I knew I had about 100km to do today (102.85 to be precise), and there was a bit of climbing involved as well (a total rise of 2359m, including a category 1 climb - Col de Jau. It was part of the Tour de France after all!). So I had an early breakfast, bade farewell to Hazel and got on the road. Yesterday afternoon there had been a little drizzle, but this morning it was dry, but also very cold! On the first section to Limoux there was a bit of mist, and I was w...

After breakfast Dirck and Jennifer helped me to fix my new headcam onto my helmet, so that it wasn't pointing at the ground or the sky! This was my first trip using a headcam, so mistakes were to be expected. I eventually produced a 17 min video of the whole trip which can be seen on my YouTube channel tra6fom. Dirck and Jennifer were busy with a potential house buyer, so they gave me directions for a really nice walk round the neighbourhood (see pics) ending ...

Once I had tightened the handlebars and secured the panniers, my first thought was to get some breakfast. Luckily there were quite a few places to choose from nearby as the drop-off point was just outside the toll booths at junction 41 of the A9 motorway, and in France such places are magnets for budget hotels, cafes etc. My route from there (and all subsequent routes) are on MapmyRide. At the time I didn't have a GPS, but was using a paper map. Unfortunately ...