98 miles; 7hrs 30; 5,580 calories; 1,467m ascent

Tour and dinner at Bollinger last night was great.  Highlight of tour was Ian shouting there’s one when Mdme Bollinger asked if anyone had seen a bottle in a cellar containing about 20,000 (you had to be there) followed by saying some of the bottles had a square ring – something we could relate to given yesterday’s ride.  

Anyway, drinking from the Bollinger horn of plenty has put everyone in great spirits for today’s ride – only 98.5 miles today (this goes with other ‘only’ comments such as ‘my bike only cost £1,500’, ‘there’s only 45km to go’ and ‘why are we the only ones from group six in view’).  Ride is North so we were hoping to avoid the Westerly wind, but it had moved round to the North as well so still into a headwind and cold.

As we enjoyed Bollinger so much we stopped off for a photo shoot on the way past.

Eamonn’s key-hole surgery knee is giving him some gyp and finding little sympathy from the lads, visits the physio. Bad mistake, the physio’s approach is to knead Eamonn’s other knee until it’s black and blue, thus making him forget about the injured one. Sorted.

Group six has been renamed team p!$$ for obvious reasons.

Standing outside the Bollinger Caves Lawrence turns to Mike and says ” That’s was one of the hardest days I have ever done”!! and how right he was. Bollinger gave us one of the best nights you could ask for but everyone was so exhausted from the day that there where half and full bottles of wine and champagne left on the tables. Such a waste!!!

Bollinger distillery

Bollinger House

Start of day two…we’re in there somewhere!

Visiting one of the cemetries