I took an early start up the Col d'Eze and tucked in behind a couple of riders just over the top. They turned out to be friendly with just enough English to match my just-enough-French, so we agreed to ride together.
Eric and Alain at the much-visited drinking fountain in La Turbie. You only need a single bidon in this area as every village has a fountain - probably the sole source of drinking water in earlier years.
We were quite well matched for pace and sorted out the pecking order on the Madone, where Eric had me by 100 metres, with Alain a minute or so back. They had a plan and I was happy to go along for the ride: the big 1,000 metre descent to Menton, along the sea front to Roquebrune and then back up to La Turbie.
Eric thinks he is a car on the road and rides in the middle of the lane. Strangely, no one seemed to mind much and we only had the occasional gentle warning toot to pull over. Not like a recent ride in Tasmania where our Sunday morning peloton was subjected to a sustained horn blast from some idiot in a 4x4 who clearly objected to a 20 second delay in his pressing schedule. In fact, on the only occasion in France where I have had a car come past worryingly close and fast, it had an Australia sticker on the back window. Sad!
We exchanged contact details at La Turbie and I PB'd the descent to Eze and back to Nice for a bus ride to Ville-Franche and late Sunday lunch with Helen.
73 km, 1,500 metres climb.
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