Day 1: Biarritz to Issor

The Campanille did us proud and was ideal for our purposes. We left at 7.30am and got caught in the Biarritz rush hour traffic and struggled to find the right road out to Saint Pee-sue-Nivelle. Chris and I decided to retrace our steps but Phil was determined to find a cut through and so 3 miles into the ride we were split up and we next met up at St Jean Pied de Port - 40 miles later! It was a day of showers and sunshine but it was too warm for rain jackets so we just got wet.                       

We were in Basque Country with bi-lingual signs, brown half timbered houses, pelote courts and the basque flag adorning public buildings. We followed the Nive valley up to St Jean Pied de Port which was very reminiscent of the Wye valley from last year's LEJOG. St Jean is a tourist hot spot and was teaming with visitors. We found a cafe and enjoyed Gateaux Basque - a sort of lemon tart washed down with plenty of caffeine.

And so to the serious second half of the ride with all the climb. The first col of the trip (15 in total) was the Col d'Osquich at 495 metres and was last used on the Tour in 2008. We lunched at Mauleon-Licharre and had a great value beef Bourgogne and pasta and salad for 10 euros.

The worst climb was up to our B&B at Issor not helped by Chris's electronic shifters failing on him. Chris had booked us into a working farm- so was able to talk chickens and cows in French to the owner!