Day ! Great Cycle Challenge hereafter known as GCC

Chess training and the start of the Great cycle challenge to raise $501.00 for childrens' cancer research. I must ride 1001 ks during October or at least 33ks every day.

I'm getting ready to make a trip via bike paths from Geneva Switzerland to Roma Italy.
To prepare I've been testing how to export GPX files as generated  by my STRAVA feed. Today's upload test is a short lake circuit of my home town Canberra.

Australian highlands tour

Preparing to ride some Australian mountains for a change

Friday March 24, 2017

Instead of always flying to France, Italy or Switzerland, time now to take in some more local highlands in my homeland Australia.
Going to catch a bus on Monday 27th March from Canberra to Albury on the border with Victoria and ride from there to Bright a small and very bike friendly town at the foothills of Mt Beauty. From there I hope to ride home via the tallest ranges in Australia. Two weeks maximum is my planned time period and hopefully the weather will be kind to me as the mountains attract clouds as we all know.
I'm reverting to my faithful touring bike of yore a TREK 520 as prepared for me by Ian Downing a superb bike specialist here in Canberra nearly 17 years ago.
I normally travel with the complete 6 Ortlieb pannier set as camping 2 days and hotelling every third is my want. However this time I'm reducing the clothing load and while still camping will make use of hotels a bit more.
I hope to be able to update everything on my phone and use a STRAVA pdf file like the one below to illustrate my exact route.

Airbus fri 11 july

Air travel days are a bit time conscious but I was determined to fit in one last musee before enslaving myself to airbus time.

It was to be the Musee du Post but being closed became the Musee Jean Moulins. I also accessed a strange place which is a forested garden tennis centre with no less than two musee on the top of the Montparnasse station and shops. A funny place ive wondered about. The large  treetops are its only sign from the street. Yet the half acre complex is a visible oddity from the top of the 200 metre tour de montparnasse. All wet with the pock of  tennis mixed with stetorian world war voices and bombs exploding.

Woke to steady rain and almost dry smalls. Packed for aero travel and organised with Clancy the well spoken and nattily dressed concierge baggage storage for several hours. The tramline immediate to the hotel us closed for  repairs. Decide to engage the Cameroonian cabbie Jules Armand who gave me such a good hoy when I first regained this elegant wet city.

He has a new child Nolan and  has a time of it getting me through the pre bastille day practice traffic jam. He is a true spirit and philosopge driving very carefully through rain and others frustration, so even though the price is agreed I give him a bit more to ensure he is not out of pocket.

At the airport nice to talk to fellow aussies. The line is long. The bike must be flown with a triple  signed waiver. I am told to put it (in its well travelled sac) and the two other ortlieb bags into oversize storage. I trust the system to ensure all the pressies and my dirty sox make it to Melbourne where I must take it through customs and transfer.

Now the timelessness sets in and I will soon be on the plane. So see you all at the end of,as Sheila puts it, the time tunnel.

Paris Thurs 10 July

Rain again forcing the early TdeF exit of Chris Froome. Paris is good raining. Today the D'Orsay, la magazin Lafayette, Henri IV's place des vosges. and the musee Canavalet sheltered me while opening my eyes to ancient and modern glories.

A dark morning late start with the bike bag court-yarded. Disguised last nights hand wash in the cupboard to finish drying. After a more friendly petit dejeuner the metro bore me dry to the wonderful old train station doubling as La D'Orsay.

Familliar pics. The nga had some of their cherries once in my time. And unfamiliar. Les geants Courbet Delacroix, Rodin are always a surprise. Then Carpeaux. What wonderful sculptures he made and an absolutely impassioned painting of the royal exit prior to the seige of Paris. Really very much enjoyed this exhibition. Bought the catalogue to maintain ma francais.

Then home via Galleries Lafayette. A very big shop on top of an equally magnificent rumbling train station.

Then off to a lovely garden just behind the rue de Rivoli. Only to find its founder the great Henri quartre superceded in the sculpture stakes by Louis 13th on his tree groined horse towering above the youngsters chorusing at his pivotal pedestal.

Then up the rue to a museum celebrating the history of Paris itself. Great Palais filled with some of this city's greats along with their intricate furniture. Paul Keating now I understand. Here are fine clocks.

Home to bread, tabouli and cheese with a guiness en chambre for dinner, to get a glimpse of la tour en francais. Long sleep tonight for the flying home blur.

Will try to blog tomorrow which will extend as I regain my lost time, however not totally sure if it will be possible.

Auvoir Paris G'day Australie.

Paris Wed 9 July

The Trek bagged after a last ride in search of packing materials to soften the blows en avion. Then the actual bagging before the rain started and forced me to hide in Saint Chapelle and the rather grim Conciergerie. Bike dans sac can only mean one thing. Home to wonderful down under.

I awoke to Brazilians crying at their Bayern Munchen defeat and Simon Gerrans upset with Cavendish's brutish shouldering to the Yorkshire pavement Then a subterranean petit dejeuner and off on the bike for an early morning last ride en Paris. The long way via Des Invalides and the Bastille meant I could arrive at the Pont Sully Geant magazin as they opened at 10.

They sent me empty handed to BHV a huge shop on Rue de Rivoli with bricolage for les cles allen.  Then the last long way home on the faithful bici. Still limping with  the front wheel bearing loose , never completely fixed in Orleans and  last cleaned in Carnia. Bagged as best I can. I will enfold her with a golden net to protect her from further damage on the way home in meditation. Such a willing and faithful steed. She now sits in a courtyard awaiting me to carry her to the metro and thence the airport on friday.

Cleaned up after the pack up paying special attention to hands. Nails and shoes say so much in Paris. Perhaps tis the nowhere to look thing amongst one another sur le metro where one's status is revealed? How does everyone know I really speak only English?  What body language / clothing/ makes me a tourist?  All this is silently communicated on the metro.

Popped up out of the old ground  across the road from Saint Chapelle.  A grand but small palatial church fillled with the steady hammering of the stone mason repairing behind his discreet advertising screen. A more regal vibe for a church, than anything Italiano I've been in.. The Versailles chapel, grander more Baroque but in the same vein. A prince's kneeling zone. And medieval. A repository for a long since vanished crown of thorns. Anything Isle de la Cite has very old foundations.. Fortified to resist Vikings in the middle of their river. Felt like a regal private chapel. Les fenetres were  glorious and amazing.

Then next door to the Clovis palace. Not much of the 500's remains. Burned twice at least, transformed by various dynastic  egos and then left in the dust of history to become an awful prison and the launching pad i(n the Cour de Mai) for the pitiable victims, their tumbrels bound fof the guillotine in the Place de Concorde. I wonder did Cadel rue the painful heritage of the cobbles as he raced over them to win the finely woven maillot jaune? Thankfully youth in ignorance moves us all along.

Very new and fast jets broke the skies loudly as I splashed across the women's exercise yard with its blankly staring windows above a row of downward pointing bronze spears. Privacy was an expensive luxury in previous times especially when housed at the king's pleasure. Most had only straw between them.

Then a return to the Hotel to hand wash me daks ready for fridays flight. Next doir for the effective wifi and great pizza at the Absolut cafe which has just arrived so I shall down plume.