Sommand

We took a trip down into Sommand this morning, and spied a campervan flying a Welsh dragon, and a St David's cross. Turned out they were from Cardiff and members of Cardiff Ajax cycling club (arch rivals of my cycling club - Cwm Carn Paragon), and invited us to sit down, gave us tea and some cake!

We ended up spending the morning with them, talking about various things. They had four huskies, beautiful dogs, which are pets but they also use them to pull their bikes along - apparently it is a sport called Canix (short for cainine cross), its popular in europe but not so much in the UK.

We popped back up to our tent on the Ramaz for Later, when we went up to the roadside to prepare lunch (niocci, with sausages) and were given shots of schnaps by a French man who seemed to appreciate the effort we were going to to watch le tour. A nap followed.

The rest of the 10th is for relaxation, as is most of tomorrow as the tour is expected to come through at around 4pm, we will be standing on the top waving the flags in hope of being seen-on-TV! Once the tour goesthrough though, the race is on for us as we need to chase them down to Morzine.

On the 11th Dan started the day keeping his promise of making Welsh cakes for the Welsh folk camped in Sommand. We made the Welsh cakes at the side of the road on the Ramaz, and some of the French tour watchers sampled the cakes declaring Dan to be "a chef", much to his delight. Once the cakes were done we put them in our empty pan-au-chocolate box and rode down to the defacto Welsh enclave in Somand.

Shortly after we rode down 16 Cardiff Ajax riders rode up the hill, and were fed the Welsh cakes. We chatted, Dan (in his Cwm Carn Paragon kit) managed to sneak into one of the Ajax team photos.Read more