so after a few nice days in san sebastian where we lay low( soph had a cold), we saddled up and started our short trip to biarritz where we had arranged to meet sophs parents(mary and kev), sebs mum(vivianne) and sebs aunt(diane). we thought we would rent a car and arrive to our prebooked hotel in style....

as if.

mary and soph...

bit of a group shot...

another little group shot...

this is what the weekend was mostly spent doing. we perused many fine cafes and dining areas that biarritz could throw at us. it was a great weekend and lovely to catch up with everyone and enjoy their very kind hospitality directed at two famished cycle tourers. thanks to them we finally tasted steak again after a barren spell... it was a welcome change from the canned goods aisle....

after the guys left on the monday, we had a cheeky go at surfing in biarritz, seb assuming that it would be a doddle to pick up, but in reality turned out to be a savage beating from the cruel mistress that is the atlantic ocean. tails firmly between our legs and surf boards no where in sight, we enquired about lessons.

so we headed north to the fine campsite of les oyats where within a day on the beach, seb and the sun had a confrontation and was rendered incapacitated....

once again, seb just refuses to learn what the sun is capable of.

les oyats in all its french camping glory.

seb highlighting that there are things taller than him in this world.

sunset through the trees.

hammock cam..

so we are here for a week and with all the determination we can muster we shall stand on a surf board if its the last thing we do.

then, after our little break, we will gather our stuff, warm up the calfs and hit the road with destination bhaile atha cliath, eventually(approx. end of june)

hopefully the war between seb and sun will not thwart our efforts...

till next time from sebophie.

Hola everybody....thats right we are in espagna. andelay andelay ariiiba. ole. So we succesfully made it to Spain as usual with no thanks to the French tourist office whose incompetance knows no bounds although after this latest cock up we have begun to believe that their ¨incompetence¨ is just a facade and that they are actually committed to ¨ducking¨ us personally over. our journey over the pyrennes seemed like a straight forward climb to a lovely new tunnel that would whisk us through to spain pain free and full of gusto. sadly, the gendarme had some bad news for us at the tunnel entrance. The bikes were forbiddon was what we were told in English Spanish and French, yeah ok we get it....not allowed. We had spent the day steadily climbing through the valley in baking heat giddy with the thought of cheating our way into Spain through a tunnel. With our ¨forbidden¨ bikes between our legs we turned back to the col road we had passed gleefully a few minutes earlier. now its one thing setting out to do a col but its quite another to be sentenced to one by a girl in a french tourist office who told you that bikes could go through the tunnel du Somport. Our ranting did set a good pace for what turned out to be one of the best climbs yet. and voila...

sophie stopped dead in her tracks at the magnitude of what was to come.

a prettier version first thing in the morning before the climb

seb pretending to read the map when in fact he is doubled over with exhaustion.

a reminder of how things could be worse

One of the few upsides of toiling up a mountain into Northern Spain is the kudos you invariably receive from passing motorists, one of whom took the customary beep to the next level by rolling down his window and actually applauding us in silent awe. We sweated on. Each hairpin return bringing us closer to ........

VICTORY.

GO Sebophie, Hola Espagna

Here Sophie can be seen demonstrating the other perk of toiling up mountains... the epic freewheeling lasted 20 k into the town of Jaca in Northern Spain. And so the lessons we learned are as follows:

Day 26 May 22nd

1. Spain is Hot.

2. Sebophie state the obvious.

3. Really really hot.

4. Spain make Seb grumpy. (the ants are even bigger here)

5. Tapas has replaced real meals so we are snacking accordingly.

6. Every day between 4 and 5pm there is a lot of fluff in the air this combined with sunblock covered gringos (sebophie) make for an interesting update of the old favourite ¨tarring and feathering¨ torture.

7. Where are the boulangeries and the baked treats?

8. it is an ongoing race against time to eat our supplies before they melt, Seb is in the lead currently.

9.Irish farmer tan in full exposure still horrorfies foreigners (and Lex apparently)

Sophie slipstreaming a tractor up a hill

Seb had promised that there were no hills in Spain. This was a lie.

A rare moment of happiness on this god forsaken trip

After a few days of cycling in Spain we were eager to be heading back towards our beloved France (i know we`ve had our differences but we were hungry for frangipan) we were striking out towards San Sebastian and could almost smell the sandwich but first we had to navigate a hell known only to a few unfortunates like ourselves, it is the last 15 km leading into the city. It was like the Bermuda triangle. Many have attempted to penetrate this area on bike and sucumbed to fatigue and confusion (we passed their corpses on the road side) not a sign in sight suggested that there was any other route possible except the endless motorways leading into other motor ways. At one point having been thwarted at every hands turn and still about 10 k shy of the city limits we found ourselves in an addled state bringing our bikes up an escalator before nearly hailing a taxi to drive us the last few K. Luckily reason (Seb) prevailed and we instead cycled down the motorway making a triumphant if somewhat illegal entrance into the city. Hooorah.

cruising into san sebastian for the first time....

thats right red, grioch and kev... its the 26. the greatest sandwich known to man.

greetings

as always, things we have learnt
17th may, day 21
1. 2 days off the bike is detremental to sebs backside.
2. toulouse is too cool and trendy for the likes of sebophie.
3. toulouse brought us hammish the hammock(we couldnt justify getting a cat)
4. rollerskating is making a much anticipated comeback in toulouse.

Our pilgramage to Lourdes began in typical Sebophie style with gale force winds and pounding rains. Not Good. We headed West out of the city we pounded out a mean 70 k which we barely batted an eyelid at (but paid for dearly the next day) two days off the bikes left us slightly broken. Luckily a Jolly German man was on hand to let us stay in his caravan out of the rain.

