Friday Paris Tour and Quick Ride

On Friday, after all the walking around Versailles the previous day, we just wanted to rest. Given that we had signed up for the Paris tour that Clauss with Des Peres Travel puts on, and we had heard that it was a lot of driving around looking at things but not much time exploring, it seemed as though we would get to give our feet a rest.

After breakfast we met up with everyone from our hotel who was going on the trip and boarded the bus. Dad and I sat in the back with David Charlton of David's Salon which is a hairdressing chain in the Philippines. Now David must be one of the best bosses ever, David's Salon sponsors a race and club team. About a year ago, one of the girls on the race team brought PBP to his attention and he made the offer that anyone who qualified for PBP he would pay for their trip. In all honesty he only expected a few to make it, instead 10 members of the club qualified as well as the girl from the race team. On top of that David qualified as well despite having had heart bypass surgery a year and a half ago.

Any way, here are some shot from the tour, Arc de Triumphe

In front of the Eiffel Tower,
The worlds best or luckiest BOSS, David Chalton, and some of his girls,
City bikes, in Paris you can check out a bike and ride it for free for half an hour, then it is 1 euro per hour after,
Looking in the front of Notre Dame cathedral,
The back side of Notre Dame,
Man purse alert in front of the Louver,
After the tour we decided that we would get out and try to ride the start of the PBP route to loosen up the legs. One bad thing about going on the tour is that there was a CA rando group ride that went out in the morning and did this with leaders that knew where they were going. So we figured we were going out to get lost. The bike room at this point is getting pretty crowded here at the Holiday Inn,
The David's Salon team came out to get lost with us,
And, I made sure to get us lost, but then found again. We rode out about 15 miles and only missed one short section on the way out. On the return trip we followed the route correctly until we ran into a couple that had done the ride before and we followed them the rest of the way in, taking the roads that are the finish of PBP which is a bit different than the start.