The task: 300kms set going North to Roche Ram ( near St Crepin)/Col de Cabre (near Serres) and home.
Jay Rebbeck had sage words for me before the start: it looks tricky getting to the high stuff so it might be best to go with other gliders for the first 50kms. That sounded like excellent advice so I hung around in the start until 3 pm and set off when I thought a couple of others were starting.
Cloudbase was not great at c5000amsl near Dignes and running the start of the Par Cours was interesting but worked. The really exciting bit was pushing on to Seynes and nipping over a saddle to find the next climb. After that things perked up and the run past Dormillouse, Morgon and Guillaume all felt like familiar territory but man I was SLOW compared to the guys that know what they're doing. I also made life harder than it needed to be by flopping onto a ridge next to Sisteron at 2500' amsl or 800' above the town which is a tad low, but the valley breeze was working well as evidenced by the flags flying on the citadel battlements . 78kph is pathetic really when compared to the winning speeds of 115kph but I got more for my money from the day.
Geoff struggled manfully round but had to fire his turbo 19kms short of the field: a heroic effort nonetheless. By the time we'd put covers on and tided up it was 9.30 so Pork chops and Frites at the onsite restaurant and a couple of pressions seemed in order. All in all a fun day out!
Hunk of the day: Russell
Russell, 21, from Nottingham enjoys long walks and flower arranging. He's never short of a well arranged bunch.
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