Epic Camp France 2011 Day 7 - Annecy Day 2

Epic Camp France 2011 Day 7 in Annecy

Newsom sensibly adjusted the route for the ride today to delete the last climb that was on the plan.
There's still about 10,000ft of climbing today on one small climb and 2 massive ones.  In this heat it was always going to be a challenge to get through the day.
We started with a 3km swim in the lake which seemed calmer and cleaner than yesterday.  Nice morning.  Very quiet at 7am.  This lake will be an absolute zoo later as its Saturday and it will be over 30C here today.
After breakfast we rolled out at 9:10am on what looked to be about a 6-hour ride time day.  If you average 25km hour here you're doing damn good in the high mountains.
  We had some great guests along today - Rachael Joyce (5th and 6th in Kona the last 2 years), neo-pro Tamsyn Lewis from the UK, her boyfriend Deklin from London and former Epic Camper Piet who lives just down the road.
I hope we can get a photo of Rachael as my training buddies back home will be extremely jealous!  She's one tidy little unit! Goes up mountains damn fast too - only Clas could stay with her.
  The route included  Col du Forclaz (400m vertical gain @7-10%), Col Du Pre'(4,000ft. gain) and the Col d' Saisses (3500ft. gain).
 We had another mountain top lunch in the hot sun again today - this one on the Saisses.  Can't complain about the weather this camp.
  Once we got roling again we had it pretty easy back to Annecy with lots of time on the bike path and then around the other side of the lake with a little tempo and fun and games injected into the last 30 minutes.  It was around 33C in town and the lake was absolutely packed with people enjoying the sun and water.  Almost everyone ran and it was cookin'.
The hotel we're staying in has an exceptional chef and he put on another fantastic meal tonight.  I've been wanting to eat outside since the weather's been so good but the air conditioning in this dining room is very pleasant indeed.
 I took my "international booze expert & drinking guide" Douglas's suggestion to add a little Calvados to the drinks menu tonight.  His suggestions never fail to please.  Tonights recommendation was a yummy apple brandy - very smooth.  Then out with some of the guys for one cooling ale before bedtime.  Randy wandered over to the lake for a dip at 10:45pm to cool off.
Another great day in the Alps.
Cheers, Scott