Day 3 - Continued

Photo 21: Paul pushing hard to the summit

Photo 22: A view back at the mountains we'd just crossed

Photo 23: Team's putting on their fancy dress

We were now cycling close to the Swiss border and much of the scenery seemed typically Swiss with chalets, cowbells and mountains all around. There were some more undulating hills, then 20 minutes into my next ride the road started to go downhill. The road snaked down through lots of little villages and carried on descending, down and down to the valley floor. The route down twisted through lots of hairpin bends and the van finally caught up with me at the bottom and gave me a call that we'd swap in 2 miles. I caught up with a small pack of riders and we slipstreamed each other for the last part of my ride.

Dave was out next and 10 minutes into his ride he hit a major ascent. The rest of Dave's ride was uphill and he powered hard up the climb. Marc took over at the end of Dave's 30 minutes. We were still going uphill at that stage so Marc worked hard and pushed us to the top. The cumulative altitude for the day was now 2437m. Paul took over and about 20 minutes into his ride we were at 1200m altitude and hit another long descent. Paul wound his way down the mountain through 7 hairpin bends and I then took over at the bottom.

The Raw Hide team had set lunch up again at Septfontaines so our van stopped for a quick snack and drink while I carried on. Much of the rest of my ride was downhill although not so steep and there was a strong headwind so I found myself peddling hard still. It took a while for the van to catch-up with me again and by the time it did I was into another ascent. They shouted to let me know they'd pick me up in a couple of miles which helped keeping me pushing up the hill and overtaking some of the other riders.