Day 5 – Beaune, France

Montbard, France – bike odometer reads 394km

Here's a rather long update as we've been out of contact lately! Either much too knackered, or no luck with finding open internet cafes...

We are averaging close to 100 km per day (yesterday was a rest day) and everyone seems to be doing remarkably well, if you don't count the fact that Troy needs hip-replacement surgery and I'm starting to wonder why the hell I trashed my knees so much skiing all those years.

Then there's the absolute side-splittingly funny times when Walter, David and Troy fall off their bikes because they've chosen clipless pedals, which means you are at the mercy of your motor-skills which have to coincide with getting your toes unclipped from their 'locked-in' position on the pedals before falling-momentum takes over . Why do this, you might ask...well, supposedly it gets you up the hills easier as you can pull up as well as push down, but if you've had a few too many beers, or eaten too much cheese, you simply look like an awkward turtle thrashing around on the pavement trying to kick a bike off your heels and swearing violently - shit, I'm laughing just thinking about it.....

We have been spending some time in hotels, but some of us poorer folks try to convince the more affluent of our group to suck it up and sleep in campgrounds - that's why god gave us tents! We have succeeded the last 3 nights and have been enjoying our stir-frys and pasta dinners while trying to blame farting noises on someone else.

We spend about 100 Euros/day on food! That's almost $200....

We are starting to notice some of us feeling the pain. I've wondered at times if Walter even has CF at all, the way he’s been carrying on with hardly a cough or two during the ride! Only on the really steep bits can you tell.

We all have our jobs on this trip: David is navigator/medic and injury fixer (though in true-life, he plays a policeman, which becomes apparent when a person might, for example, drive down a bicycle path to get to Macdonalds quicker).

The support vehicle was donated by Martin, who is joining us for two weeks and helps trade-off being the driver with Troy, who’s job it is to fix anything mechanical or otherwise that is broken. Troy also has the important job as support vehicle driver. After stopping whenever Lucas, our film-maker extraordinare, sees a good shot several times a day, the support vehicle driver must also prepare lunch stops and arrange sleeping spots for that evening – not easy when you don’t speak the language.

Lucas is still getting used to the bike, but is doing great. It isn't easy filming and biking at the same time - I tried it and ran into cows. Lucas is definetly more elegant at it.

My job is to sit around and demand people do things for me, like rub my feet, but this doesn’t seem to work. At all. Lest someone start inquiring, ‘why is Heather even here at all?’, I think the least I can do is keep you all updated on the tom-foolery that is COFE.

Least, but not last - even when there IS a hill - we have the star of our program – Valta.
Walter’s job is to finish in Istanbul. Of course, he has already done most of the work to plan this whole thing, so now it’s just a matter of ticking off those kilometers!

Thanks for reading about our progress and send us comments – we love getting news from back home! (go to "COMMENTS" …).