St Ybard Charade 2009

Wednesday 8th July 2009

Another good day awheel; today the big one; Treignac and Suc-au-May for six of us. Denbo and Mick Sutton stayed at home. We were ready at 0930 but didn’t leave until 10.45 because we had to programme the Garmin with an inappropriate route. Norman’s saddle disintegrated at the start of the first hill but was quickly reconstructed. We had a strong coffee at Meilhards (we were not supposed to go there at all) and then we did a pleasant 4kms circuit of grit-filled lanes that delivered us back onto the same main road we had just left but now a full kilometre further from our destination. A minor anti Sat/Nav mutiny saw us sticking to the main road into Treignac and on to the Lac des Bariousses for lunch. Notable performance of the morning came from Paul Martin who rode away strongly on the climb before Treignac on only his second come-back ride on his Merckx road bike. After lunch the three big-hitters went onto the Lestards and Suc-au-May climb and the three old Joes returned along the lovely lane across the Vezere valley via Peyrissac and onto D3 at Chavagnac. Joy was unbounded as we bowled along through Eyburie, past the prison and down into Uzerche to watch the Perpignan stage finish at The Bowler ‘at – so-called for the entertainment provided for us at that establishment one afternoon many years ago by a wild member of the genus Rattus.

Don’t you get some magic moments with the French language in France? The Bowler bar is also a PMU horse racing gambling centre and if there are people in there playing the horses then horse racing has priority on the large TV screen – our TV screen!. Sure enough, when we arrived, a race from Longchamps held the attention of the clients. The patron explained that there were customers playing at the moment but he switched to the tour coverage for us as soon as the race was finished. There were 40kms left to race and a break of six had 2 minutes advantage. After about half an hour Mick diplomatically offered one of the gamblers to switch back to horse racing if he wanted to continue playing which the old chap sportingly declined.
“You understand, Sir, that the English have a special interest in your tour this year, we have a rider capable of winning stages.”
“Oh Yes, who is he?”
“Mark Cavendish”
“Yes that’s him. But he’s not English is he? He is from the Isle of Man!”
“Ah that’s only when he loses. When he wins he’s English!”
Anyway at the end of the stage Tomas Voekler, a Frenchman, survived the breakaway to win by a few seconds with Cavendish third. As I left the bar I shook the old gambler by the hand, “Felicitations!” The old chap smiled.

A few minutes later in a Supermarket a young guy was helping me to look for a card reader for my cameras pictures. He had called for the manager to see if they had one in stock but I was about to leave because the manager.had not turned up. “No, No,” said my helper restraining me from leaving. “Wait. He is coming, but he is an imbecile.”

The big-hitters came home about 6.30 having had an excellent afternoon defying gravity. We ate pork chops with apple sauce from the barbeque with new potatoes, beetroot and avocado salad and drank local red wine. It is a good life!