Wednesday 3rd September
Made it!  We arrived at Samoens at 1700hrs after conquering the Col de Joux Plane - a real Tour de France climb   11km (c.7 miles) with an average gradient of 1 in 10, and much steeper in places. Took us about 90 mins continuous hard effort. Phew! There was then a dramatic descent down to Samoen, made more scary by the fact that there was a car rally on the same roads with cars racing up the climb. Several near misses. What a stupid arrangement on a public road! Anyway we survived and have had a pleasant couple of hours on the balcony of Simon and Derval's lovely house sipping champers and then beer. This is actually to celebrate the fact that, as schools in UK have started back properly today, this is the day Paul starts proper retirement. And I start my 8th year of retirement!
Actually I'm starting at the wrong end because the day started in Lausanne with another lovely morning and a 35 minute ferry crossing to Evian. We've been so fortunate with the weather and it was another cracking morning. When we got to Evian we stopped after a few miles for a coffee and, in a Paul's case, a Cognac, for the first of several celebrations of his retirement! The ride onwards (and. upwards) to Morzine was a treat. About 20 miles through impressive scenery and with a smooth surface and steady gradient. We all got 'in the groove' and just flowed up the climb to the lunch stop at Morzine. Funny for me to be there again as I have snowboarded there a few times and never thought if cycle there as well!
I'm sure you're dying to know - we've done 708 miles to get here from Bewdley and today alone climbed nearly 6000'.  No punctures on the whole ride and no real mechanical problems either so we've been lucky. We only got lost a couple of times as well!  Not bad with me as navigator.
The best timing today was to receive a text just as I crested the Col from someone saying they had sponsored me for the ride. Perfect timing!  Thanks Wes - you know who you are!
Well that's all for now. I'll try and do a summary post and one about our return but thanks for reading this far anyway. So sorry I haven't been able to post photos. I'll try and do so once I get back to the UK. Cheers for now. Bon Nuit!