September 2011 - Spain and France - Day 8 : a mixed bag - not great

The group 8 bikes left Vielle-Amour at 9:30 and the plan was to ride the Roncal valley in Spain and then back up to France. After some 10 minutes’ riding, I was surprised to see a phone call come through from a French number; I answered it; it was Bellinda; she advised that one of the guys had left all his documents on the table. For the first time my Autocom phone system seemed to work !! Hurray ! I told her that I would immediately advise Phil. I sped up to the front of the group and told Phil; we parked up some 1 mile further and Phil returned to retrieve the documents.

The roads had variable surfaces and, at our first stop, Dave and I agreed that we would prefer to do our own thing at our own pace. So we split off and headed off towards the Roncal valley. The road was indeed wonderful but Dave became concerned that his brakes were fading; so we pulled over and Dave checked everything out; all seemed fine; so we continued without further incident.
We arrived back at Vielle-Adour at 6pm but had to admit that it had not been a great day; we were hot and tired and decided that we would cancel the hotel for Friday night in Spain and, instead, head back to Dave and Janet’s in St Fort sur Gironde where we would chill out and relax. I would then return to Santander on Sunday ready for my ferry on the Monday afternoon.