sigh.....the summer is drawing to an end and the plans to return to north america is now in full swing . my lovely wife decided a week ago that she wanted to be part of the experience in southern france seeing the thread and the pictures , so she popped overhere one fine day a week ago to surprise me she also rememinded me of the fact that our 37 years wedding anniversary was around the corner and we should celebrate that in sunny french riviera style which we did after my initial surprise. but I planned the return to frankfurt differently now that we ride two up .
we left antibes for my sister's place two days ago (24 th of september ) travelling 200 miles to valence through some fine countryside roads including castellane, digne ,and sisteron the sky opened up in digne and we rode the last 100 miles in the rain , fog, and wind some of the asphalt on the roads was rather old ,shiny, and oily, and I really felt the front and rear sometime sliding a bit , two up and nearly 70lbs of luggage makes for uneasy rides particularly in hairpins up and down we arrived nearly two hours late at the hotel near valence and we did not get all the pictures we wanted as the rain was relentless.
yesterday since my wife did not have a full rain gear we searched for some rain gear, ,only found a sport fishing store that sold us rain pants so we left valence n the rain AGAIN with a mixed bag of rain gear hiking kway jacket, sportfishing pants and the old garbage bags for shoe covers. we travelled again t hrough rain and much wind all day
from valence directly to le puy en velay, clermont-ferrand the geographic center of France where the michelin tires originate and pushes to montlucon. total 200 miles and enough in those dastardly weather conditions yet we saw quite a few riders on the roads. I guess the price to pay for the privilege to ride is to suffer sometime with rain and wind. beside I should not complain I had 90 days of uninterrupted sunny days.
the pictures are shot from my wife's camera when we rode around the back country of antibes . then we left for valence after a day
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