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Day 7 - Nyons to Digne Les Bains

We leave Nyons with three additional Riders, there’s now sixteen of us; John Bentley, Gary Bentley and Mark Dunning; the ANSA contingency having flown in the night previously. We have another 178 miles to complete in the next two days, as we enter the mountainous Alps Provence.

The day starts with what is proving to be typical 6.30 rise with the full 22 man team meeting for breakfast, the riders looking to consume as many of the 9000 calories they’ll need to carry them through the day (eating enough food to sustain up to 11 hours in the saddle, proved to be one of the biggest challenges of the trip and couldn’t have been achieved with out the support team providing refuelling every two hours or so along the route).

The day’s journey begins with a gradual climb along a spectacular gorge like river valley, little did we know that this clime wouldn’t end for another 40 miles with the gradient becoming progressively steeper, it’s not until just before lunch that we enjoy our first descent of the day with a fast hair pinned blast into Serres, we again meet up with the support team and look to consume a further 3000 calories or so, from their carefully prepared energy filled finger buffet.

Now half way through the days ride, we’re told that we can enjoy a steady down hill decent to our final destination – this proved to be true but what we didn’t count on was the strong and constant head wind we found our selves working against, making the second half of the day seem even tougher than the first.

With 85 miles down and only another 93 to go to the finish we were all glad to finish the day with a glass or two of rose (already established as the tours official drink!!)