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Published: June 28th 2017
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This entry by Tom.
The Studi-Hotel in Les Salles-sur-Verdon serves up a very decent breakfast starting at 7:30am, so I loaded up. After packing up and bringing the bikes down, Caroline sat down to breakfast with Donna and Luce and we planned our day.
There was a substantial climb right off the bat to the top of the south rim of the Gorges du Verdon so we figured getting Caroline up to Col d’Illoire at 900+ m elevation and starting there was the way to go. I headed off and eventually so did the ladies in the van; they passed me a bit before I reached Aiguines.
At Col d’Illoire there was still about 200 m of uphill so I suggested that the ladies in the van keep going for about another 3 km. I kept at it on the bike and the van passed me again...and then one more time going back…? When I got to where Caroline was dropped off, Carole was there taking photos at a lookout point (she got a few of us there while she was at it) but Caroline’s helmet was not--it was forgotten back at Col d’Illoire, so the ladies in the van went back to fetch it.
Reunited with her lid, Caroline and I were off to try and make it to the finish in Draguignan, or as close as we could. First order of business was about 50 m of climbing and it was a bit steep so we walked most of it. Not a big deal; the rest of the day was a significant net downhill.
When the downhill started it was also steep at first so we took it slow and safe. Stopped a few times until we made it to the hotel on the edge of the canyon where we stopped one more time. The roads are twisty and often sloping up or down but we kept picking away at it. The views were invariably spectacular, as they are the gorge.
It was a struggle by the time we made it to the tunnels de Fayat and on the climb after crossing the Pont de l’Artuby to the Balcons de la Mescla we started alternating walking and riding. But we made it! After that it was an easy run-out to Comps-sur-Artuby.
It was past 1:30pm so we followed two hot-shot cyclists who passed us just before Comps to a café in town. They had a beer each before taking off; we stayed for lunch, splitting a burger(!) platter (salad and fries). Got our bike bottles filled with cold water from the bar taps before moving on.
Except for a few short climbs, it was downhill--usually seriously downhill--past the military base, where we heard some artillery fire off in the distance, to Montferrat and then the turn-off towards Châteaudouble and Ampus. D955 along the gorges du Châteaudouble is still closed, likely forever by now. Caroline’s descending isn’t what it could be so this took a while.
At Châteaudouble, after about 55 hard kilometres and faced with another climb, plus it was now after 4pm, Caroline packed in and called for a pick-up. I waited with her until the van came. That was a tough slog but she kept at it for quite a while, and now is only about 25 km short of covering 500 km for the trip. That won’t be a problem tomorrow.
The roads (narrow but smooth) and the views (pretty darn good) up to Ampus and the Col du Grange were how I remember them from the last time I was here, and so was the twisty descent into Draguignan. There was no problem reaching the hotel despite a serious stretch of road construction in the city.
Walked through the front door of Hotel Victoria where I saw the hotel manager, who directed me to a storage room for my bike, and the dogs who I thought were Grace and Whiskey. It turns out, though, that Grace has passed on and the black dog I saw was Victor. But Whiskey is still around; we’re told that he’s 13 now. Five years is a long time for dogs.
After cleaning up we were out on the street looking for dinner, but not that hard because we just wanted something simple. After popping into a small grocery for a cold bottle of Coke, we spotted a shawarma-type sandwich shop, and then we spotted Dan and Don there. Dan’s sandwich looked pretty good so we ordered two, with fries, and enjoyed them on the table and chairs out front on the sidewalk while we watched the peculiar street life pass by around us.
Went more or less directly back to the hotel for an earlier-than-usual end to a long day on the road.
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