It was raining heavily the night before ok

The following day saw us turn in a pathetic 40 k display of on bike whimpering while trudging into a relentless wind, so we did what all seasoned bike tourers would do and turned left. With the gale still into us but now slightly to the right our spirits were lifted marginally and we could smell a campsite on the wind. We set up for the night at a record 2pm and celebrated with a trampoline and some barbeque crisps. We also took this opportunity (it hadnt rained for a ten minute stretch) to road test Hamish the newest member of the team. Amazingly he managed to take us both at once.

Hamish the Hammock

Our mission continued the next day to lourdes in what seemed like a mirage of a gorgeous sunny day. could our pilgramige to lourdes actually be paying off? we seemed to have a spring in our step and cycling up hills wasnt a painfull excercise. and then we reached the promised land. it was catholics a go go.

our first sight of sun and the pyrenees got us in a jolly mood

the jolly mood continues..

we knew we were close

ta dah!

the hauticam

may 18th, day 22
1. hauticam is where bjarne riise famously dropped 5 time tour de france winner, miguel indurain, in 1996. he was all doped up though(thanks for the info andy).
2. hauticam is also where sebophie powered up 13km of 7 to 10% gradient in 2 hours. and we didnt even cry.

It all looked so promising 2 km in

2.5 km in

sophie took this while cycling the beast. legend.

the pain and the joy of reaching the top. boom. (the sign behind roughly translates as ¨he who reaches this sign is cool¨)

sophie laughing histerically as she powers up the mountain. notice lack of sweating. bone dry. how does she do it?

a beautiful view.

3. seb can eat 4 icecreams in a row.
4. sophie excepts full responsibility for ¨antgate¨ , the 2010 tent infestation brought about by leaving a jar of honey and the smelly garbage in the porch of the tent for the day.
5. seb doesnt like the iky wiky ants.


so our intrepid adventure continues to dizzingly new heights when we make a bold effort to cycle the pyrenees to spain crossing over at a mere 1600metre pass. wish us luck!

until next time...

Sebophie would like to formally apologise for having caused any offense with recent photoes of Sophie in her cycling shorts. It has been drawn to our attention that the shorts are most unflattering ("desgusting" according to our source) and that these photos should only be viewed with guidance from a parent or guardian. Again we offer our sincereest apologies.

Our Role Models... A sunday Race comes through the town of St. Enemie which Seb tries to obstruct.

well guys, to be honest, we are sitting here in a cafe in a town called albi, and we have just come out of the french amazon, and a shower and a cup of tea are sorely needed.

the road has ups and downs and some horizontals and...........ok anyway seb.

We are not currently sitting in a town called Ailbi but one about 65km away called toulouse. we arrived here yesterday with the plan to have some kind of Bridget Jones-esque city break. So in true Sebophie style we dismounted our bikes amid hoards of sinister hippies with dogs and checked into the dingiest hotel we could find (Hotel des Arts). A hotel so dingy that the fact that the toilet is actually in the room with us only serves to make it just that bit classier. So when you last left us your heroes were trapped in a town called Monastier in Arctic conditions with nothing better to do but read silence of the lambs and eat cheesy poofs (or souffles as they are known here). after a day of these two activities we got so bored that we decided it would be better to leave town before some kind if Shining type situation developed. We cycled 37km in a blizzard to the town of Pradelle. A town every bit as lively as La Monastier but with even less drunk farmers to play with. It was here that Seb discovered we had no money in our bank account.


Here are just some of the valuable lessons we learned while stranded in a remote village with no money:

Day 7/8 May5th & 6th
1. Cycling in Blizzards is doable but will bring you to the brink of hyperthermia.
2. Gites are cool but when they have large doll collectiions and low lighting they are unnerving.
3. All finances should be conducted by Sophie from now on.
4. Nothing is ever open in rural France except the unhelpful office du tourisme.

After laying low in Pradelle and a series of frantic phone calles with David, Mary and Andy. We managed to get some money though no thanks to either Credit Agricole (the bank in Pradelle that had no money) or Johnno at Bank of Ireland Leeson street who most helpfully put 300eur into the wrong account. Well Done Johnno. When there was a break in the weather on the friday we hightailed it out of there and over to Mende, a town so big (by comparison) that we were shocked to see shops open and people going about their business.

Day 9 May 7th
1.Cycling in the sunshine is abit more what we had in mind.



2. Sophie is the climber and Seb is the sprinter. (only by our standards)
3. Seb is a twat....when sophie offers you sunblock, Take it.



day 10 May 8th

1. Descending alot in wet weather with Seb on board destroys break pads
2. Walking downhill in the rain for 5km (due to aforementioned compromised break pads) is crap.
3. Mille Feuille are tasty.


4.Sophie is not photogenic

6th attempt at taking a decent photo

This ones a thinker.

Teddy impersonating Seb

Day 11 May 9th

1. The Gorge du Tarn is the best road so far.
2. Seb and Ducks do not mix.
3. the poncho purchase was about seven days late but neverless still the best spent 14euros of the holiday.


After the gorge du tarn we made our way to Millau for a spot of duck antagonising by Seb and yet again surviving torential rains.

We also saw this Viaduct there.

Post Millau we continued to follow the Tarn river heading South west towards the town of Ailbi. On route we encountered a group of Very serious British cyclists out on a sponsoered cycle for charity. their route was taking them from Marseille to Barcelona with an average of 120km a day (we do about half that!). As serious as they were (their shorts made ours look positively loose fitting) we became instrumental in a rescue op when two of the riders became hopelessly lost and reliant on us for directions. We gave them a map and thought that was the end of it but we managed to over take them two more times before very fortuitously encountering their tea van. Boom.



So more to come of our adventures in Toulouse next time and stay tuned for when the infamous duo Sebophie hit Lourdes (Vegas for Catholics) to repent for their sins.