Saint Floret to Riom-es-Montagnes

Paul woke me as usual, we packed and then went down to see about checking out. The hotel was completely deserted. We walked up to the bar to see if it was open and bought a baguette and two pain au chocolates for breakfast back in our room. We then went downstairs again and found the owners were up now and making breakfast. We paid, packed the bikes and... it started to rain :( We waited a little while, the rain died down and so we (or do I mean I) decided we should leave. Fortunately the rain stopped about 500 m's down the road!

From the town we went about 6 K's up a valley and then turned into a gorge which we followed for quite a long way. There were actually a few cyclists about! The gorge was quite nice but it was up hill all the way, very tiring. Actually we had 29 K's of up hill to the Col (at the end of the day even Paul said it was a hard day)!


As we started up the valley there was a bit of a wind and by the time we were getting near the top it had turned into an icy gale. We stopped at a town about 4.5 K's from the Col, I had tea. It was so cold out that a K or so before the town I had to put on my Goretex. After the tea it wasn't that far to the top of the Col. It was not a bad climb the last bit, from 997 to 1155. Just near the top there was a French family, shivering, having a picnic and they were, naturally, opening a bottle of red as we went past. By the way this was my 20th Col this trip!

At the top I put on my long finger gloves for the descent, it was not too steep but the wind is biting. After the main descent was over Paul led for a while to keep the speed up. The road narrowed significantly as we got further down and we stopped at a town after a bit of an up hill to eat a Nectarine. Then there was a huge down hill to the valley floor, followed by a flat and then another short uphill to the town.


Paul picked a nice lunch place, maybe the only lunch place. We had something called a Pounti for the entree. It is basically a terrine made of cheese, spinach and prunes, surprisingly nice. The next course was a very, very tasty steak, Paul had stuffed cabbage. Then of course there was cheese again, sigh. And then a nice tart to finish it all off.

Eventually we had to continue on, it was only 17 K's but the legs were frozen up and all the blood had gone to my stomach. There were two climbs required to get to our target town of Riom and the first hill was horrible, even Paul said he almost had stomach cramps. I just couldn't warm up. After the hill there was a nice down hill and then the second up hill. This was much easier, either I had warmed up or it was much easier. By the time I caught up to Paul he had already worked out where the camping was, and amazingly was willing to go there!

After setting up we walked into town, it was very closed, after all it is Sunday. We had a look at the church, quite nice, 12th century I think, all made of rock, even all of the roofs in the town are made of slate. We decided we would have dinner in town at the pizzeria/creperie, assuming it opens. Fortunately when we walked back into town for dinner it was open. I had a Pizza and then a crepe with honey and almonds. We both had apple cider. I slept very well!