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#1
08-31-2019, 07:30 AM
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I was too damn old to be doing this!
The words were flitting through my head like bees frantically banging against a window to get outside. What was the friggin point already! Beating myself up for some chimerical idea of who I was, or who I once was, or more likely who I once imagined I was. Nuts really. And I wasn’t even a third of the way into the climb!
It was hot, the sun blazing out of a brilliant, blue sky, broiling the south facing slopes. And there I was some sort of volunteer torture subject riding a bicycle up this steep, dirt and gravel track relentlessly weaving its way up the mountain. I could have turned around and coasted back down the mountain and put a neat end to the struggle. Which is what I was going to do eventually anyway, I wasn’t going anywhere, just up and back down. Why wait until I was dead, turn around now, say the hell with it, recognize I didn’t need to do this. Didn’t happen. Of course I was going to ride to the top. That’s why I was on one of my absolute favorite climbs, to ride across the top of the Plateau d’Emparis,. Slowly struggled into a rhythm, forcing the cranks over, picking the easiest lines through the rough sections, focusing on getting to the next arbitrarily selected point where I’d stop, rest, drink, shoot some pics. A couple of hours after leaving the car, 1000 vertical meters (3280 ft) higher, the grade finally eased. Then eased some more. Moved down a cog, then another, with a huge grin. Because of where I was. On a bike, on a crazy road on the side of this mountain, riding a wave of joy, stones and dust popping out from under my tires, hair streaming back over my head, rolling easy through long curves glued to slopes above a dark gorge, the air thrumming with the sounds of water cascading down the cliffs and slopes across the canyon, 74 friggin years old and I was on this magnificent mountain road, on a road bike, not some heavy, fully-suspended mountain bike, not some electric-assisted bike, but an elegantly clean, simple, diamond frame road bike wearing fat tires. Up and around a long curve to the left onto a broad, grassy shoulder. Straight ahead the summit spires of La Meije, one of France’s most spectacular peaks, spearing a piercing blue sky. In the foreground the road carved out of cliffs plunging into the gorge. Any lingering doubts about why in the heck I was doing all this evaporated like morning fog. Into the cliffs, the road lumpy with ramps and broken rocks. Back onto my biggest cog, legs protesting, more out of habit than necessity, working the bike up the ramps, through the broken rock, hard going but I’m grinning anyway. I know this one is in the bag, one more time. Onto the Plateau d’Emparis, prairies of grasses rolling into the distance through shallow valleys and over low, round hills, the false flatness emphasized by a wall of high summits and ridges. I love the plateau, a sea of meadows in an ocean of light, also home to one of my favorite lunch stops, the Refuge les Mouterres, only open for a couple of months in the summer. Great place to eat, though in truth I only snack during rides. For lunch at the refuge I’ve always driven up, bringing family or friends who’d never see the plateau otherwise. Today I’m way too late in the day for lunch anyway but not too late for a beer and a fat slice of tarte. Kick back in the sun, visit with the owners, a young couple whose company I enjoy, drink the beer, eat the tarte, the perfect pause. After that a speed run across the plateau on my big ring. Glorious! Wanted to sit-up and ride with no hands on the bars, singing the glories of being alive and 74 riding a bike across the Plateau d’Emparis. Didn’t because I sure as hell didn’t want to do a painful face plant just when I’m feeling so good. Given the perversity of the human life, the elation of spinning across the plateau was born in the pain of the climb. There’s no way I would have been exploding with so much joy if I’d driven up to ride the plateau. The plunge off the mountain via a switchbacking dirt road on the backside, the road most cars use to access the plateau. Turns out to be way smoother than the road I came up. Traffic does that. Views good but not in the same class as on the other side. Remarkably steep hillside of grasses yellow and stiff from lack of rain, the road descending in long traverses between switchbacks. Surface finally flips to asphalt after a sharp switchback, but still a one-laner, at times with a strip of grass growing down the center of the road. Through the medieval village of Besse, stone walls and fat, wooden beams and main street so tight cars have to squeeze through. Sunday, lots of tourists wandering around. I weave through with my bell ringing a small warning. Out the far side past the tourist office and into a fast, twisting downhill, back through Mizoën, back to Le Freney where I left my car. Fantastic. Again. So much for being too old for climbs like that. At least for now. 
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#2
08-31-2019, 07:42 AM
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Narrative is great and the pics are amazingly beautiful!!!
Thanks for sharing as it was a perfectly timed distraction from my early rise to get some work done...now inspired and now pressing pause to go jump on my bike...insert big cheesy grin  Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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#5
08-31-2019, 08:30 AM
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Beautiful ride and inspiring text, as usual.
If I lived where you do I would ride and ride and ride…
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#6
08-31-2019, 08:48 AM
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The French Tourism authority should put you on retainer!
 thanks, as always.
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#7
08-31-2019, 11:34 AM
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Quote:
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#12
08-31-2019, 02:01 PM
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That's great! Also, those pics are phenomenal!
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#13
08-31-2019, 04:55 PM
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Great story and shots.
Thanks.
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