My tour de France
Fontvielle and Geneva are hundreds of miles apart according to googlemaps but that is if you take the highways instead of winding up and down small mountain roads connecting the dots with the most beautiful villages in France. Nine hours of cycling the first day, eight the second, six the third, then a three-hour rest day followed by another nine-hour day including a 3500 foot mountain. Then we chilled riding for only four hours for the next three days, a grand total of 47 hours in 8 days. Pushing the limits of the body has strange physical and emotional consequences. There are the obvious consequences like chafed skin, funny tan lines, sore muscles and fatigue. It was the emotional consequences of this grand experiment that were particularly interesting.
I’d met Galen a few months ago at a bike race and perhaps surprised him by taking him up on the offer to cycle across France with him in his 10 days off from his cycle tourism business. By the end of the trip he’d seen me more weak and vulnerable than I ever remember being and because of the charm of France and the bike-induced euphoria I hardly have a hold on my emotions. I’m drunk on cycling, mentally a little unstable and need some time, some rest and familiar faces to bring me back to the reality that I spend more of my life in.
The first day we decided to take a 25 K detour on an already long day to visit a French socialite we’d met while dining with actresses in Avingon. Because Galen’s French is much better, she offers him food and he declines. I think to myself that he must be crazy and can’t believe he didn’t see the watermelon on the way in. I should have taken it as a sign that I was actually upset with him for turning down food without consulting me but to be polite I say nothing and accept lemonade. Later she offers me food, describes something with chocolate in it and I’m immediately sold. She laughs knowingly at my enthusiasm. Woman of all cultures understand chocolate addiction, and the word for chocolate is more or less the same in all the languages I can think of. The small chocolate cake she serves us is gone much more quickly than my stomach hoped for.
We leave her house and Galen says “I feel great. The caffeine in the chocolate gave me so much energy.” I’m not excited to hear this as I struggle to keep up with him. I think that he’s suddenly decided to speed up and make me suffer so I push harder, not wanting to seem incapable on our first day of touring together.
The hill is long and hot and unexpected. I’m following without my own map. I ask for Gatorade, already digging into our emergency stores of cycling food. Galen has mentioned that the Cliff bars and Gatorade are for dire circumstances and that we should eat local fruit and nuts first. At the next town I tell him “I am eating a Cliff bar or we are stopping to eat real food. I can’t eat any more fruit.” I surprise myself with the irritated tone of my voice and the discovery of the end of what I thought was a bottomless pit for fruit. The Cliff bar makes me happier but Galen still politely asks if he can carry my bag for the rest of the day. Then he starts joking about the excess energy the chocolate gave him and pushes me up the hill. He’s quite diplomatic about it all but eventually I catch on and ask if I’m going slower than I was earlier since I feel like I’m putting out so much more effort yet keep getting dropped. He comes clean and we realize that I’m bonking at the base of a two hour climb up a gorge. I’m simply following Galen’s wheel and assume that we’ll keep seeing fountains to fill up water bottles. An hour later our bottles are drained and we have a lot of climbing left to do. Galen flags down a car and asks for water. They fill his bottle but only give me a little. Galen quickly drinks most of his water and he hasn’t noticed that I barely got any. I know I need it, so damning politeness I ask for the rest of his water. We contemplate flagging down another car but they pass quickly and we decide we’ll make it.
At the next town Galen sits me down on the side of the fountain and fills up my bottle, forces me to down it, then fills it again. The water improves my condition and we keep rolling to a Gite that never seems to come. Every town we pass through has been built on the top of a hill. Although I’m sure they built them like that for a reason, such as to defend in times of war or avoid flooding in times of rain I’m upset that they didn’t forsee the difficulty I was going to have with getting through just to ride down the hill on the other side. I’m not shamelessly accepting frequent pushing from Galen who seems to have endless strength despite carrying all of our bags. We arrive at the town we were headed for and Galen admits we are staying in a small village 3 K away. We arrive at the small village and discover that the Gite is on a farm another 3 K. Despite calling and asking for directions in fabulous French we get lost and are forced to turn and ride up a hill we just rode down. Galen loses it. I assure him that I’m going to make it, that I’ve been more tired before and that I’m just refusing to give everything I’ve got to be fast because I’ll have to do the same thing again tomorrow. He feels like a bad guide because we are lost, we ran out of water and I trusted him. “Our first failure as a team was not getting you a map.”
