Making it!

ok.. for those of you who need to know the ending first.... we are currently in our hotel room in Nice. All registered and Bike's together ready for our Time Trial in the morning.

And... for anyone with heart or blood pressure issues, let me say that the death defying race through the Paris Metro and the sprint through the streets of Nice, both end successfully.

Now back to the day, which started on a plane somewhere over Russia.

Wonderboy and I easily found our way onto the Train to Paris. It's all part of the TGV station at the airport. Despite a death march with bike boxes in hand and bags over our shoulder to change trains as Gare du Nord, without much fuss we made our way to MissP. After much hugging and high fiving we headed back to her hotel room for a shower and some sleep. Right??  Wrong!!

After deciding we should be back in time to leave for Gare du Lyon by 11:45 we headed out for Chausson au Pomme and Coffee. This lead to a taxi ride up the Champs to the Eiffel Tower and some crepes. Which lead to us arriving back at the hotel at 12:15. TGV leaving Gare du Lyon at 12:49 and 2 metro trains required to get there... ooops!

Well, this weekend is all about the TDF TTT... the team time trial. And, a TTT is all about a team working as one... well no TDF team has ever come together better than the Wolfpack (yep that's us) did today. Flying through the Metro, soring out tickets, down stairs, up escalators (MissP with 2 bike boxes in tow!), up stairs... and arriving with a few minutes to spare. Then having to argue with the TGV staff to get the bikes boxes on the train...and then to argue the couldn't go on our laps. 

The TGV is awesome!  4 hours to Ax-en-Provence. It's so fast you can watch the terrain change as you sip your wine in the Food Car. The trip along the coast is slower but the scenery amazing!.

Arriving in Nice at 6:30 and having to register for the TT by 8 sounds like a no brainer...right?? But with 3 bike boxes plus bags we had to drop everything off at the hotel before we registered. Picture loading 3 bike boxes onto a crowded tram. Picture running through the streets with bike box in hand. Suffice it to say by the time we dropped things at the hotel we had 10 minutes left to register!

This time though we had a secret weapon. In addition to amazing team work we had 6 months of IronMan training to rely upon. As we headed off running through the streets - running down a tram, hoping on for 1 stop and then racing off again. We arrived at registration with 2 minutes to spare, only to discover MissP had left her medical certificate at the Hotel. No problem for this team, a quick email pic of it from my iPhone  and we're registered !! (I might add... the last to do it!)

Then dinner (Entrecote Charolais!!) and bike setup and bed!

Quotes of the day

MissP - "Yep, that pretty much went as I expected"

Wonderboy - "I catch the train to school each day, so I wasn't too fused about the train rides" but he sure go excited when he save the TDF village in Nice. And the Eiffel Tower!

Me - "We'll make it... easy!"

And..... we made it!