After arriving at the campsite the weather was pretty good, we even had a dip in the sub-20 degrees pool to cool off (no-one else did!).
We had stopped on the way in and bought
a family size can of Confit de Canard with Lentils and a baguette to
fill us up.
We arrived on the Tuesday and were
going to wait until at least the Thursday for my wheel to arrive at
the shop. We planned to sit at the pool and maybe have a wander
through town if the weather was good. It wasn't going to be.
We did have a couple of wanders in the
town which was a basic mid-size French town. Took some pictures of
the cathedral and generally mosied about.
We spoke to a few other campers, one of
which was a Dutch guy who was riding his 1950's Matchless motorcycle
down to a big meeting in the south of France. He was an engineer
working in shipbuilding and had some interesting stories. We said
goodnight on the Wednesday after talking with him all evening, and he
was there first thing in the morning with more engineering stories!
That guy could talk. I am sure you have to be another engineer to
enjoy that sort of company...
We went back to the bike shop (20km) on
the Thursday lunchtime to drop my bike off after another look around
the town, and took away a nice 8kg carbon framed racer as my hire
bike! On the way back I was struggling with the head down position
and lack of saddle comfort finding it hard to push at all, whilst
Johanna said she was flat out and couldn't keep up! It's like being
put on a motorbike after driving a donkey for weeks.
We got back and the heavens opened
properly this time. We spent the rest of the day and the next just
hiding from the weather. We even made food in the awning of the tent
that night. Bad weather.
I rode into town on the day we left to
pick up the repaired bike. Like any repair shop worth it's salt, they
had replaced a load of other components that I didn't know I needed.
In fairness, they were consumable items, but it did bump up the bill.
I ended up shelling out 182 Euros for the wheel, building and
fitting, a new chain, a new rear sprocket and a new gear selector
cable. The chain and sprocket were definitely worn, but not so sure
about the selector cable. Anyway, I was happy to get a functioning
bike back and it was worth it.
For the fourth day of our impromptu
stay in Agen, and as the weather had been so bad, we decided to book
into a Appart'city hotel in town. We enjoyed our stay in the last one
in Valence 2 weeks ago. Of course the sun would shine that day!
We washed everything we owned in the
laundrette after the muddy few days and had a nice quiet evening,
going into the square to have a drink later on. Then it started
raining again!
We prepped ourselves for the morning,
getting back onto the bikes and into a forecasted thunderstorm. Aw,
come on! Its supposed to be May in the south of France! :(
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