This was a stupid trail. At least there was a good view of the mountain demon that is slowly eating the church in La Roque-Alric.
Col de l'Espeutiéra, Col de l'Oursine, Col du Lièvre, Col du Puech, Col du Rédarès, Col de Palliès, Col de la Tourte, Col de l'Aubret, Col de Reynard Like half of these were detours just to pick them off. Col du Lièvre was particularly ill advised. The hotel has a cat. He’s in the room. Jenn is pleased.
Col de Charnavas, Col de la Banlève, Col de Canteperdrix, Col de la Bégude, Col de la Baraque, Col d'Uglas, Col de Lamira and yet another “Le Collet”. Only Lamira was a side quest, everything else was just in the damn way.
Summer rolls on. The grape harvest has started. The roads are sticky with dried grape juice, tires emitting a loud hum as we cut through the vineyards and out of Provence. The air is hot the fields are dry, but we’re pointed towards the mountains. We’re spending a few days riding through Ardeche, and the eastern edge of the Parc national des Cévennes. Tonight we’re north of Bessèges, an old mining town at the bottom of the descent from the Col de Trelis
Rolled out pre-dawn. Not that it matters much, central Paris largely cut off private cars last year, and the city center is easy to ride around now. Paper thin clouds kept the temperature down to the first control at Blandy-Les-Tours. The baker was shut , the small grocer locked up tight. The cafe was dark. We caught a maintenance man sneaking into the Mairie, unfortunately he couldn’t locate a stamp for our control cards, so a photo proof-of-passage had to suffice. We wouldn’t encounter an open shop until 100k into the day. Not a good sign as the next day was a public holiday, and even fewer services would be operating. We rolled into Villeneuve-l’Archevêque at 12:01pm. Just in time for the post office to lock the door. The baker up the road was perplexed but stamped our cards and served up two piping hot and bone dry pizzas. By now the thins clouds had burned off. The European heatwave you’ve heard so much about: Yeah. That’s now. We limped into Semur-en-Auxois hot, tired and hungry, but on schedule Friday started out something like the Missouri of France, mile after mile of rolling farmland. The bright orange sun seemed to vaporize the moisture out of the crops and suspend it in the still air. My Garmin said it was 104F, and I was under the same sun as it. The vast fields of corn and sunflower provided no shade at all. After 400k of flat and rollers we crossed into Jura, one of my favorite regions of France. The temperature dropped steadily as we made the 45km long climb into the mountains. The peak in St Laurent en Gradvaux gave way to a cool and exceptionally speedy 25km descent into St Claude, getting us into the overnight just as a light ran began to fall. Now 500km in, Saturday was a breeze. We slept in and made the 15km climb out of St Claude. At the Col de la Faucille the tourist office was seemingly overjoyed to supply a control card stamp and a hearty “bon courage!”. The rest of the day was typical lovely Jura: Misty, shady, colorful; the air cool and filled with the scent of decomposing leaves. Before long we were descending out of the mountains and into Bellegarde to catch the train home, two full hours ahead of schedule.
The village is dark, and still warm, when we lock the shutters at quarter to six. Caromb turns out the lights at night, but they flick on before we exit towards Aubignan. The air temperature drops as we descend into the vineyards in the direction of Orange, where we’ll catch the train. We’re headed north to ride Audax Club Parisian’s Paris-Bellgarde 583km permanent randonee. The trace is part of ACP’s “Flèches de France”, a series of timed routes radiating from Paris to the edges of France, like spokes in a wheel. The prescribed pace is similar to that of an SR600. We have train tickets from Bellgarde 59 hours on from our planned Paris departure: 5am tomorrow morning.
The Lac du Paty is Caromb’s water supply and, by necessity, is located both near the village and well above it. The fastest way is up the switchbacks; they’re steep. The sun bakes the south facing slope, which is nice in winter and less nice on a day you actually want to go to the lake. There are some gravel shortcuts, but they’re chonky. You can go around the hill and approach the lake from the north, adding miles to lessen the grade, but there’s no getting around the climb. The reward is the cool blue water that, while busy on the hottest afternoons, is often deserted.
Last day in Vercors. Side quests to collect a few passes. The best part of this ride is the very quiet ~9mi logging road. Vercors is pretty, but probably better outside of the school break period.
Up through the forest, hunting the quieter roads in Vercors.
Grabbed the train to Valence and rode up to Autrans for a few days in the gorges of Vercors
