Legs are still turning. St Dizier reached after 95 miles. The route had some long slow hills up and down through open valleys and forests. Skylarks sang in the sky. Was that a Goshawk landing on a fence post? We’ve been trying to remember our journey. Those who did the Greek leg feel it is now so far away: the memories as distant as those of childhood. Tonmorrow: Epernay. Champagne country! Seems appropriate. Thanks for your continued messages of support and generous sponsorship.

Well if we thought Monday was hard,yesterday turned out to be the real challenge. 93 miles of grinding ups and downs. We left the hotel shortly after 9am and spent most of the day travelling through the most beautiful countryside (that was the upside).

We had, admittedly, become deeply suspicious when the lady at the restaurant on monday evening had declared that the road to St Dizier was a lovley flat ride. As that’s certainly not what our maps said. Was there another St Dizier indeed. NON – It’s just that Monsieur Barrett felt like giving us all a special birthday treat so took us the scenice route – and scenic and hilly it was. We lost count by mid morning. We still felt generous enough by lunch time to present him with a birthday cake however.

Lunch was halfway up a hill and boy were we ready for it!

The post lunch session turned out to be very hard work with several of us flagging (baguettes weighing rather heavy!) But we had a joyous lift midway when the Coopers reached their THOUSAND mile point since leaving Olympia. Congratulations to them. What a feat.

After a lovely mid afternoon coffee and icecream stop it was one final push up a monster and then downhill all the way to St Dizier.

70 miles today, mainly flat. Yippeee.

Legs are still turning. St Dizier reached after 95 miles. The route had some long slow hills up and down through open valleys and forests. Skylarks sang in the sky. Was that a Goshawk landing on a fence post? We’ve been trying to remember our journey. Those who did the Greek leg feel it is now so far away: the memories as distant as those of childhood. Tonmorrow: Epernay. Champagne country! Seems appropriate. Thanks for your continued messages of support and generous sponsorship.

When Dr Damian Coleman talked of involving us in his scientific experiments he mentioned measuring the “degradation” of our bodies. That seems about right. There’s quite a few degraded bodies around: tired legs pushing up hill. But the scenery is those vast French valleys with oats and barley meadow sweet and scarlet pimpernel.

French roads are the best for cycling. The Italian HGV’s in attack mode a forgotten nightmare. We’re travelling on small country roads eolling through fields of corn, maize and sunflowers. Large brown cows in grassy fields.

It’s Mr Barrett’s birthday… so how to spend it?  There can be few men who would plan a 93 mile hill climbing cycle as a way of celebrating their birthday. Onwards and upwards.

Ps  He was overjoyed with the musical swiss cow and t shirt we’d clubbed together to purchase for him.

Losing track of days so I thought I’d remind myself by writing Tuesday at the top. Epinal to St Dizier today. 90 miles of undulating countryside – lovely. The sun is up and the house martins are flying.

Arrived Epinal at 3.30pm. Everyone here. I stayed here with my parents 50 years ago – in a campsite with our 1957 Bedford Dormobile. Today an excellent day’s cycling. There are some damaged bodies around but Tanya is keeping everyone going on her physio couch. .

…and climb it we did. As Ed’s reported, today saw a superb but gruelling climb 1,031 m up the Ballon d’Alsace. It was long and required us all work extremely hard but we all made it.      And most were smiling by the top.  Most irritating were the number of false dawns when we thought we’d got to the summit but it turned out that there was further to go.  Hot chocolate at the top of the mountain never tasted so good. And the St Bernard gave us a lovely welcome.

For the new arrivals it was a great test of strength. But the real praise must go to the team who have now travelled over 900 miles from the start in Olympia – they are absolute stars.

Another major climb  for them despite a growing number of great pains now that they are suffering. Backs, legs and the rest, as well as other setbacks – Ed’s bike died yesterday (luckily we have one in reserve). But they carry on relentlessly and are earning every penny of the wonderful sponsorship that’s been raised so far – more then £40k now. Thank you to everyone who has contributed.

To put it in context, we met a group of French Tour de France journalists yesterday evening who were quite gobsmacked and impressed at the 1,500 mile journey being undertaken from Greece in 15 days and that must be praise indeed from a Frenchman.

Tanya, our onboard physio, continues to work miracles every evening.

The journey down the mountain was significantly quicker than going up and it was simply superb. Great swoops downhill although care needed on the hairpin bends. The rest of the afternoon was spent travelling through stunning rural France to our destination now in Epinal. We nearly lost one member of the team who was so busy directing us in that he cycled into the back of a stationary car but we’re pleased to report all is well and no medical attention required.

Early night for all – 93 miles of ups and downs tomorrow.

And that’s twenty seven! Hooray.