Climb Every Mountain: Day 2

Route for today: http://www.gpsies.com/map.do?fileId=obxezfwqtfifrbfd

Before the days events a permitted photo of our celebrity arriving last night.

David was amazingly first up for breakfast, however thiswas not due to time management but due to mis-information from Mairead.

The Phoenix Men lead the way:

Another day of dirty wet B roads. The day started with a nasty climb outof Quillan which went on for 100 miles or at least felt like it.

Despite Geoffharing (not hairing) up the first climb, Seamus with dosmetiques Larry andGerry used superb team tactics and claimed the first major King of theMountain. By strange coincidence, since this was this first major climb, itcarried very high points and resulted in Seamus bizarrely holding the King ofthe Mountains Jersey for the day.

Seamus and his domestiques:

We can fill in the details on yesterday’s picture ofMartin smugly holding a large parcel. It has transpired that this was a downtube motor for his bike. Unfortunately it spilled diesel all over the road onthe first climb. This led to Martin feeling unwell and this has been tentatively attributed to carbon monoxide poisoning by the real scientists Alan and Mark.

Unfortunately, the first climb was not followed by adescent but a nasty push into a severe head wind and rain and leading to thenext climb. A hair raising descent led to lunch at cafe Greg Squared. The two Gregs had emptied the bakery ofbaguettes, sacrificed a pig for ham and caught a few crabs to produce unusualcoleslaw which everyone hated. However it was viewed as the best lunch. Butthis was associated with considerable hypothermia due to the weather conditions.

A rolling run along the Route de Corniche was just likeCounty Down, only with great scenery but terrible weather.

The final climb of the day to the Col de Port was torturepersonified especially around the village of Prat Communale.

All the cyclists made it over the top to a hairy (Geoff’sobjection noted) descent (including road works) to the hotel in the town ofMassat. Rumour has it that the new descending demons are the duo of Gillian andPaula.

All the other mainprizes of the day went to Ciaran Raffety (apart from the women’s though he willtry and go for this tomorrow having borrowed one of Mairead’s 17 pink cyclingtops) which were surprisingly won by Paula (best young rider, again), Gillian(Green Jersey) and Betty (Overall Pink Jersey and stage win). Ciaran’s win wascourtesy of an 85 km solo break.

Ciaran's Breakaway:

Ciaran covets Betty's cap:

There has however been a steward’s enquiryinto Ciaran’s win. A disgruntled cyclist, who shall remain nameless, “as a QC Iwould like to lodge an official legal challenge.” It has been alleged that inreceiving his lunch on the move, Ciaran held onto the baguette for too long andreceived a critical advantage. The judgement panel told the complainant to stopbeing a bad loser and explained that owning high class cycling equipment is noguarantee of a win. It must be noted that the complainant was the fastest ofthe day up the Col de Port.

Ciaran over the Col de Port:

On the road before lunch, Seamus yet again emulated hishero Lance Armstrong and rolled down a bank into a field and dismounted safelyin the field. This was a carbon copy of Lance’s famous cross country diversionin his descent into Gap in 2001’s Tour De France.