Stage 2 San Damiano to La Condamine (fr.)

Today we needed lights!!

Over the top of the first climb I start to descend some really rough stuff and a couple of hikers start to shout "Bolsa, bolsa and point at me. I stop and remember that bolsa means bag. My under saddle bag is swinging loose only held on by a few threads. As I move off the trail Paul passes, that's the last I'll see of him I think. It takes a couple of minutes to find some way to tie my bag on and I set off. This is a great slightly cambered singletrack and very fast and enjoyable. But, less than five minutes later I see Paul, this time he's in trouble by the trail... I stop.
His rear brake rotor has come loose and the bolts are lost. He has two in his hand, I reason that three should hold it and take one of mine from the rear.

The trail now enters a huge rockfield with big drops and slabs of slick rock. I overtake team mamiani here and make good time until I find a gap that the front wheel fits perfectly and I go over the bars. I hang back a to see if Paul's ok, he catches up and then sprints past for the finish of the special stage.

At the CP luckily there's a mechanic and he has spare rotor bolts for us both, and we set off together. On a long fast asphalt descent, I notice that it's getting quite cold. After crossing a few beautiful bridges and through small tunnels, we head to the next climb.

After starting the climb of the Col de Vars, with a group, I find myself with just a Catalunyan guy at the top. We work together on the descent which takes us to Les Claux. Here, I'm a little bit confused as we pull into a cable car station. Senor Catalan explains that we take a car up the mountain!......bonkers, I must have missed this in the briefing. We share, then spend a nice ten minutes talking about why Catalunya is not in Spain:-) We disembark and ride part way back down the mountain to get on a chairlift over the next part of the mountain. Here the nice French operator bloke takes my bike, stands me on the platform, gives me the bike to hold at chest height and points over my shoulder. At that moment a chair swings in behind me and sweeps my legs from underneath me and I'm away up the mountain trying desperately to hold my bike and grip the swinging seat with my buttocks. Once the seat stops rocking about I find I can pass one arm through the frame work of the armrest and relax a bit. At this point Paul passes underneath on his way to the station.

At the top the next descent is footpath designated and the race is only allowed to use it if we respect this and don't ride.

From the check point at the bottom we climb the 10km col de Parpaillon on wide off-road double track. Then we discover why we need lights, at the summit is the Tunnel de Parpaillon.

Taken from the Internet Landrover Club website:

The road was built by the french army's corps of engineers in the late
1800's. What makes it special is the high altitude of 2656m and the 800m long
tunnel on top. After the invention of tarmac the neighbouring Col de Vars was
granted a hard surface as it offered access to the same regions at 500m lower
altitude


We were stopped at the mouth of the Tunnel by French soldiers and given rather fetching and warm looking green quilted jackets. I declined the offer and set off into the dark.....it was freeeeeezing!!!. It was full of huge puddles of crank deep icy water, I was shaking with cold when I eventually got to the other side of the tunnel.


Now only an 18km off-road descent of loose gravel hairpins to finish..hurrah! Five km's later I have to stop to rest my hands and feet! And then again...etc


The last few km's are fabulous rocky singletrack switchbacks which drop us into camp.


distance - 118km

I came in at 11hrs 15mins and Paul 11.34

From the IB site:

As a note: applause to the French tandem team that after the stage was obliged
to abandon the race, for a technical problem. They trained so hard! And were
defeated by the brakes (two sets has been changed since the beginning of the
IB!).