Day 7 - Gimont to Mirepoix

77.5 miles ticked off (it still makes me laugh that Paul's default Strava setting is "run" rather than "cycle". There must be some really confused French joggers losing their PBs this week).

Well, that was an absolute bag of crap. Our short day of 72 miles turned into nearly 80 miles of slogging uphill into a headwind in 37 degree heat. Absolutely filthy, tiring, sweaty, unenjoyable rubbish. Having now looked at the Strava splits, it makes a lot more sense, but at the time you just end up in this weird daze, concentrating on the tyre in front of you, looking out for potholes and hoping to tick off the minutes into hours and metres into kilometres.

We left our beautiful French chateau this morning, with OB smarting at the restaurant bill from last night. If he thinks 400 Euros for a four course dinner, plus drinks, plus breakfast is bad value, then it's probably lucky he hates "south of the river" so much, he'd have kittens in Clapham.

From there on, it was pretty much downhill all the way (apart from the terrain, of course). I was dropped early, just like every morning, and spend the rest of the early hours trying to keep Paul and OB in my sights. With no mobile phone and still no knowledge of how to change my tires, this is pretty important to me these days. As with most days, OB is eventually dropped by Paul as well, and comes closer into my sights, in a sweaty, hairy, sweary grey rage. He then spends the rest of the morning moaning about "THAT BLOODY HEADWIND" whilst we suck each other's tires off (he assures me this is a technical cycling term.

Sometimes we reunite with Paul, normally when he tells us the route has changed. This is either because we've gone the wrong way, or because he's found a quicker route. Today we had a new twist - there was a diversion because the road was closed. After a frank conversation, we decided in an alternative route in order to avoid the massive hill Theo had warned us about. The beauty of this detour fully unfolded over dinner... First point to make - we all accepted that by taking a diversion, although we would avoid "The Theo Hill", there was still a chance we'd hit another hill - let's call that one "The non-Theo Hill". Sure as you like, having trawled up one awful hill (never mind, that's the risk we took), we pedalled along for 20 minutes then hit a 10% incline which went on for 1km. This thing was insane, the only upside was that we managed to shelter in an immaculate bin shelter whilst we watched the human waterfall trawl his was up behind us.

However, over dinner it turns out the first hill we went up was actually "The Theo Hill" and the second one was a bonus hill that we'd have avoided entirely if we had just followed the original route. Still, nice bin shelter.

Having limped through a succession of towns which were closed for siesta (during one of these, a concerned motorist pulled over to check that my prostrate body was still working, as I lay on the roadside). We finally had lunch at about 3pm in a place called Saverdun. Saverdun has a direct train to Mirepoix, and by Christ did I fancy that. Me and Paul wandered through Carrefour (or was it Aldi, or one of the other ones? Who knows). I did this, without hesitation, barefoot, in my pants, clad in Lycra. It was that point that I realised I'm a bit broken. Still, the Magnums were cheap. We then sat on the side of the road and ate Citron yoghurt with our bare hands and set off again.

The afternoon was even worse than the morning, but we made it. The worst part was watching the Pyrenees rolling into view. They're bloody huge. And they're still 50 miles away.

This time tomorrow we'll be up Mont Louis. It's a UNESCO site apparently, I'm not sure any of us care about that. Us three will be too tired to notice, and Theo's disappointed there are no vineyards up there so kinda sees it as a waste of time.

A word on Theo - he's been magnificent so far. He's been forced to ferry us around from pillar to post, expected to have his own holiday and see some sights, but also do our shopping for us, plus also be immediately contactable whenever we ring. He also is expected to understand Paul's directions over the phone, but also be at fault whenever he doesn't manage to follow them. He's been an absolute gem for us and we definitely couldn't have done it without him. He's also standing behind me with a knife. Please send help.

Right, so, tomorrow, the mountains. We've got 20 miles of climbing at the end of the day, and end up gaining 8,000 feet. Enjoy your commutes, you poor sods.

Actually, Paul's found a detour that he reckons saves 9 miles. That'll be fun...