
Days 1, 2 & 3
At the request of my mate Brian, I've restarted my blog to cover this year's long ride home. It's not really a long ride home in the tradition of the others, in that I am spending a week in Italy riding with friends in the Italian Alps and then riding back from somewhere in France.
As there are six of us on the trip we decided to drive. Strictly speaking, Trevor snd Bridget are driving in one car, James and Fiona in the other. Rachel and I are floating passengers. The first day saw us drive 800km from Warwick to Metz in Northern France via the chunnel. Metz turned out to be a nice little city where we could sit in the sun and have a beer after the long drive. The uneventful journey broken up only by singing along to 80's hits. It was a bloody long journey.
Anyway back to Metz sitting in the sun with a beer, our ears being assaulted by some truly dreadful French favourites being played over a speaker so loudly it drove us off to find dinner. After a reasonable meal, three of us opted to head back to the hotel, three decided to go for more drinks. If you know any of us you will easily guess at the split.
At some point during the night a dyspraxic elephant on rollerskates entered the room and dismantled the bedside cabinet. I paid it no attention and when I woke in the morning it had morphed into my gently sleeping wife. She had plenty of time to regret her decision to stay out drinking.
On day 2 we drove another 500km or so to Frastanz in Austria through spectacular Swiss scenary. I'm sure that the Swiss think the scenery is so beautiful that you won't notice things like getting ripped off - £10.50 for a vegan burger in Burger King (bandit?) or wierd shit like the odd discovery of a sex shop inside a fancy service station.
We arrived in time for a 6 up Sunday club ride from our Airbnb to Vaduz in Liechtenstein. Not wishing to repeat the previous evening's drinking levels we stayed home and the other five all pretended they liked my cooking.

Waking up in Austria to a spectacular view almost made it hard to leave and Rachel plonked herself outside for breakfast to take it all in.

Day three was a shorter drive to Bormio, again giving us time to get out for an afternoon ride. Rachel and I opted for just 40km as my back was sore from the hours in the car. The other four added on more kilometers and James went looking for a bigger climb.
Tomorrow is the day we all go higher we hope. But it's weather dependant.
Glad it’s back.