velotel
02-27-2012, 04:22 PM
Well, maybe not so french to be honest. Other than location. Saturday was gorgeous, perfect for a ride after days of cold. We’re not talking the big chill here, more like the big deep freeze. So the plan was cruising warm air, blue skies, easy blacktop. Great plan, didn’t work. Called Max, canceled my appearance. A small project, building and installing a door frame for a pair of doors. No sweat. Should have known it would be more. Call Max, how about tomorrow. Okay with him. Bad call because Saturday was definitely the day; Sunday was going to be clouds, wind, drop in the temps. Oh well, riding bikes on a bad day is better than a lot of stuff on a great day.
Sunday morning, better than forecast. Work, lunch, off to Max’s, head over to some hills around a lake. In the valley, curving around the mountains, wind rocking the car, dreary clouds over the hills up ahead. Change plans. Pickup Max, he’s game for any ride. Offhand I mention a certain climb, figure he’s already done it, even posted pics from it. Words are scrambling to get loose of my teeth and he’s already saying, yea, let’s do it. A bear of a ride. I’d only ridden it once before. Stumbled into it. Following my nose so to speak. My nose seems to be partial to making the rest of me suffer. Turned out Max hadn’t ridden it. Just to a sort of low col at the start of the climb. Got to the col, turned right, turned up.
Big relief! My memory hadn’t failed. Really was steep. I knew because Max was standing up. He never stands! He was now. Not all the time, but a lot. Meanwhile my butt didn’t even know my bike had a saddle. Narrow road, don’t know what cars do when they meet. It was easy with bikes and cars; the cars are bigger, we rode on the edge in the gravel. The gravel was looking like a problem if we had to come back down the same road. There’s a chemin at the end of the climbing that slides across the hillside and joins another road. Not sure what chemin translates into. A dirt forest road I suppose. Good enough for regular cars with drivers who don’t freak out. And don’t mind their cars getting dirty. Definitely good enough for bikes. If it was open. Might be closed by snow.
It wasn’t. A little mud, not much, easily bypassed mostly. One turn covered in packed snow and slips of ice. Sweet riding. We’re way over the valley, maybe a couple thousand feet (I like my verticals in feet, bigger numbers). Sweet, fast riding. Bikes are changing colors. So are my shoes. Long contour across the mountain. Chemin ends, pavement starts. Only more gravel than pavement for awhile. Steep grades past houses. Amazing! People are living way up here! Hell of a commute! More blacktop, less gravel, gravity pulling hard. Excellent.
Arrive at an intersection. One road heading up, one going down. I tell Max I don’t know where the road going up goes. Other than up. He says let’s just ride up to that bend and see what’s there. Didn’t tell him I’d done exactly that last time I was there. Half an hour later, maybe more, probably more, I ask him which bend was it he wanted to ride to. Looks like a ridge up ahead. Let’s just see what’s up there. Okay, let’s go. Another fifteen, twenty minutes slide by. At one clearing we can see back where we started. A long way away. I can see thoughts of family considerations starting to seep into Max’s head like fog creeping in off the ocean. Just a wee bit more then we’ll turn around. Never did see the end of that road.
The return was speed heaven. Restrained speed, fingers floating over the levers, brakes squeezed down for the blind turns. Road way too narrow for a full gravity blast. Car coming up could end up going back down with a new hood emblem. But where the sight lines were long was pure speed. The return didn’t take long. A fine ride. Sunday turned out to be the perfect day after all. Amazing how that works.
Maxn posted with a link to the video he shot, title is Peuil.
Sunday morning, better than forecast. Work, lunch, off to Max’s, head over to some hills around a lake. In the valley, curving around the mountains, wind rocking the car, dreary clouds over the hills up ahead. Change plans. Pickup Max, he’s game for any ride. Offhand I mention a certain climb, figure he’s already done it, even posted pics from it. Words are scrambling to get loose of my teeth and he’s already saying, yea, let’s do it. A bear of a ride. I’d only ridden it once before. Stumbled into it. Following my nose so to speak. My nose seems to be partial to making the rest of me suffer. Turned out Max hadn’t ridden it. Just to a sort of low col at the start of the climb. Got to the col, turned right, turned up.
Big relief! My memory hadn’t failed. Really was steep. I knew because Max was standing up. He never stands! He was now. Not all the time, but a lot. Meanwhile my butt didn’t even know my bike had a saddle. Narrow road, don’t know what cars do when they meet. It was easy with bikes and cars; the cars are bigger, we rode on the edge in the gravel. The gravel was looking like a problem if we had to come back down the same road. There’s a chemin at the end of the climbing that slides across the hillside and joins another road. Not sure what chemin translates into. A dirt forest road I suppose. Good enough for regular cars with drivers who don’t freak out. And don’t mind their cars getting dirty. Definitely good enough for bikes. If it was open. Might be closed by snow.
It wasn’t. A little mud, not much, easily bypassed mostly. One turn covered in packed snow and slips of ice. Sweet riding. We’re way over the valley, maybe a couple thousand feet (I like my verticals in feet, bigger numbers). Sweet, fast riding. Bikes are changing colors. So are my shoes. Long contour across the mountain. Chemin ends, pavement starts. Only more gravel than pavement for awhile. Steep grades past houses. Amazing! People are living way up here! Hell of a commute! More blacktop, less gravel, gravity pulling hard. Excellent.
Arrive at an intersection. One road heading up, one going down. I tell Max I don’t know where the road going up goes. Other than up. He says let’s just ride up to that bend and see what’s there. Didn’t tell him I’d done exactly that last time I was there. Half an hour later, maybe more, probably more, I ask him which bend was it he wanted to ride to. Looks like a ridge up ahead. Let’s just see what’s up there. Okay, let’s go. Another fifteen, twenty minutes slide by. At one clearing we can see back where we started. A long way away. I can see thoughts of family considerations starting to seep into Max’s head like fog creeping in off the ocean. Just a wee bit more then we’ll turn around. Never did see the end of that road.
The return was speed heaven. Restrained speed, fingers floating over the levers, brakes squeezed down for the blind turns. Road way too narrow for a full gravity blast. Car coming up could end up going back down with a new hood emblem. But where the sight lines were long was pure speed. The return didn’t take long. A fine ride. Sunday turned out to be the perfect day after all. Amazing how that works.
Maxn posted with a link to the video he shot, title is Peuil.