L'Etape de Bourgogne (175km - Bar-sur-Aube to Ecutigny)
We awoke well rested in our Pirate Theme Park hotel and set off early (minus Andrew Reed who had checked into the sick bay on the coach) on the long ride south out of Champagne and up into Burgundy...... the first 2-3 hrs were close to cycling heaven, the wind had dropped, the sun even came out, morale and discipline in the peloton were at all-time high levels...... it was almost too good to be true, surely it couldn't last..... IT DIDN'T.
As soon as we started to climb into the hills the sky darkened and soon bolts of lightning were crackling around us, the rain began, it got heavier and heavier and then marble sized balls of ice started to pelt us......(it's hail Jim but not as we know it)....... Alan had asked me under what conditions we'd stop.... I said only for hail...... but it turned out that we didn't stop for that either! Eventually we were hauled frozen and soaked into the back of the van but then Patrick had a "Captain Oates moment" and set off alone....we then realised that Jon had (naturally) never stopped at all and was also somewhere up ahead - they were both lost and all attempts to contact them failed (their mobiles had flooded).
The rest of the peloton pressed on to lunch and a chance to change some clothes......... still no word from Patrick & Jon......... who were later found drinking local Pear Brandy in a local cafe having headed to Dijon, collected sobered up and put back on their bikes........ eventually some 10 hours after we departed we arrived at Gilles de Courcel's Chateau de Ecutigny.......extremely pleased to have made what was the longest ever day in the 8 years of the Mentzendorff Charity Ride.