Thanks to Brexit my low budget cyclo camping holiday is more expensive that a week in the Waldorf in NYC.
The weather is looking good except for a few rare averses, or 'unusual downpours' according to the universal translator, later on.
Training for this year's Alpine dawdle has been a bit sporadic. Since Le Dash in Normandy I have only knocked up 450 miles. On the island up in Scotland I managed 120 miles of midge infested hillage before my back tyre gave out. Blessed with just the one small shop purveying basic provisions, aside from furnishing a tyre out of deer hide, I would have to wait until the boat came in with replacement. It didn't so I resorted to running, an activity involving gulping swarms of midges. I have put in a couple of 50+s, including an 88 miler from Solihull to Princes Risborough, which clocked 3670 ft. Will it be enough?
First full day, from Cluses over to Flumet, takes in two cols and amasses 7300 ft with a similarly proportioned helping the following day.
This will be with loaded bikes, the trusty beasts of burden hidden beneath all manner of pannierage containing the delights of camping and al fresco cooking.
No new gear this hear other than the solar charger. The PortaPow worked a treat in Normandy and, given the usual blistering sunshine of the alps, it should negate the need to hang around bars waiting for a phone to charge. It is very light and portable. With good sun, and thanks to its two usb connectors, it can charge my Anker 3350mah powerbank smartish while keeping the phone topped up.
Mappage, as usual, has been procured from Dash4it;
My readers can use Cycle5 to get an extra discount at their website. French mappers IGN's 100,000 scale have good detail with contours and better demarcation of road types than the Michelin efforts.
For anyone having issues with their Garmin 810 - I'd experienced the thing turning off/crashing. This was with opensource maps and I figured they were the issue. However, having downloaded routes created on strava as GPX and not TCX, I have had trouble-free navigation.
