Day 8 Givet - 7.8.05 

We leave Givet intending to stay with the river, avoid Charleville and get within striking distance of Paris. Reims would have been great, Rethel would be OK. 5 km out of Givet the road turned right, away from the river and we started a steep climb. It was my first time in my small front cog. I slowly worked my way down to the lowest gear and waited for the climb to end. As it was the first thing in the day, I rode very conservatively. Soon we had climbed to 300m (from 40) and we would have 3 other climbs for the day. We went from dense forests to open fields and took some small roads to work our way across to the south-west. There were strong winds at times - never in our favor. We stopped in a town called Ravin to see if a bike shop could look at Peter's rear tyre.

The shop was shut and about 5 other people stood outside occasionally trying the door and muttering in French. We fixed the tyre ourselves and pressed on. We stopped at Renwez for lunch but it was all shut so we pressed on. Next was Lonny, shut too! At Sermonne we had a coffee at a pub and a pastiserie shop opened; we each had a custard slice that was hard to beat. We then found out why so much was shut. We had lost track of the days and were told it was saturday! What about tomorrow? By 5pm we reached Bethel, were weary enough from the climbing and found a bed and breakfast at a nearby farm. A bottle of Bordeaux for 3.50 Euros and we slept well.

Stats Dist 108 Km, Average 18km/hr, Max 52km/hr, Climb 850m

  Email John at John@CycleOdyssey.com.au
 

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