Day 8 started with a pleasantly surprising element of sunshine, and some lovely volunteers from the Gorlice hospice in equally sunshiny coloured tshirts who joined us for the first part of the day. On arrival in Gorlice itself we were directed by incredibly cheerful policemen to do a lap of honour of the town square and greeted by the mayor, before being treated to an enormous barbecue. Here the Cycle Poland team heroically continued their mission to eat their way across the country, and consumed their body weight in pork products and pierogi only an hour after an equally enormous breakfast.
We also had an opportunity to meet Ania and Julcia, two of the children under the care of the hospice who will benefit from the two oxygen concentrators and suction pump that we delivered. It was really uplifting to hear Julcia's mum describe how the hospice had allowed her to spend time with her young daughter and provided the care and support to help her grow from a severely disabled baby to a smiling toddler.
The paparazzi were out in force again up the road in Bobowa and did not seem in the slightest bit phased by the sirens and admonitions of the local police who suggested that hanging out of the open boot of a car travelling at 60 km per hour on the wrong side of the road with a camera to photograph a group of cyclists might present some sort of road hazard. After the police were persuaded of the errors of their ways, the obligatory media engagements were dealt with, and vast amounts of ice cream consumed, we were off.
The afternoon brought some amazing views, sadly unappreciated by most as we struggled with a series of mountains that just kept on giving. On cruising into Limanowa it was all we could do to crawl into the local cafe and order far too much pizza decorated with an interesting ketchup arrangement. Then it was back on the bikes for more hills, and the remainder of the day's 160km.
After the final turn off a few over-optimistic souls set off for a sprint finish, encouraged by the signs claiming the hotel was a mere kilometre or two away. This turned out to be a blatant lie, and only sheer pride resulted in a 7km uphill sprint finish. Having tried yet again to defeat the might of Arek "Killer" Podhorodecki on the day's climbs Prasan at this stage declared himself to be entirely broken.
Determined not to let exhaustion get the better of them a small Cycle Poland contingent decided to join in with the young persons disco going on in the dining room and danced to such Polish classics as "let's walk barefoot" and "mr president and mr mayor", played in an upbeat folk rock style. Never ones to let facts hold them back, they also tried to introduce jaegerbombs to the Polish drinks repertoire, despite the complete lack of either jaeger or red bull at the bar. A quick conga later and in an uncharacteristic bout of sensibility, our brave cyclists decided their work was done, and retired to bed.
We also had an opportunity to meet Ania and Julcia, two of the children under the care of the hospice who will benefit from the two oxygen concentrators and suction pump that we delivered. It was really uplifting to hear Julcia's mum describe how the hospice had allowed her to spend time with her young daughter and provided the care and support to help her grow from a severely disabled baby to a smiling toddler.
The paparazzi were out in force again up the road in Bobowa and did not seem in the slightest bit phased by the sirens and admonitions of the local police who suggested that hanging out of the open boot of a car travelling at 60 km per hour on the wrong side of the road with a camera to photograph a group of cyclists might present some sort of road hazard. After the police were persuaded of the errors of their ways, the obligatory media engagements were dealt with, and vast amounts of ice cream consumed, we were off.
The afternoon brought some amazing views, sadly unappreciated by most as we struggled with a series of mountains that just kept on giving. On cruising into Limanowa it was all we could do to crawl into the local cafe and order far too much pizza decorated with an interesting ketchup arrangement. Then it was back on the bikes for more hills, and the remainder of the day's 160km.
After the final turn off a few over-optimistic souls set off for a sprint finish, encouraged by the signs claiming the hotel was a mere kilometre or two away. This turned out to be a blatant lie, and only sheer pride resulted in a 7km uphill sprint finish. Having tried yet again to defeat the might of Arek "Killer" Podhorodecki on the day's climbs Prasan at this stage declared himself to be entirely broken.
Determined not to let exhaustion get the better of them a small Cycle Poland contingent decided to join in with the young persons disco going on in the dining room and danced to such Polish classics as "let's walk barefoot" and "mr president and mr mayor", played in an upbeat folk rock style. Never ones to let facts hold them back, they also tried to introduce jaegerbombs to the Polish drinks repertoire, despite the complete lack of either jaeger or red bull at the bar. A quick conga later and in an uncharacteristic bout of sensibility, our brave cyclists decided their work was done, and retired to bed.