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A quick ride to the Mountains (France)

Phew! feel better now I have managed to get out for a reasonable ride some 120 + miles through the Correze down to the Cantal Volcano Park to see if the snow was still there on the Piest of Mt Dore and if the Passes up to Puy Mary would be open.  In reality it was just an excuse to ride in that direction and check out my new set-up of Garmin Zumo660 and Scala Rider Q2 headset.

It took me about 5 minutes to fit the scala into my Caburg Trip and pair it with the Zumo660. I then paired my mobile with the Zumo too and connected it to the bike.  I was ready, just needed somewhere to ride to.  So I rode down into Treignac and then up onto the D16 to Egletons this is a superb biking road reasonably fast, very twisty and undulating, The road surface was pretty decent considering  the recent weather, there was grit spread on some of the corners, a bit of rock fall in places too and of course some pot holes, but nothing that was going to spoil a days ride as the temps were already in double figures, I was looking at 15 degrees of sunshine.  10 mins into the ride I received a phone call from "The Lovely Wendy" which we had organised to test the phone communications whilst hooked up to the Scala Q2 through the Zumo - it worked a treat, very clear,  but didn't switch the mp3 player back on when we terminated the call (need to look at why)... 

From Egleton I fueled up at the super market which surprisingly was open even though it was just after midday, and carried on South on the D16 through the Dordogne Gorges or in French "De Gorges du Dordogne". to a dam which was defended heroically by the resistance in June 1944 to prevent the Germans (Nazi's) from blowing it and cutting the power to the region not to mention flood a fair few villages in the process.  From here I rode up and over on the D680 into the Cantal where I got to see the snow covered Mount Dore and the Suoer Besse ski resorts a few miles over to the east and a mile or two further on in Muriac I could then see the Puy Mary Volacnic region on the horizon capped in snow to the south and slightly west..  I rode as far as a small hamlet close to Selars before riding back the same way home.  I enjoyed the music from the MP3 player option on the Zumo which was played at a good volume through the Scala headset though I did think the quality was a little tinny which was down to the Zumo not the quality I had experienced with my iPod through the Autcom set up I had used previously, but the bluetooth far compensated for this over the wired option of the autocom.  Ironically whilst listening to Black Sabbath - Ozzie piped up on my satnav saying "I hope I have the map the right fukcing way up", which was amusing.

I've added a Gallery with some great pictures for you to check out.