The chain game

Well; have not kept you up to date for a few days. Things have been hectic.Departure was fine:



But then
Andre's bike broke down about 50 km from Nantes. Broken chain. On Sunday. First I thought it something else, but the bounce showed this was no ordinary strapping he was using to tie down his luggage.
Here are the first moments after recovering from the disbelief:


After about a 2 hour wait, he "repair" service brought the bike to a holding place and we started chasing a new chain.....This being France, the emergency services for BMW were closed on Sunday, ok, but also Monday. Sunday pm we found an internet cafe and looked for all the bike shops in the area that could be open. Rented a small van Monday morning, picked up the bike ourselves and at 14:00 the first shop opened and amazingly, had the part. Free of charge...

Managed an emergency repair in the back of the van and drove to the rental place, took the bike out and we were on our way again at 17:00

Things were going well now, although it was still quite cold.
Camped out on a near empty site.

Tuesday 4th we still needed a new chain so got going to Bordeaux. Temperature was around 7.5.
We found the dealer who was quite unhelpful. No time to put a new chain on. I'd been cold again so thought I would do the smart thing and buy some more clothes. Boy, was that a smart thing!

Passing the mountains, even with that it was very cold. I read down to 3.5 degrees, Andre even lower: And the rain started coming again, remember, me with all my summer gear. Coat was fine but pants....water just came through in the end, the crotch area as usual. We made it just ahead of the snow that closed several roads in the area, unseasonably cold apparently....one lesson learned...

For the more technically minded, I hear there was a 60 kph wind, which was coming from our side.
We were doing 120 kph, so that part was from the front. If you are bored stiff, you can easy calculate the true wind veloicity and figure out the approximate temperature. Both of us had our handle bar heating on full, nearly burning our hands with the summer gloves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Windchill_chart.GIF


Sleeping in Burgos, and deciding how to make up for lost time.

More to follow!