I was starting from a different hotel than most of our group) I poked around town and eventually got on route - perhaps not via the most direct itinerary (or perhaps it was?) but I got to see a bit of the town and where people lived. Today's ride started off on the busy N16 which was full of commuters, ... read more