Day 9: Angouleme - Poitiers
We breakfasted in style this morning, eggs, bacon and sausages as well as the usual croissants etc; it’s a pity it was at 5.30 in the morning though! Today is Matt’s Birthday, he’s the baby of the team being just 25 and he’ll no doubt remember today, not just because of the bike ride but also because he got lost coming into Poitiers and did an extra 5-miles in the heat of the city!
Paul had stayed overnight at our hotel and slept on the floor of Mark and old Paul’s room and he joined for the first 30-miles of the ride. It was a nostalgic day for some of us as we were following the route we had cycled ten years ago and after 20-miles we rode into Mansle and stood on the bridge over river taking photos of the wonderful hotel we had stayed in back then – do you remember the table napkin and the waiter Bob?!! From Mansle we followed the D56 to Verteuil but once again our road ahead was closed due to road works (I thought I was back in Painswick!). At Verteuil we said goodbye to Paul, it was good seeing you mate and hopefully we’ll meet again sometime soon. Next we made our way to Civray and lunch by the river, there were Perch and Trout swimming in the cool stream and we thought about joining them! Malcolm had another little surprise for us at lunchtime, yesterday he carved the salt pot out of a cucumber, today he had bought a saucepan and boiled some eggs but as he had only bought ten eggs and there was twelve of us we had to fight for them!
After lunch we made our way more slowly as the temperature was again in the nineties, the road was gently undulating rather than hilly and for once the tar on the road wasn’t melting. At our final refreshment stop at Gencey where the backup team had a birthday cake waiting for Matt., after a quick few verses of “Happy Birthday” and a very short speech by Matt we were back on our bikes and heading towards Poitiers where we arrived at about 3.00pm with 80-miles hard riding behind us.
View photos from our ninth day: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeride2010
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