Diary written by: Bernt Pölling-Vocke ( bernty@gmx.com )

Welcome to our vacation! Right now we are having the first break of today´s stage which should be the first of three way shorter stages until we reach the Mont Ventoux. The knowledge of three stages with less than 100 kilometers, the mentally refreshing evening in Lyon and a good sleep last night combine for some pretty positive emotions today. The good breakfast-buffet also did it´s part and it´s just a lot easier to cycle when you know that even a break every 2 kilometers would still result in an earlier arrival than the last two days. Enough of nightcycling for now!

Lyon was also pretty nice when we left it a couple of hours ago. We passed by some streetmarkets, got a daylight-view of some of the older buildings and it was easy to feel once again that the city is just alive.

The weather is 7 out of 9 today, at least on the scale of a french newspaper I didn´t understand and saw around the hotel this morning. 7 out of 9 seems to be something like 30 degrees, no clouds and no wind. Glad we didn´t get a 9 though...

The Rhon-valley (Rhon is the river around here) appears to be rather ugly but it´s probably to early to make a statement after just 30 kilometers so stay tuned for updates of my impression. On the other side there are no cycling-routes along the river as we are used to and the road we took so far was nice traffic-wise but sucked big time with a heavily used autobahn to our right and train-tracks to our left. Talk about noisy cycling...

After our break here we will probably change our route a bit. We won´t be as close to the Rhone anymore but it´s not worth a lot when you are close but can´t see it on a crappy road when you can just as well cycle somewhere where you can´t see it at all but the road is more attractive. At least that´s what I hope...

2nd entry of the day:

Frank just described the Rhon in front of us as a lot of puke with "shit flowing onto it which should normally just sink" and some "people fishing who are either very dumb or get paid by the government". Anyways, 62.5 kilometers have been cycled so far and we are having a longer break again, right at the Rhone this time. We also passed the 1000-kilometer-mark just a few kilometers ago and celebrated the milestone with some pictures. Just when we hit the 1000 kilometers a dirt road appeared on our right and we took the pictures on "our" Millenium way before we continued our journey on the main road. My average speed stands at 21.3 so far which makes for a pretty fast stage and taking into account that we won´t cycle a lot more some improvements are still possible.

When we cycled into the village at which´s end we are having our break right now some kids on bikes started to chase us and yelled "allez allez" (go go), I guess we have some fans by now and the local media is covering the journey of the two idiots from Germany who cycle along the most deserted roads and towns in France. With those kids it almost felt like a Tour de France but I don´t think Lance Armstrong would cycle 21.3 and have breaks every 20-30 kilometers.

The heat also played a role on today´s stage. No clouds could be seen anywhere and it definetly got very hot in the early afternoon when we ran out of water and couldn´t find any open store. I think that in rural France not too many people need gas stations or supermarkets on a sunday and in the end we finally found a vending machine which´s owner definetly made a lot of money on us. 3.5 liters of water and other drinks costed us about 25 marks but after almost 20 kilometers without any water at all and very high temperatures we didn´t really care that much. Sometimes it´s just smarter to keep on going though as we passed an opened supermarket just around the corner, oh well, it´s only money and we still got something in return. Not everybody got that lucky in 2000 and 2001 on the stock market...

3rd entry of the day:

The typical evening-scene: Frank is taking a shower, I am writing. All in all we cycled 88.2 kilometers on today´s shortest stage of the tour. After Lyon last night today´s destination, Saint Vallier, is quiet a change. Not a change for the good as I would judge because this is a town where you better dig your own grave before you die. There might just be nobody left to dig it for you after you´re dead...

We are also the only 2 customers of the only opened hotel in town and the only car that travelled by so far was a police-car. There was also a town-square with lots of closed stores and no soul around and the town really feels like a ghost-town from some very bad movies. I am also very sure that the local sheriff is also the local mayor and that he is making a living by directing polluted water from Lyon into the Rhone. The whole population on the other side keeps on dying from the poisoned water and the result is a town where real estate-prices are a lot cheaper than in central Manhatten. 

4th entry of the day:

It´s 8 pm and we just returned from another walk through town. Suprisingly we didn´t find a lot of open restaurants and ended up with the worst pizza I have eaten in a very long time. Even though the piece of shit was 33 centimers in diameter it probably weighted less than 100 grams and they also forgot to put anything on the paste which was thin enough to deliver underneath a closed door.

Our bed is also rather uncomfortable as the bed is equipped with two very old mattresses and it´s very likely one gets seasick if there is any movement in the bed at all. Frank is already talking about staying in a Formula One hotel again tomorrow evening, I wouldn´t mind if we find one... Lyon feels like a world away.

Chess statistics:        Bernt vs Frank         1:12