Living it up in Lyon

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First and only rest day of the tour gives us the opportunity to write our first and only blog entry of the trip. Until now we've been out in the sticks cycling from dawn till dusk averaging around 80 miles a day (650 total), and with the weather being so good (but the wind strong and relentless) we decided to just do the twenty or so miles from our campsite in Anse into central Lyon. So today we've spent the afternoon wandering up and down the city and trying our best to recoup spent calories.

As you might guess from where we are progress has been good, but at a price. Paresh has a sore derriere, Marie has got a sore derriere, Fran has got a sore derriere, Simon has got a sore derriere. Other than sore derrieres we're all doing ok, the cold mornings an take their toll but as the day warms up so do we. The bikes have takena fair bit of abuse but are coping ok, both Paresh and Marie's have thrown spokes but have been fixed airy easily.

Our diet has consisted mainly of pastry - a quick calculation by Marie suggests we've gotten through 160 pastries, 20 baguettes, 1 pot of Nutella, 3 salami, half a dairy of cheese, a small child of Haribo, and bag loads of biscuits and chocolate (but not the choco-bat that remains the team mascot).

There have been way too many last minute dashes through the night to get to mysterious 'accomadation' to mention but we've managed to find a varying array of places to lay our weary bodies before it's time to deep-heat and Nurofen-up before hitting the road.

We're at the head of the Rhone valley with mountains left and right but we're hoping that Paresh's so far faultless navigation will lead us on a flat route through the middle.

Hope all's good and we'll let you know when we get to Monaco.

Fran, Marie, Paresh and Simon.

Paresh says we're going really well and thanks for all the support

Marie says thanks to Mr S and class for the lovely message and to everyone else who supplied chocolate

Fran says 'Tutto bene see you all in a few days'

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