Day 8 – Salon-de-Provence to Fréjus

I want to start by thanking Donald and his lovely wife from the Hotel Select in Salon-de-Provence. Fantastic hospitality and I’d thoroughly recommend it to anyone around that area, especially to any cyclists!

Today started fairly well, my knee hurt but it was the first day I didn’t feel the need to wear waterproof trousers. Thankfully the weather lived up to expectations and produced a beautiful day. I had a gentle tailwind for a large portion of the day and I was able to appreciate Provence – which is actually quite nice.

Having Dad with me has been great, not having to worry about where my next meal was coming from or carrying my two rear panniers. Along with the priceless moral support – something I needed after the first week; which has been tough to say the least.

As the day wore on, the pain in my knee decreased and by the last 30km, it had returned to a small niggle on the verge of being unnoticeable. Whether this was down to the massage, the stretching or carrying less weight I’m not sure; but I hope it lasts! For almost the first time on this trip I genuinely really enjoyed riding my bike again and would have happily carried on for a fair bit more. My legs felt good, so it’s nice to know that – apart from my knee – my body’s faring pretty well.

I had thought of taking a rest day tomorrow, I’ve now set that to Monday. Which is good because it will mean I’ve covered France in one go, although it feels good to have gone from the north coast to the south coast already. Riding along most of the French Riviera tomorrow and then on into Italy. I should be able to catch up with emails and stuff then and hopefully get round to uploading a few pictures.

I had another massage today, which was great until she started rubbing my face. I’m not entirely sure what the point in that was.

Dad says, it’ll be a shame to see him go …

Number Crunching:
Distance: 97.08miles / 156.2km
Riding Time: 5:53:14
Av. Speed: 16.5mph / 26.5kph