The following morning, over breakfast, Paul announced the sad news that he planned to depart for home early. Now a party of three we rode the short spit down the mountain to our next camping spot.
It was just as well that this next destination was a mere 15 miles of sweeping tarmac away – I literally had hardly any ride left in me and I suspect it was more than the previous night’s whiskey leaving me feeling quite so fragile. My body was awash with aches and pains, in particular any bits that happened to come into contact with the bike.
There were definitely worse places to wake up, the morning sun on the slopes opposite our balcony at the Hotel Biancaneve in Sestriére made for a beautiful start to the day. After a hearty breakfast in what proved to be a surprisingly busy hotel we packed again, bade a sad farewell to Paul and moved on to our next stop. Paul had found the relentless pace tough going, and the equally relentless péage tolls and fuel-ups equally tough. He’d planned to depart the following day anyway but, with 700 miles or more between him and home he felt like he needed a head start.
Rob had chosen a campsite just outside Briançon in the small hamlet of La Vachette. The choice had been swung in the favour of this particular site as it sported a swimming pool which, on previous trips, had proved to be an excellent way of reviving the team and soothing tired muscles at the end of the day. On reflection though the original site he’d scoped out a few miles up the road with it’s restaurant may have proved a better bet as it turned out the one in La Vachette had no food/drink facilities to speak of and the village itself was limited to one hotel bar/restaurant which, although it served great food, also charged eye watering prices! That said, there was a great Pizzeria a mile or so’s walk towards Briançon.
It was a gentle half hour or so down the mountain from Sestriére and along the valley bottom through the ski resorts Claviére and Montgenevre to the site in La Vachette, so we arrived mid morning to an almost deserted site. Duly checked in and with camp up nice and early for once it afforded us the perfect opportunity to re-establish some semblance of normality. Over a restorative dip in the site’s freezing pool (it was at almost 1800m I suppose) we formulated a rough plan of attack for the rest of the day – along with some general titting about in the pool of course. Some general house keeping needed to be attended to, washing and a bit of maintenance on the bikes.
I desperately needed to look at the bloody brakes again and Rob was still exploring the source of his electrical worries. Between us we formed a list of bits we needed: more fuses as Rob had finished the rally with his starting stock of a dozen spares depleted to just 1, brake fluid and the like. Uncle Dave’s Triumph was now employed in the role of ‘Point B’ to our washing line (‘Point A’ being an adjacent tree) – an essential requirement in getting our grundies clean and wearable once more. This did mean that he was going to have to jump on the back of my Ten for our little excursion as Rob’s XC being a true enduro machine doesn’t come with pillion pegs.
Briançon is a large medieval walled town. Large enough to have bike shops and supermarkets and although just far enough away to not be walkable it was only a very short ride. That said the bustling traffic transformed a small ride into an uncomfortable time on an overcrowded saddle. Nevertheless, after much prodding at the Sat Nav and a fair bit of head scratching we soon found our way to a supermarket and a Yamaha dealership. With our stocks of toilet paper, over-priced fuses and Dot-4 replenished we went for lunch. Lovely savoury crepes and oodles of delicious strong coffee whilst the waitress mocked us mercilessly for our poor linguistic skills.
The afternoon was spent doing those last few essential chores. I had to make an assessment of the various seized or sheered off bolts related to my brakes. I cobbled together a home made bleed kit from a water bottle and length of rubber hose Rob had in his toolkit and found that bleeding the brakes put them in a much better shape. With everything checked, lubed, greased or tightened up the bike was feeling ready to ride once more – even if I wasn’t.
Everything was closed in the village that housed our tiny campsite so after showers we walked out of town to a small roadside diner type pizzeria we’d seen earlier. To say the offering were generous would be an understatement. These pizzas were behemoths! So much so that the usual pizza cutters were redundant and we were, instead, supplied with large sheer-like scissors. The food was delicious, I had a ‘blanche’ pizza where the classic ragu topping is replaced with créme fraîche. Topped with loads of fresh herbs, garlic and a splattering of escargot (snails). All this washed down with a crisp and refreshing continental beer and finished off with a homemade digestif of Limoncello from an intriguing frozen bottle. Walking back to camp in a freezing drizzle blowing in over the mountains wasn’t much fun but at least sleep came easy that night.
