Day 9: Incidental Gains

Mike's night of much needed rest hadn't got off to a textbook start, but the pizza trauma wasn't the end of his woes: as soon as he'd banished the image of the bloated swirling dough from his mind and began to drift off, Tom started snoring. Tom woke up the following morning refreshed and ready to attack the day, joined several hours later by Mike, bloodshot and unable to move.





We went through our well rehearsed morning ritual, entering a huge dining room where only two tables had been prepared for breakfast, confirming our suspicions that we were basically the only people staying at the hotel. We also suspected the other single table had just been made up for effect, as we never saw the other guest. All the Raiders loaded up on useful carbs, apart from Dad who failed to eat anything as he spent the entire hour transfixed by a 3D map of the region hanging on the dining room wall.

As we left, the cheery couple running the joint put us through a full briefing on our route and its varying road surface quality. As bikers (of the motored variety) they were sensitive to our Raiding requirements, and made sure we left loaded up with maps as they didn't trust our GPS devices. Well over the novelty value and now getting bored of the cycling element of the trip, Mike left the riders to it and headed straight for the summit of the day's first peak. Fortunately we'd already claimed our helmets, bottles and carb bars before Mike wheel-spinned out of the car park and into the distance.

Following the predictable pattern of our days, we started off with an easy warm-up ride following the path of a deep gorge. Wild rivers cascaded along next to us littered with local fly fisherman, while whisps of early morning cloud clung to to the treeline. It was classic bear country, and we were desperate for some more edgy footage for the blog. We'd already covered Greg in as much cured meat and honey as we could salvage from the buffet and attached the GoPro to his head in anticipation, but for as long as we waited, no bears took the bait. As the final days of the Raid came into sight, Tom clicked into competition mode, and with the yellow jersey in mind forced the pace up to 18mph along the flat section, tactically eating into Mark's energy reserves.

As we passed through an attractive old town the gradient worsened and to Tom's glee Dad started to slip off the back of the pack. As Tom passed the sign marking the start of the Col de Porte, a tiny gap had opened to Greg's front wheel. Sensing blood and instantly forgetting the spirit of the trip or any notion of team work, he stood up and powered round the first switch back. With a new and unnecessary resolve to reach the top as quickly as possible taking over, Tom smashed down a MacAmande energy bar and a jet of sports drink and powered on, trying to ignore his screaming legs. On the higher slopes there was enough time to deliver a trademark moody monologue into his iPhone, before sprinting for the line and collapsing in the car park. With the team's disinterested domestique tucked up in front of a fire and unavailable to administer oxygen, Tom staggered towards the col's cafe to find him.

The hot-chocolate aided recovery was made even sweeter as Tom watched the stopwatch click upwards of 9 minutes before Greg arrived – he had achieved his arbitrary and petty goal and buried his brother, who didn't really care and ordered a hot chocolate too. Before too long Team Leader ratcheted himself up the final slope and we all devoured huge plates of roast duck and potato, while Tom droned on about his victory. Leaving the cafe we bumped into some fellow Brits who were just finishing their own Raid. They assured us theirs was the proper version with severe time limits and control points, but we merely dismissed them as whinging fancy-dans and left.

Regular readers of the blog will know what's coming next: we get togged up in jumpers and roll all the way back down the mountain to our next destination. Today proved no different with a fortunate (for us, bad for the blog) lack of adversity facing us on our cruise down to Tarascon. We even managed to go straight to the hotel like a finely calibrated laser, and were greeted by a cheery bumbling old French man who sounded like he was talking with a mouth full of red-wine-sodden moustache. The hotel boasted surely one of the most scenic bike storage facilities in the Pyrenees, set on the bank of the town's river with a backdrop of beautiful old buildings and mountains.

Our intense speed over the mountainous terrain had landed us at our destination with the bulk of the afternoon still free. Mike took advantage of this by soaking up the town's rich culture on a leisurely stroll, culminating in a peaceful read atop Tarascon's ancient hilltop tower, overlooking the town. Meanwhile Tom had been locked into the hotel room until two blog updates were successfully posted online.

A hastily assembled hotel room bar gave Tom the incentive to finish off his blog duties, and the team re-assembled and headed downstairs to the plush dining room / conservatory over looking the burbling river below. We'd decided this was the place to eat earlier in the day when we brought our bikes through and eagerly sat down at the prime riverside table without even looking at the menu. This proved to be a mistake as we had reached the limit for consuming rich meat and the menu seemed to just offer pages of the same meat roasted with different things, and a token vegetarian section. Mike's meal was salad, then pasta with no sauce, then two apples. We did manage to record the whole affair in an entertaining timelapse however, so all was not lost.