This morning we hopped right on our bikes and left the small town of Sallent behind. Riding North we would soon be in France but not before a quick truck stop breakfast and about 45 minutes of riding. Our elevation was increasing steadily as we passed numerous mountain resorts that were busy putting final touches on their new additions before the snow arrives. The morning was an awesome ride with clear blue skies, crisp air and the roads, although still winding, were two lanes wide which allowed us to get some km’s under our belt. (at this stage it still hasn’t sunk in that the original plan of Asturias was out of the question!) Ride baby! Ride!

It’s getting cold!

Preparing for the rain.

The summit is the border between Spain and France and it was pretty much deserted. All of a sudden we were riding in France and the only evidence of this was a pre-European Union customs booth and the occasional sign posted in French. Damn you get a better French welcome arriving into Canada! Where was our Bienvenue au France?!!

Adios Spain! We’ll be back.

The road started to get a little wet as we wound ourselves down the mountain, threw the thick fog and into more sweeping lush valleys which were full of vaches. We must have ridden to the top of 3 mountains on this day and each one of them were blanketed by fog at their peak. One of the mountains had dry roads and we just ripped along as if we were on little dirt bikes, the other 2 however showered us with rain – and I mean rain…we were soaked. Soaked and absolutely loving it!

Foggy and wet.

More of the same.

Two of the three maps we carried covered the Pyrenees and therefore a little bit of France. Problem was that the the two maps needed to be joined together in order to find our route to St. Jean, and the maps were of differing scales. I knew this when I bought them but these were all I could find, and what were the odds we would be coming out of the Pyrenees and riding into France at exactly where the edges of these two maps meet? Well, here we were…lost, for the first time. Using very articulate Franish and with the help of some very friendly French men who gave us there map we soon found our way and were back on track.

Let me back it up a bit. We weren’t really lost per se, we made very skilled Boy Scout decisions at all previous fork in the roads and wisely decided that this one particular decision should be made with the aid of a local.

France. A brief moment of no rain.

We had tried a couple of times to stop for some lunch but the French were very stringent on the actual times for eating. With blood sugar levels dropping we rode on like the Canadian bad-asses that we were! (inside joke!!)

Stunning scenery.

This was a full day of riding! Skipping lunch (not by choice) we arrived at our destination, which is a small French border town called St. Jean, at about 5:00 looking for food. Well it turns out that the French are very picky about when meals can be eaten. We were clearly too late for lunch but we were also far too early for dinner. We settled on beer, a dry sandwich and some chips. Yum!! French cooking at it’s best. Zut alors!

Stan and a 12incher.

Exhausted, we found a cheap sleep hotel, called Shanti to tell her that I arrived safe and sound and did a little exploring sans the bikes.