Stage 5: Longeau-Percey -> Chaussin

Stage 5: Longeau-Percey -> Chaussin.

Yesterday it has been a great day. The ride was very nice and although we had a lot of climbing, everybody was in a good mood, enjoying the ride and taking as much advantage as possible from the sun. Yes, it is really a big thing, the weather. Arriving at the camping overwhelmed with sunshine. We had our BBQ on the “Skottel Braai”. Really perfect.

Today starts in the same way. A bit cool and wet from the moisture on the grass in from of the house. We are have our breakfast at about 08:00, clean the house and off we go. Heading to Chaussin. The nice thing on stage 5 is, that we do not have to climb. O.k., there might be a hill of a couple of metres, but in terms of cycling, the descents of the staircase profiles will bring us to the next stop almost without paddling.

Today is the day of the brakes. We’ll check and adjust them, we’re gonna need them.

The group is getting stronger and stronger and used to each other. In the hills it is more difficult, to stay together as a group compared to flat tracks. Bikers with more weight will automatically be faster in the descent and might be slower in the climb, using their weight to take as much advantage as possible of this kinetic energy to reach the top of the slope with as less energy as possible.

The route:

The route has been created a couple of years ago, when the idea popped-up to go by bike to the south of France. Every year, -as you might know”, our CSi Cycling Team travels to the Alpe d’Huez in the first week-end of September. By car. And CSi sponsors this. So the idea is: traveling towards the Alpes by bike and returning with the group cars. A very simple formula. After several attempts to form a group bikers and get actually onto the road, we are finally halfway this tour. “A dream comes true”.

Although everything is  going nice and gently there is some competition. Not that everybody would see it, - and I will not tell any names-‘ but is goes between M and R. Observing from a distance, you might notice that M is going slightly faster  in the descents and R is just a bit faster in the climb. Later on I will explain my observations in more, but please remind me If I forget to tell about it.

Coffee stops in this stage:

In other tracks, we had only 3 stops. We programmed 5 stops in the GPS for this stage. Why? Because, we will ride in the middle of nowhere, where only very small villages in the landscape of agriculture can be found. The track leads along the river Villegusien, a very small but nice looking river. After we had emptied our bidons, we really started looking for a restaurant. We passed village after village but we could not find any opened restaurant. So we continued.

At a certain point, the route continued on a Cycle lane. With a clear sign: “Voitures Interdit,  Sauf Service”. But most uf us in the group are Dutch guys right? So what we gonna do? Indeed. We instruct Rares to drive the car on the cycle lane. After a while, we ar missing Rares with the car. It has been stopped by an officer.

We turn our bikes to assist him. Arriving at the officer, I introduce myself and ask him: “Cést une problem monsieur?“. “Qui Qui, La velo cést accepte, la voitures c’est interdit. Sauf Service.” he says. “Qui monsieur, regarder ici s.v.p.” I answered.  Showing him the map of the bike Route, starting at Raamsdonksveer and ending at Alpe d’Huez I said. La voiture est une service pour la team de velo.

D’Accord d’accord, cést acceptee. And after a handshake we continue our route.

At approx. 15:45 Arriving at the camping:  A nice old lady is waiting for us. “Le Chef ce nest pas ici. I’ll arrive a 16:30”. She offers us a walk to the accommodation we have hired. We ask her, “Le cley de la porte de Chalet, l’est ouvrir? [English: Is the door of the chalet opened, is the key there?]. Qui qui”: she sais. Then we will follow you.

She guides us towards the chalet, continuously explaining how and what and when.  “C’est un Chalet, de 4 persones et un Caravande 2 persones. We already knew that, because we did the booking at Booking.com by ourselves.

“ Arriving at the chalet, a 50 metres walk only-, we find a tent in the shape of a chalet. And yes, your are thinking the right thing: “it is our CHALET”.  So we walk onto the veranda in front of the chalet and open the …… zipper of the tent.

We are home. Unpacking the car, doing our thing, organising stuff, go for shopping and finally we have again a very nice dinner, sitting in front of our low budget, but perfect in our program fitting Chalet. Viva la Francais.