Biarritz - The new Bordeaux

Yesterday I managed a whole day off without once dragging my acheing rear onto the unforgiving bike saddle. Bliss.

We spent the day just like any other tourist would. We wandered around the lovely town centre, had a coffee and then slumped on the beach for the afternoon.

Joe and I also decided that having already passed Bordeaux, we wanted a new challenge.
So between now and a week on Tuesday we are going to try and make it all the way down to Biarritz, near the Spanish border.
Madness? Quite probably.

It is strange to think about it and even more bizarre now that I am writing it down but I am really excited about going yet further.

Getting this far has been such a huge challenge and one that I never thought I would achieve so quickly. After every long day on my bike I have felt a real sense of achievement in a way that I have never done before.

On one level feeling the tiredness in my legs in the evening, while sipping a beer and looking over our route on the map, is an amazing feeling of having conquered against the odds.
More importantly I feel that in doing this ride and meeting the challenge, I am for the first time doing something directly for my Dad.

Raising lots of money will help in the fight against pancreatic cancer but facing the challenge of the trip itself, enjoying the fun parts and keeping going when I'm desperate to stop, is something I feel I am doing for him.

When he became ill my family and I stuck together and made last summer the very best it could possibly have been. Most of that, I now realise, was due to my Dad who showed bravery and strength I never knew possible in anybody.

We did all we could for him but really it was him who did much more for us than we ever realised, by making our last summer together such a perfect one.

Since he has gone I have not been able to do anything for him but sit and think of the past.
This trip for me is the closest I have come and probably ever will come to doing something that I really feel is for him.

I'd love to know what he would have to say about the trip but even more I'd love to see his face when I told him I had managed to drag his creaking twenty-odd year-old racer, loaded with equipment most of the way through France. I think that would be the biggest shock for him.

We are supposed to be leaving about now to start the new leg of our journey but several hours of continuous rain has delayed our departure.

Well, on to Biarritz.......eventually