CEBToD: Typical Day

I feel like I should log what a typical day for us was, because by the end we’d fallen into a definite pattern to our activities. So here goes.

Each morning we’d wake up around 8am and grab breakfast, either at the hotel if it was free and/or didn’t suck (as many French ones did), or using a combo of grocery store and coffee shop. Then we’d head back to the room, pack up our stuff, suit up in our bibs and jerseys, and lube our taints with copious globs of chamois cream. While one of us checked out, the others would get the bikes from lock-up and start loading them with the panniers and trunk. We popped Aleve daily, to help forestall aches/pains. I also was taking a multivitamin and something called “Sportslegs” that I’d gotten from Performance Bikes… I figured any edge I could get I would need. =D Then we’d re-fill our water bottles with bottled water from 1.5L bottles (Evian, usually), and then put on sunscreen and sunglasses, clip in, and start biking around 10am.

The biking part of the day had been planned out the previous nights over maps we were carrying with us. We basically would plot out what we thought a realistic goal for a next city would be, including if we thought we’d need to take a train at any point. We would pick smaller roads to avoid fast traffic, and tried to stick as close to the coast as possible. Over the weeks, we learned more and more about how to read those maps… we started finding bike paths on them, and elevations, and indications of grade in the road… it’s amazing how much information those maps contain!!!

During the actual biking, we would try to maintain a steady pace, like say 16 mph. That would of course depend on the grade, the amount of sleep/drinking we’d done the night before, when in the day it was, etc. When going uphill, Dan and Ben went first, because they were faster than me, so I’d catch them at the top where they were waiting. Going downhill, Dan typically wanted me going first in case something happened to me. =D Given that I’d only recently wiped out and broken my collarbone, I was still a bit nervous going downhill and would try to keep my speed to 20-25 mph, which basically meant riding my brakes heavily the whole time.
The biking days were punctuated with frequent pee breaks (Dan’s bladder is a wee little one), as well as breaks to snack and drink and take pictures of the beauteousness that surrounded us. For a good swath of the trip we were carrying port flasks, and would take nips throughout the day. ;) We usually stopped somewhere for lunch around 1 or so, and ate pretty heartily, including an espresso at the end. We also would stop in the mid-afternoon around 4 for another espresso and maybe some gelato.

We generally rolled into town around 6pm, after 8 hrs of being “on the road”. We usually only spent 4-4.5 hrs of those 8 actually rolling, tho, with the rest of the time spent on the stops mentioned above. Once we got into town, we tried to find the old center where the pedestrian-only roads were, and then look for a hotel. The hotel had to be roughly 100 euros/night, accept 3 people, and have a place for us to lock up our bikes (we learned to ask about our bikes in 3 diff languages!). It was generally easy finding a hotel for ~100 euros that had triples, and almost every place took bikes. But we’d always ask about breakfast, too, and in so many places it was an extra 10 euros/person/day, and was never worth that much! So that was a bummer we learned to live with. =D

Once checked in, we locked our bikes in the basement/garage/lobby/wherever, and then went upstairs to clean up. We took turns showering, and would wash our bike clothes in the shower with us, using camp soap or body gel. We’d hang up our bike stuff to dry for use the next morning, get dressed in our civvies, and Dan would typically show us “the Marseille” (don’t ask!!!). While we were showering, one of us (usually Dan or Ben) would run out and get snacks, booze, and water bottles for that night and the next day. Once we were all ready, we would head out and wander the town, drinking and looking for a place to eat. Once we’d been fed and explored the town, we’d finish up drinking and head back to the hotel, and typically crash out by midnight. So that translates into roughly 4 hrs biking/day, 8 hrs sleeping/day, and the other 12 hrs spent eating, peeing, and wandering cities. =D

Good times!