Words and photos by Epic Rider Antonio Cozzolino
Please follow this link to read Part 1.
Doesnʼt this photo just scream out “Welcome to the Mediterranean”? Yes. Granted by this point Iʼd been in the Med for about four weeks but, well, itʼs still a good tag line. Just hours after having come off the social-for-cyclists TGV (see Part I), Antibes greeted me to this wonderful scenery. Pictured here is an arch that forms part of the massive rock wall just down by the port and the old city.
This photo was taken while lost somewhere between Nice and Antibes, in fact the next four or five photos are from the same general area. Iʼm sure that by uploading my GPS tracks that will shed some light on the situation. Iʼll attach the tracks from rides that any of these photos (Part I & II) were taken on. Check out how white my socks are!
A few things to note here. First, I have clearly conquered the issue previously encountered when holding the camera in the wrong had relative to the view, in fact as you can see here Iʼm using the no hands technique. Second, this is not actually a static pose, weʼre moving fairly quickly. Thirdly, after having watched Alberto Contador and José Rujano power up Mt Etna in the Stage 9 of the Giro, and now seeing this photo again, I look like a giant! Iʼm really not, not at all, just scrapping in at 180cm.
A nice shot of our little peloton. Still lost.
The vibrant green here in the background is a rather stark contrast to the dry Majorcan mountains.
Fellow riders - found independently to the TGVʼs social program.
The watering hole. Apparently, and this is merely something that I have heard, but in France every small town that you ride into is obliged to provide you with complementary bread and water, if you have no money on your person. I didn't quite have the cheek to try my luck with the bread at the local bakery, though I did take to opportunity to fill up the water bottle.
By this time I had worked up a bit of an appetite. So while it looks like Iʼm smiling, Iʼm really just forcefully inquiring about which direction the closest café is in.
“Biot it is then!” I replied, and here we were in a lovely little boulangerie. In places like these everything generally looks good anyway, but when hungry you just want to order one of everything: Pain au chocolat, croissant, pain au resin, tarte au pommes, tarte au fraise, éclair au chocolat, mille-feuille, sandwich au poulet moutard and the list goes on...
The streets of Biot.
Back down on the Port dʼAntibes, this is where you can park your bicycle. Right next to your €100,000,000 super-yacht.
The sprint finish begins here.
..and ends here. I would like to call this mine, sadly it is not.
To close off the adventures in this photo diary is a recently released pressure guide. Iʼm going to go right ahead and presume itʼs for bicycle tyres. Lufthansa recommends using 1740 PSI above 20°C.
Dare you to try it.
Check out my GPS tracks:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/86379630
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/86379643
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/86379651
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/86379660
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/86379664
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/86379669