And for my final trick...

He described it as “the worst experience of his life.” “But,” he continued, “it makes you feel like a warrior.” That is what I’m up against tomorrow morning as my farewell to Nice.

Here’s the pickle: my plane leaves at 7am. The earliest bus leaves at 6am and takes 20min to get to the airport. Cabs charge 50 euros for the trip which is more than I would ever pay for moral reasons. All my friends with cars live 30-40min outside of the city. SO, the way to go is by bike. My plan is to attach my bike case to my backpack (carry-on), then ride my bike along the Promenade des Anglais while pulling my giant rolly-luggage with a free hand. Then I also need to allow time to disassemble my bike in the terminal and repack all my bags. So my day begins at 3am tomorrow morning.

It seems appropriate that such a trip would cap off this week. I’ve ridden a ton, around 27hrs with four days of tempo climbing. Saturday was great, I explored Italy in the mountains north of Ventimiglia and found a climb almost exactly like the Col de Turini but south-facing so I could do the whole thing in shorts and a jersey. 6hrs roundtrip though, with 1:30 of climbing at tempo. The approach is also really nice, you wind through little Italian mountain villages for about an hour going inland from the sea. At one point I came upon a huge funeral procession, maybe 300+ people, all on foot taking up the whole road and walking in complete silence through the little city square. Some people saw me and the group opened up a corridor on the side of the road for me to pass. Then everyone stared at me seemingly expecting something, so I crossed myself and bowed my head and they all did the same and I kept riding. I’m not sure if that was the thing to do but it was the first thing that came to mind and seemed to do the trick.

My going-away outing was a rousing game of pub bingo, which was great for practicing numbers but people kept erupting into song and it was difficult to hear. It was the closest my life has ever come to being a musical and let me say it’s a lot weirder than when they do it on stage. Then yesterday was apparently Australia Day, which of course commemorates the day booze landed shore of the hapless penal colony, so we went to an Irish pub to dance on tables with all the Aussie expats in Nice.

And so concludes my journey. I’m not going to update my blog when I’m at home because that just seems silly to me. BUT, I think I’ll keep it going during the year but only post stuff when I’m traveling or at races. Thanks a lot to everyone for your support this winter, it’s been great.