Learning French....

So despite all the anticipation and nervousness of being picked up at the airport with no real confirmation beyond email, things all worked out. Albert greeted me at the airport door, as all three of my checked bags made it over the pond! Surprisingly, there were no customs, I just walked out the door. One thing that I find funny, is that anytime I go overseas the airports all have luggage carts, free of charge. Anytime you are in the USA, its like $4-$8 bucks. I only mention this because of my large amount of luggage, getting through check-in at Orlando International was a dancing act to not mow any kids down, as I carried my bike, bike clothing bag, suitcase and laptop bag. Moving off my soapbox of tangent, Albert was very nice, we talked in half French/Spanish and hand signals on the way to my new home in Nueil les Aubiers. I was able to drive up to this

Definitely not what I was expecting, but then again I had no idea where I was going to start with. I was given the tour and met my new teammates (who were here and awake). I was also given my room, and went to the most important task, making sure my bike was in one piece.

My Room

As I started to unpack, I was glad to see that TSA decided to remove every thing from one of the pockets in my case and move all my well packed items around. I am glad that the Pikaworks Case is probably the best thing ever made, because it was totally fine. My only casualty was a bottle cage that came unlaminated. 

After getting this done and my room set up, I made a trip to the Pharmacy to get some cold medicine. I think its wicked hard to not feel something come on when doing a full day flight. So after that I slept as much as humanly possible. Albert brought me some groceries while I was passed out. My wicked good diet is going to just deal with the food here, pasta, granola, apples, yogurt, eggs, cheese and ham. 

As I got up on Friday, the weather was pretty rough. It seemed like it was going to rain all day. I took it slow, made coffee and some breakfast. I was so glad I brought my french press and 3lbs. of coffee. As the day went on there was some confusion over releases and licenses and eventually I think we sorted it out. Well at least I hope we did, because my French is horrible and I just downloaded Rosetta Stone to try and learn (since we are going to have downtime). Not sure if I was on the roster for the weekend races, I went for an imperative hour spin despite the weather. 

I tried to get lost, but not all the way, I did stumble on some pretty cool looking roads, that were about 8 feet wide. I noticed that it was about the windiest place I have ever ridden and that it was definitely going to make me tough just by the hilly terrain as well. I got back to la masion and everyone was gone. Not sure if people went for a ride or what, I showered, ate and hung out. Eventually no one came back, so I was assuming that I wasn't racing the weekend. Which was fine, it would give me some time to get my legs open and under me after a few days off from travel and near sickness.

I got a good night of sleep and felt pretty refreshed. To my surprise and disliking the weather was still pretty crappy. I continued with the standard breakfast and coffee and decided to wait. Not sure if I was waiting for Albert or the weather to clear, but one thing for sure was that I was not being very productive. 

Finally when the sun came out and glimmered through my window, I kitted up as fast as possible and went out the door with plans to get lost for 4 hours. I had no idea where I was going, no mapping of routes, nothing. My sheer guiding light was to ride to the towns that I thought sounded the coolest. Eventually, I got on path towards Anger, which sounds cool right? Along the way I ran into Brissac-Quince, which had a sick little climb with a church on top of it and it overlooked what was a historic palace. All in wall it was beautiful!

• The Look out to the Palace

• Church a top the col in Brissac-Quince

As the ride continued, I sort of got turned around cutting through Vihiers and turned on the wrong side street, then took another road to cut across back to where I felt I should be. Eventually around the 3:45 mark of my ride I hit the town of Maulevrier and saw signs back to les Aubiers. It was a relief until the signs had me to a virtual U-Turn. I stopped then and I had to summon the powers of the Iphone (which holy crap thank you Mom and Dad) which showed me exactly where I was. The sad fact was that I was 20km north of where I wanted to be. The good thing was that it was all tail wind. Finally I made it home and needed some rest after what turned out to be a very hilly, windy and hard ride.