Galen’s called the Gite three times to push pack our arrival time and we finally roll in as the sun sets around 9:30 pm. Despite the day I find a little bit more to sprint with the white horses which gallop across the farm racing me to the farmhouse. Because Galen has called, there is still dinner. We sit down and they bring out a huge omelet filled with mushrooms harvested locally and a basket of bread. What appeared to be an incredible amount of food disappears in minutes. We worry that we’ll be stuck eating Cliff bars and Galen asks if they can possibly bring out something else. They cook assures us that she knows about cycling and that more is on the way but says it’s a surprise. Next she serves rabbit stewed with vegetables and gravy and a dish of bulgar wheat and carrots. Hunger is the best spice but we felt as if she could sense our nutritional needs and had counted the calories we’d expended that day. For dessert she mixed white cheese and chestnuts. The protein, the sugar, the carbohydrates soaked into our muscles. Our conversation revolved around how euphoric the food was. The cook laughed at us saying that Americans always react like this. “I serve them potatoes and they act like it is the most magnificent food they’ve ever tasted.” Life seems wonderful again.
We order seconds and thirds of hot chocolate made with whole milk for breakfast and feel no guilt for enjoying French butter which, due to a higher fat content, is much more delicious than butter in the states. We focus on water and food and the second day is easier if much less memorable. We arrive in time to eat dinner with the family we are staying with and I’m awake enough to focus on French stories. The owner describes each dish, jam and drink telling us the nearby French towns they come from. The third day seems practically easy clocking in at only 6 hours on the bike. We arrive in the mountain town of Rencurel and enjoy a nap before dinner.
Galen’s planned to stay for two nights in Rencurel since he’s friends with the hotel staff and the mountain setting is gorgeous. My body is ready for a rest, my legs are tired but there is something more. I’m fatigued by knowing that I have to cover a certain distance to get to my next bed. On the rest day I can ride in a loop exactly as big as I want and return back to my same flat bed. I journey to the caves alone, soft pedaling as much as possible, and almost turn back when I realize that I can’t soft pedal up the 15% grade to the mouth of the cave.
Stay tuned for more stories of hysterical crying due to bonking, French pastries, peeing on the side of the road, and rainbows.
I’d met Galen a few months ago at a bike race and perhaps surprised him by taking him up on the offer to cycle across France with him in his 10 days off from his cycle tourism business. By the end of the trip he’d seen me more weak and vulnerable than I ever remember being and because of the charm of France and the bike-induced euphoria I hardly have a hold on my emotions. I’m drunk on cycling, mentally a little unstable and need some time, some rest and familiar faces to bring me back to the reality that I spend more of my life in.
The first day we decided to take a 25 K detour on an already long day to visit a French socialite we’d met while dining with actresses in Avingon. Because Galen’s French is much better, she offers him food and he declines. I think to myself that he must be crazy and can’t believe he didn’t see the watermelon on the way in. I should have taken it as a sign that I was actually upset with him for turning down food without consulting me but to be polite I say nothing and accept lemonade. Later she offers me food, describes something with chocolate in it and I’m immediately sold. She laughs knowingly at my enthusiasm. Woman of all cultures understand chocolate addiction, and the word for chocolate is more or less the same in all the languages I can think of. The small chocolate cake she serves us is gone much more quickly than my stomach hoped for.
We leave her house and Galen says “I feel great. The caffeine in the chocolate gave me so much energy.” I’m not excited to hear this as I struggle to keep up with him. I think that he’s suddenly decided to speed up and make me suffer so I push harder, not wanting to seem incapable on our first day of touring together.
