Chasing The Sun

The first day back on the road was the coldest yet, fifteen degrees and raining. Grenoble, at least, turned out to be the easiest place we’d left so far — we were on the D1075 straight from downtown for sixty miles, the whole day’s route in one road. The terrain stayed largely flat through the first half, following the valley, before a mountain pass rose up to meet us. The rock formations crowning these peaks always seemed smothered in cloud, and as we climbed, we rode straight into them. Soon the cloud was streaming across the road ahead of us, swinging from tailwind to headwind with every bend.

Wet and shivering, we had an unpleasant descent on the far side, the wind chill numbing my fingers and toes. At the first service station we found, I sank two coffees straight away, then layered up — two extra layers under the jacket, dry socks, thermal leggings. Warm as toast, eventually.

In the clouds.

Looking like Pippi Longstocking after the descent.

The sun came out that evening, and as we left the mountains behind and turned south, the forecast for the next five days — probably all the way to Lisbon — read clear skies and sunshine throughout. The ride between La Faurie and Tulette was possibly the most beautiful I’ve ever ridden, and not even Eal’s first flat tyre of the trip, one apiece by now, could dent the mood. We carved our way gradually downhill through canyons in top gear and came out the other side into wine country, vineyards lining both sides of the road for the last fifteen miles or so. We rolled up to find the campsite full, but the small town of Tulette a few miles back had a municipal site with a swimming pool, beautifully kept. The whole area felt a few classes above the northern regions of France we’d ridden through. There was clearly money in those grapes.

Loved riding this morning.

Waiting for us up ahead, a single black sheep.

My hands look like this between eight and six most days.

Grapes, grapes, grapes.

Stars from my tent.

There is something quite satisfying about drinking a small bottle of wine one evening and riding past the very vineyard it came from the next morning. With more glorious weather, we racked up the miles through one small French town after another. I look after the maps and the Garmin, and Eal is happy to leave the navigating to me, which also means I carry the blame for every climb we hit and every wrong turn we make. Some days that responsibility weighs on me more than others, working out a route with the right towns for food, drink and rest along it. The sun must have got the better of me that day, because toward the end of a tricky afternoon of navigation I managed to fall sideways off the bike, still clipped into the left pedal, while stopped — one of my less glorious moments, though at least nobody saw it happen. The bikes are so heavy once they get moving that they’re hard to stop cleanly. I came away with a slight graze on my thigh and no real harm done. Campsite La Bastide made me laugh, and Eal spent the evening swapping tyres, his puncture from the day before likely down to a rear tyre worn thin, which we’d need to replace before long.

I get excited by wide, clean shoulders.

Should keep me ticking over.

Avignon, was awesome.

Brutal supper, though the strawberries were good.

Having looked ahead at the coming week or so into Spain, where bike shops would be few and far between, we decided to take a half day, riding thirty miles to Montpellier to get the bikes into a shop for a tune-up and fit some new tyres. On the way we had a good encounter with a local farmer who saw us stopped checking our maps. He pulled up alongside on the hard shoulder and gave us directions, at first assuming we were German — “Auf Wiedersehen,” he tried — before pausing, realising we were English, and calling out “Good one!” as he rolled off, chuckling to himself.

After three nights of camping since Grenoble, we found a two-star hotel around the corner from the vélo shop we’d just left the bikes at. We both agreed Montpellier was the nicest city we’d visited so far, and spent a couple of hours strolling around before heading back with supplies to watch England play Sweden.

Victory!

Only two days left until Spain, and I already knew I’d miss France. Back home, people love a jibe at the French — the problem with France is that it’s full of French people, and so on — but everyone we met out here was unfailingly friendly. Whenever I sat eating a pastry on a street corner, every local who passed wished me bon appétit, a small social gesture you’d never get back home queuing in a Greggs. Just as much, I’ll miss being greeted with “Bonsoir, monsieur!” by a smiling French woman who’d clocked me as an outsider, in my chino shorts and check shirt, from a mile off.