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‎Of course, the truth is that France is mostly spiffing. Certainly for cycling there probably no other  country that even comes close. We are now down on the Loire and have hardly seen a car. It is possible to ride two-abreast chatting for hours. Of course, in my case this is tricky because a/ I am miles behind everyone and b/I  am using the full capacity of my mouth to draw in oxygen. It is a fast group :-(.

Today we have ridden across France's grain fields - the best part of 100 miles with nothing to do but count tractors. It was a chunky 117 miles in total but about as easy as cycling gets - flat, sunny, little wind.  My fellow sweeper and I are each riding half of each day - this was my idea and was backed up by sound solid arguments (none of which were 'I won't be able to keep up for 117 miles').

We are in Beaugency, my favourite stop on the trip‎, and I am looking forward to sports drink and pizza at my regular table in the restaurant down by the bridge.


Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the EE network.

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