10 mountains in 10 days

I really like to fly by the seat of my pants.

It was 2014 when I decided to ride 10 mountains in 10 days.

I was in my last year of uni (or so I thought) and I was strapped for holiday time so I came to the conclusion that jamming my usual 3-ish weeks of solid high-road biking-shenanigans into 10 days was the way to go. I immediately booked a flight to Norway for an initial epic ride up the Trollstiegen and then headed straight to France.

...So there I am, in France, formerly Gaul, at 3 o'clock in the morning, looking for at least 10 paved mountain passes to fill 10 days, or this Aussie would be in a rage that night.
So, a wifi prompt pops up on my phone and mentions there's a little wifi available with a 20 minute countdown. So, I log in - and it loads. So there's me, my phone, and my dodgy arthritic fingers, rapidly trying to download maps of dense areas of mountain passes to jam into my 10 day trip - before the 20 minutes is up, right?

Well, instead of useful internet, they've got this bloody slow snails-pace nonsense and it's getting down to the wire (but free, so... 🤷‍♀️). Well I managed to choose a random town in the south-east of France to head to before my 20 minutes of internet was up, but my worsening arthritis and the consequential swelling of my jawbone that lead me to look like Gaston by the end of the trip....that's a different story altogether.

I had to document that disturbing and hilarious progression each day...nasty business really...But sure enough, I got to the town after a 9 hour drive, rode 10 mountain passes, and had a GREAT time.

10 points to anyone who can spot the quote I've parodied here.