Travel Day 15 - Paris

We decided to find a Boulangerie for breakfast however as we walked outside and it was raining quite heavy we decided for the in-house breakfast offerred here at the Hostel. After breakfast we had a session on the ride accounts (well I got my Tablet opened up and the spreadsheet up) for Stephen to work his magic with the numbers. We each kind of take turns at paying for the various common things (like our accommodation) and Stephen's spreadsheet keeps track of it all and who, owes who, what. This way at the end of our ride there should only be a need for a small amount of money to change hands to balance the books.

Tickets for most of the Olympic events are sold out Peter has found however we decided to go to the Free to access Road Cycle Time Trial event which was raced through the streets of Paris and as it was about 5 km's from our Hostel we opted to take the bikes which happens to be the best way to get around as on bikes we can cover the ground quicker than alternative options and get as close as possible, barring the road and area closures. They would still be a problem if walking.

We had mapped out the route of the time trials and made oour way to a oint where we had options once we got there. As it was quite crowded we decided to head out a little and found a cafe with vacant seats right on the footpath adjacent to the closed road that was to the time trial route. As we felt we couldn't sit there without buying somethingwe ordered a seconf lunch as we had already had a pastry at a boulangerie on the ride to the event. We took our time ordering as we still had a bit of time to fill in before the rider's would be coming past.

The timing worked out well because as we finished our lunch the rider's began coming past and so we were able to cheer them on, It was the women's event first followed by the Men's and our rider Kim Kadzow came in at 7th which was a good effort and I managed to get a pic as she flashed past us.

My two Aussie mates were over the moon with excitement as their rider took away the Gold Medal and was an amazing 1.5 minutes ahead of the Silver medal recipient.

We then relocated oourselves to watch the Mens time trial and were about 5 km's from the start. It was good to see our NZ man Laurence Pithy from Christchurch (who knows at least four of my friend's - so I almost felt like I knew him) flash past on what was a wet and slippery road (later on the Norwegian went down out in front of us and withdrew).

The Aussie rider was doing very well when he shot past us however he like the Norwegian guy came off and withdrew from the race.

We rode back to the Hostel mostly of streets devoid of cars (like I said the road closures are everywhere it seems) and then it was a shower to warm up a bit before blog time and now dinner.