Hallidays at home at Fontiers Cabardes

Day 6 Thurs 9th May Monferrier Sur Lez to Mazamet (then Fontiers Cabardes)
Hôtel-Restaurant le Boulevard. 24, boulevard Soult - 81200 Mazamet - France
Tél. : +33 (0) 5.63.61.16.08
121 miles/194.7kms
2995m of ascent
Average speed 25.9 mph for the first 100 miles (unconfirmed by Garmin)

This was meant to be a quieter day for Bob and myself as we were planning to visit my Cousin David Halliday and his wife Margaret on the Carcassonne side of the Black Mountains, so we knew we had 40 km to do in addition to the planned route for the Group. However, it was a warm day with a following wind so we found ourselves getting caught up in the excitement and mixing it with the rest. As we left Monferrier on the outskirts of Monpellier, we found ourselves on busier roads that were difficult to avoid. We kept our heads down and the pace up and racked up the kilometres. Grand cremes were taken at a small cafe in a market town and supplemented by a piece of the local sugar encrusted shortbread (lovely but not as good as Margie's mothers...) The roads were quieter and we had started some serious climbing by the time we stopped for lunch in a quiet roadside lay by. We took on some excessive (we thought wrongly) calories as we knew we had more serious cycling to do.
The afternoon's cycle was predominantly uphill towards Mazamet in Les Montagnes Noir. Roads were quiet and smooth, the weather not too hot and the wind was at our backs. The speed increased all the time and I found myself doing the last 2km in to Mazamet at the front of the group at 30mph. I had nothing left in my legs, or gears to move up to, so could only watch as six of the group catapulted past me to take the sprint to the town boundary. It was won by Bob who had craftily sat closer to the back of the group to save his strength in the lead in. Great fun but at a cost to overall muscle power and lactic acid build up. The hotel was handily on the route de Carcassonne so it was easy for Bob and I to wave good bye to the boys as they relaxed and prepared for showers and food after they had done their 100 miles for the day, then pick up our rucksacks and set of up the 15km climb out of Mazamet. Oh, did I mention that it started to rain as well?
Actually the climb wasn't very steep which was just as well as we ran out of calories half way up and had to finish the last of our dwindling supplies. Bob's left knee ran in to arthritis problems and he finished the climb at a slow pace. Luckily he had recovered by the time we had descended the next 15km to Cuxsac Cabardes, as we then had another 6km or so to Fontiers Cabardes. David and Margaret were wonderfully hospitable and in no time we were tucking in to beer, asparagus, Boeuf Bourgeon and apple crumble. We drank Muscat Blanc and local red wine before denting the Scapa Malt bottle. 1am was my latest finish on this holiday so far, but one of the fullest and best days so far.