Francine!

Wow! Right, apologies/no thanks necessary for non-blogging between schlepping out to here from the UK. It's been pretty full-on for the most part and then when I did have an hour or so free this morning, our Malaucene 'hotel's' idea of wi-fi (pronounced 'wiffy') was lamentable and unusable...think dial-up and you're still not close! It may well have been out partying with the rest of France, celebrating their victory in Moscow. And there's not too many nations that can claim that...

Entente Cordial!

Anyway, back to Friday: it was a rubbish journey down to Milton Keynes to collect Andy...the M6 doubles as a car-park mostly. That said, we got to Folkestone and wedged onto the 9.15pm Le Shuttle (only 1 hour and 20 mins behind...) and then floored it all the way to Reims.

Slick operation from Le Shuttle wallahs. Bon!

What we didn't expect was the free firework displays from midnight at any town that we passed nearby...it had just turned Bastille Day. We then tried to check into the wrong Hotel Ibis- d'oh! Schoolboy error, as the receptionist gladly pointed-out. No matter, we found the correct (read: slightly more budget-minded) hotel and the next morning we were up and on the A7 by 0815 and steaming south. Bon!

Not really a full English, is it? Rest easy, Wetherspoons.

Just south of Lyon there was a decent impression of the M6 which allowed us to go off-piste and complete the journey to Malaucene via country-ish roads. Some scenery alright!

Slower maybe but come on!

Our goal (excuse the pun) was to be able to watch England beat Belgium in the meaningless 3rd/4th place World Cup play-off final: in the event neither happened because we arrived to catch the last 30 minutes and England foundered anyway...at least the Belgians in the bar were happy, and we did have a Leffe later on to toast their success!

The following morning when the alarm sounded at 5.15am we weren't quite as enthusiastic but we set-off up to Ventoux under grey skies. It wasn't too long until there was the rumble of thunder and then the dreaded flashes of lightning and a bit of a soaking too. I can live with the noise and the water but I'm not too keen on the electrical aspects of all this. That said, we ploughed on and after 30 minutes or so it began to abate.

Gorilla in the mist. He supplied that one himself too, hah-hah!

The plan was to ride up Ventoux from all three sides (Malaucene, Bedoin and Sault) and this is what we did, albeit at different paces/degrees of discomfort. The summit is a special place- if you can imagine a load of people who have sweated a bit to get up there, and for some it's brand new, the atmosphere is contagious and you'll have to go a long way to find more smiles per square foot!

Un peu de showboating pour le snapper officiel!

Despite the early drenching, the weather was wonderful!

Alright Monsieur, keep your cheveux on.

Matched the bike, if nothing else!

All views bought and paid for. Wow!

The restored memorial to Tommy Simpson.

'Bye Venotux- a special place, for better and worse!

All three ascents done and we were back in the hotel bar to watch France beat Croatia and win their second World Cup. Fair to say that the locals were vocal, hah-hah! There was some top-quality nonsense from then on: flares, motorbikes dough-nutting, people car-surfing and generally acting le loon. All good-natured stuff and funny to see.

So yeah, they did go large, hah-hah! Brilliant to see grand nonsense with no aggro. Bon!
This morning was a case of packing-up the car and then getting across to Alpe d'Huez. We stopped at the supermarché and bizarrely did a wash whilst getting the supplies in!

Score draw in the battle of wits dept...

Yeah, slight change to it. More on that shortly.

View from hotel room. We can work with this.

So we're checked-in and settled...good. After a beer and a bit of discussion we decide to re-jig the schedule- ditch the midnight start and instead get another night's rest, and start at 10  a.m. on Tuesday which gets a 'thumbs up' from me. The bonus ball is that the weather might be *slightly* kinder by then. Might...

So that's where we are as of 22.15: we'll get on with it tomorrow and report back. Until then, I thank everyone of you who has helped the Fantastic Five charities because we're very nearly at the target of £2100, which is all down to you...amazing scenes!

Please click above to help the Fantastic Five!

Zed Zed Top kick botty!