Day one

Hello everybody, Al Murray here, reporting on day two of the Tour De Gripple international cycling extravaganza blog. To start off, I would like to ask: Have you ever been to France? (To which David Chong replies: "No, but I've been to Paris.")

As our geographical knowledge of Europe expands, and the becomes more established, David then proceeds to ask us where the London 2012 Olympics are being held. Work needed here - answers on a postcard.

The day began for us in Obernai with an unnecessarily early start at 5.45am (after the clock was pre-adjusted an extra hour forward without my knowing!) which really helped with the lack of sleep induced by our 18 hour journey the day before (not!).

However, every cloud has a silver lining, and this gave us a chance to get some serious eating of local produce in over breakfast which really helped us prepare for the road ahead, as well as taking a short walk round Obernai to take in the weird and wonderful buildings and scenery.

After a quick tour around the awesome Gripple Europe building, the Tour de Gripple officially started with 19 of Gripple's finest cyclists leaving the pearly gates of the French office, en route to costa del Rhine and the Federal Republic of Germany. One bloody but not life-threatening injury later, and several near misses with rather large heavy goods vehicles and we had reached the first German settlement of Nonnenweier, where we stopped for lunch outside a church where bells were rung for us upon our arrival. Following a great photo op, and several farewells to some friendly-but-tired Gripple faces, 20 kilometres later, we stopped again for a textbook, Tour de France style break next to a Mirabel Orchard in the middle of nowhere, which was great for the first big (if not slightly staged) photoshoot.

From this point onwards, our luck decided to take the long route round, when a massive, torrential rainstorm arrived upon us and nearly washed the bikes from under the cyclists feet. We encountered our first "act of God" as technology went on the blink and communications became crackly, and we eventually found a very wet and very cold Denis - clinging to the side of a bridge over the very fast-flowing Leopoldskanal. Denis was overjoyed to see the Tour de Gripple van and proceeded to get into the cab and put the heating on to the highest setting to try and thaw out from the sudden plummet in temperature outside. Denis and I continued on into the storm in the now 30 degrees Celsius plus van, closely followed by Tony, and we started to think about having a beer to help soothe us from the leadened skies of Baden-Wuttenberg. A short while later, we found a watering hole in Denzlingen / Denslington / Bridlington / Darlington / however Tony thought it was pronounced, and we proceeded to order a nice demi-biere to help numb the pain. Technology was still not 100% on our side as not only could we now not get in contact with any of the riders whatsoever, but furthermore, the coach company due to take the Obernai team back to Gripple of dreams, announced that they had broken down on a motorway somewhere in the Rhine valley, leaving us potentially stranded in a foreign country, with no means of apparent salvation.

Luckily, we reconveined down the road in Gundelfingen, at a pleasant looking Italian restaurant next to a church with a massive stork's nest on top (complete with stork!!) and ordered our meals. Now I must say that I have met some bizarre characters in my life, and the owner of this place was definitely up there with them. He seemed to find it funny to pretend to keep getting our food order wrong - although in the end he confused himself, nobody laughed, and we had to order the food with a show of hands for who wanted what. Several painful attempts later and grub was up. Amusingly, Loic quipped: "the food is fantastic, but that guy is an idiot!" which tickled the group.

Cue the now repaired coach arriving outside the restaurant for the Obernai lot to head home and this stage of the tour de Gripple drew to a close.

A short drive for Tony and I, and a potentially indigestion-inducing jaunt up the valley, and after a few too many kilometres of strange and occasionally uncooperative weather, we arrived to a very friendly reception at the Scheffelhoff Hotel in Waldkirch.

As I write this blog, I can assure you that we are now consuming copious amounts of recovery agents in order to soothe our aches, pains and woes of the day. By recovery agents, I of course mean beer and wine!

I shall leave you now as we talk logistics for the Freiburg to Belfort stage of the Tour de Gripple...

Stay tuned to us everybody, and thanks for all your support and contribution. Keep up the great work!

Over and out!!