The hill is long and hot and unexpected. I’m following without my own map. I ask for Gatorade, already digging into our emergency stores of cycling food. Galen has mentioned that the Cliff bars and Gatorade are for dire circumstances and that we should eat local fruit and nuts first. At the next town I tell him “I am eating a Cliff bar or we are stopping to eat real food. I can’t eat any more fruit.” I surprise myself with the irritated tone of my voice and the discovery of the end of what I thought was a bottomless pit for fruit. The Cliff bar makes me happier but Galen still politely asks if he can carry my bag for the rest of the day. Then he starts joking about the excess energy the chocolate gave him and pushes me up the hill. He’s quite diplomatic about it all but eventually I catch on and ask if I’m going slower than I was earlier since I feel like I’m putting out so much more effort yet keep getting dropped. He comes clean and we realize that I’m bonking at the base of a two hour climb up a gorge. I’m simply following Galen’s wheel and assume that we’ll keep seeing fountains to fill up water bottles. An hour later our bottles are drained and we have a lot of climbing left to do. Galen flags down a car and asks for water. They fill his bottle but only give me a little. Galen quickly drinks most of his water and he hasn’t noticed that I barely got any. I know I need it, so damning politeness I ask for the rest of his water. We contemplate flagging down another car but they pass quickly and we decide we’ll make it.
At the next town Galen sits me down on the side of the fountain and fills up my bottle, forces me to down it, then fills it again. The water improves my condition and we keep rolling to a Gite that never seems to come. Every town we pass through has been built on the top of a hill. Although I’m sure they built them like that for a reason, such as to defend in times of war or avoid flooding in times of rain I’m upset that they didn’t forsee the difficulty I was going to have with getting through just to ride down the hill on the other side. I’m not shamelessly accepting frequent pushing from Galen who seems to have endless strength despite carrying all of our bags. We arrive at the town we were headed for and Galen admits we are staying in a small village 3 K away. We arrive at the small village and discover that the Gite is on a farm another 3 K. Despite calling and asking for directions in fabulous French we get lost and are forced to turn and ride up a hill we just rode down. Galen loses it. I assure him that I’m going to make it, that I’ve been more tired before and that I’m just refusing to give everything I’ve got to be fast because I’ll have to do the same thing again tomorrow. He feels like a bad guide because we are lost, we ran out of water and I trusted him. “Our first failure as a team was not getting you a map.”
Galen’s called the Gite three times to push pack our arrival time and we finally roll in as the sun sets around 9:30 pm. Despite the day I find a little bit more to sprint with the white horses which gallop across the farm racing me to the farmhouse. Because Galen has called, there is still dinner. We sit down and they bring out a huge omelet filled with mushrooms harvested locally and a basket of bread. What appeared to be an incredible amount of food disappears in minutes. We worry that we’ll be stuck eating Cliff bars and Galen asks if they can possibly bring out something else. They cook assures us that she knows about cycling and that more is on the way but says it’s a surprise. Next she serves rabbit stewed with vegetables and gravy and a dish of bulgar wheat and carrots. Hunger is the best spice but we felt as if she could sense our nutritional needs and had counted the calories we’d expended that day. For dessert she mixed white cheese and chestnuts. The protein, the sugar, the carbohydrates soaked into our muscles. Our conversation revolved around how euphoric the food was. The cook laughed at us saying that Americans always react like this. “I serve them potatoes and they act like it is the most magnificent food they’ve ever tasted.” Life seems wonderful again.
We order seconds and thirds of hot chocolate made with whole milk for breakfast and feel no guilt for enjoying French butter which, due to a higher fat content, is much more delicious than butter in the states. We focus on water and food and the second day is easier if much less memorable. We arrive in time to eat dinner with the family we are staying with and I’m awake enough to focus on French stories. The owner describes each dish, jam and drink telling us the nearby French towns they come from. The third day seems practically easy clocking in at only 6 hours on the bike. We arrive in the mountain town of Rencurel and enjoy a nap before dinner.
Galen’s planned to stay for two nights in Rencurel since he’s friends with the hotel staff and the mountain setting is gorgeous. My body is ready for a rest, my legs are tired but there is something more. I’m fatigued by knowing that I have to cover a certain distance to get to my next bed. On the rest day I can ride in a loop exactly as big as I want and return back to my same flat bed. I journey to the caves alone, soft pedaling as much as possible, and almost turn back when I realize that I can’t soft pedal up the 15% grade to the mouth of the cave.
Stay tuned for more stories of hysterical crying due to bonking, French pastries, peeing on the side of the road, and rainbows.
posted by Cammie at 10:54 PM
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