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Published: March 19th 2018
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leaving-menton
You know what's coming. The day did not start well, as our hotel proprietor - who had cheerily encouraged pre-paying for both rooms and breakfast yesterday afternoon - proved both grouchy and stingy in providing anything approaching sustenance for today's relatively brief journey; he positively bristled when we deigned to ask for refills on orange juice (this was the first non-buffet breakfast we encountered), and rebuked an inquiry about the availability of cheese by retorting 'there is no cheese - this is a Frenchbreakfast!' Definitely not worth the 7 euros he had extorted.
But this was our final riding day and we were not to be swayed from enjoying ourselves. There were several options for getting to Nice, and I chose to go inland over the Col de la Madone, although following the coast - even if it was heavily trafficked - also had some appeal. Leaving Menton I saw the mountain looming above and instinctively knew that was where my route would lead.
Naturally the road soon tilted upwards and the view along the coast increased as the town disappeared below. ] Since our cue sheets mentioned
beneath-the-high-road
Must've been one helluva construction project to watch,. St Agnes most of us assumed we were to pass through town, which proved to be incorrect. But since I had already made the unnecessary climb I chose to wander through the staircases of this roadless village, wondering just who the hell lived there.
We then dropped back down to the main road, made the hairpin turn that had previously eluded our view, and resumed climbing. The road turned away from the coast before yielding the Final Col, after which I lazily tried to extend my journey and to avoid the inevitable by stopping several times for photos on the descent. But then it was back down and into traffic that grew heavier and heavier as we plunged further into Nice.
After some difficulty with directions I ultimately just followed my instinct and soon enough found myself at our hotel. The big bucks we forked out for the rooms (they even charged us for bicycle parking!) yielded easily the best shower of the trip, but I missed the deliciously hard water and tranquility of the mountains. While others prepared their bikes I scouted my route to the airport before joining them for a last meal.
Early the
next morning I was off to the airport (although not without some drama first: I got a door handle wedged in my wheel when I tried to exit the parking area, and as I was trying to extricate it the lights timed out, leaving me stuck on a staircase in the dark, with one hand holding the bike and the other struggling to keep the door open. I started to get tense before deciding how silly the situation was).
Once at the airport I gleefully claimed EFI status (using only standard compact gearing), prepped the bike for its flight, and climbed aboard the big metal tube that would be home for the next 8 hours.
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