Trans Provence day 6: beers on the beach
All 7 bikers sat quietly at breakfast, the inevitable last day of riding has arrived. So Julia, what are we having today?
“More ungulated riding today guys, with a stop in Italy for some coffee. Best coffee ever!”
We didn’t have to pack our stuff today, we’d sleep here another night. Fine by us, best beds ever. Best bed-covers ever. Best food ever! We’d stay here all week! Got our bikes on the rack and off to the first part of the day riding with Julia. Some fantastic trails in the morning kept us smiling. The impossible trail can also be found near here, big boulders in the mud made us walk for the most parts and before we knew it we crossed the border into Italy. Coffee for some, a cold coke for others.
Shitting of your pants is allowed…
In the afternoon Ash took us for the final ride to Menton, we started with a very nice decent and not before long we ran into trouble… in the Alpes sheep often are guarded by big BIG guard dogs. Sometimes the shepherd is also present, but today he wasn’t or he was sleeping somewhere out of ear-range. The two monsters that where guarding the goats and sheep didn’t particularly like us passing through. Even-though we where on a genuine (hiking-)trail, the dogs came at us in full attack mode. Actually it was just one at first.
We where just riding along… all the sudden I see Ash dismount his bike in a peculiar way (like a wheelie gong wrong), Sam and Gaz in front of me doing the same. A mountain dog -super size- came charging like a rabid-dog, we used our bikes like gladiator-shields. Bikes outside, us inside. This way we’d try to pass through… only then his super-super-size buddy guard dog came at us too. This is the time to shit your pants! There wasn’t really a way around them, though we tried. We just took one step at a time, keeping a close eye on the big teeth that stared at us and it must have delayed us for about an hour! After the dogs let us pass, we walked quietly for a bit more, just not to piss them off. Then we got on the bikes and got the hell out of there.
Laden
The sea was getting closer and gently our trip was coming to an and. We reached the highway and all the sudden reality kicked in. I didn’t want this! The noise and civilisation… can we turn around and go back?
Endless stairs took us al the way to Menton, more steps and then… Promenade du Soleil! Gaz did wheelies until the end, we coasted until the sand. Got our beers and radlers, selfied until we had enough and sat in the sand until they dragged us back in the van…snif.
