Ride Day 22—3 Oct 2005—34220 St-Pons-de-Thomières to 81320 Murat-sur-Vèbre

<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial;">Today’s area and roads were outstanding.<span> </span>Only D907 had more traffic than we would have liked.<span> </span>Also, we passed from the Hérault Department into the Tarn Department.<span> </span>This also meant that we’d left the Languedoc-Roussillon Region and entered the Midi-Pyrénées Region.</span>

<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial;">Starting from St Pons at 320 M, we immediately climbed to 941 M at the first col and from then until arriving in Murat, we descended and climbed within a 200 or so meter band until finishing at 840 M in Murat.</span>

<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial;">Just before reaching the first col, we stopped and were just about frozen by the gale force cold wind.<span> </span>After putting on our rain pants, jerseys and gloves, we felt much better.<span> </span>Happily, we had no rain until the last four miles or so along D162Cand D162 into Murat.</span>

Background:<br /><br /><br />My wife and I have been doing self-supported tours in Western Europe (a majority in France) since 1993.  This series of rides covers our 2005 2 month route through parts of France.  Our beginning and ending point is near Chaduri (south of Angoulême) where our friends have a farm with Gites and Chambres d'Hotes.<br /><br /><br />We rode our Dawes touring bicycles purchased in 1993 heavily loaded with 700Cx32 tires.  All of our riding was on paved roads, mostly with very little traffic.<br /><br /><br />If any questions, feel free to email me at jeffkadet@netdiving.com<br /><br /><br />Jeff