Day 7: Agen - Bergerac
For dinner last night we went to Agen railway station to dine in the station café watching the trains go by, Malcolm and John had been there before and thought we might like to give it a try. There was something rather special about dining whilst people are taking trains to far off places – it reminded me a bit of the film “brief encounter”, all in all a different sort of evening.
We were away bright and early today to beat the heat, once we had left Agen we quickly found the hills and from then until lunchtime we continued climbing hills and racing down the other side, in all we did seven significant climbs, each being at least a mile or more in distance, they weren’t aggressive climbs but steep enough given the heat. We stopped to refill water bottles and take a break at Tombebouef and from there we continued to climb hills until our lunch stop just outside of Miramont at Iflour. The backup team had managed to find some very welcome shade to give us some much needed respite from the sun given the temperature was now around 90f. After lunch the climbs were less steep but by now the temperature was pushing 95f which makes cycling uphill a very interesting challenge, especially as the tarmac was melting under our wheels. We reached the hotel on the outskirts of Bergerac at around 3.00pm after completing a rather challenging 62-miles in the sun. Tomorrow we ride from Bergerac to Angouleme and things will be a little different as Melissa is flying into join us, which will please Valerie as now there will be two girls on the ride. We will also be meeting up with Paul Smith who cycled with us on our first 1000-mile ride ten years ago and who now lives near Angouleme – happy days!
View photos from our seventh day: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeride2010
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The picture of Sean hugging a tree is not because he’s into trees but because the trunks of the trees were very cool so we all gave them a hug!