To Lodève

April 8, 2022

We’re often reminded of what makes traveling by bicycle so exceptional, even if you’re rather tame travelers such as ourselves. We lead pretty sheltered lives on the road really, following a mapped route and comforted by the knowledge that a prebooked room, a warm shower and a restaurant meal awaits us at the end of the day. Pretty humdrum existence, really: wake up, check the weather, catch up on the blog, wait for the day to warm up or dry out as much as it will, bike our miles, check in to our hotel, find a meal. Just another day at the office, really.

But it’s not really like that of course. Somehow, even within this fairly well-defined framework every day feels unique - not just on this tour, but maybe even in our entire lives. The road is different, the chance encounters are different, and there’s nearly always something unusual or surprising enough to brand the day. Take today, for example.

The day begins with breakfast at our B&B, the same place we lodged at in Pézenas five years ago. It’s a bit stilted - we shamefully know only a few words of French even after all these years, but our host Regina speaks possibly even fewer in English. Communication is largely through pantomime, but as we’re leaving the table she approaches us with a question, Google-translated on her phone: where are you going today?

An extended conversation ensues, facilitated by the phone. We lay out generally our itinerary for the coming months, remind her that we were here five years earlier (we had already shown her at breakfast yesterday our photo of her with her then-tangerine hair), and say that we may see her again in autumn on our return south. She gives us her business card as we’re packing to leave, and says to just call her directly next time.

À tout a l'heur, Regina! Perhaps we’ll see you in November.

And we start off, biking north on the shortish ride to Lodève. It’s only about 28 miles, and Rachael is already anticipating padding that with some Rocky Roundup Miles along the way somewhere.

The weather is fantastic today, and three miles into the ride we come to the summit of the first small climb of the day and I stop to take my outer layer off because it’s already sixty degrees or more. Rachael bikes ahead, but fortunately doesn’t get out of hearing range when I bellow to her to come back.

In emptying the pockets of my jersey before stowing it away I find the keys to our B&B. We’ve found Rocky’s extra miles for the day - we’ll spend them biking back to Pézenas.

Rachael is concerned that Regina will be gone when we arrive and wants to phone, but I vote to just ride - it’s mostly downhill, the miles will go fast. And it does work out, but just barely. Three blocks from the B&B we see Regina walking our way, off on a shopping expedition perhaps. We’ve caught her just in time. She looks up, startled to see us and with a quizzical, concerned look on her face. I assemble a sheepish grin on my own, hand her the keys, and we say our goodbyes one last time before heading north again.

A beautiful stretch of road on a beautiful day, well worth experiencing two or three times.

Three miles on, we’re finally ready to see something new. It turns into a beautiful ride, one of the best of the tour so far. There’s a bit of climbing for the next ten or fifteen miles as we gradually climb to Mourèze at the high point of the day’s ride. Along the way we cycle past one beautiful scene after another.

The land becomes more contoured as we move north.

It wouldn’t be a complete day in the Hérault without a scene like this.

In the Hérault. We haven’t been in this country so early in the year before, when all of the vines are so fully trimmed back.

We stop for lunch in Mourèze, sitting on a roadside bench at the base of a hiking trail. The surroundings are remarkable - Mourèze sits at the base of a cirque, with a ring of wierd eroded rock formations rising above. There’s a fairly challenging hiking route through the cirque that looks worth doing, but not today. We decide we’ll bike back here tomorrow with our unloaded bikes, lock them up, and take a hike and a proper look around town.

Since you never know what tomorrow may bring though I take a few snaps before we leave, just in case we don’t make it back.

In Mourèze. Looking at this photo now, I’m struck by how blue the sky is. It won’t be for long though. In a half hour these mountains will be under a dark cloud and we’ll be wondering if we might get rain.

Biking down from Mourèze we pass through Salasc, another pretty village worth a second look. I save it for tomorrow though, since we’ll be coming back. Not long afterwards we pass a lone cyclist traveling the other way. We stop to chat for a bit - he’s Dutch and speaks a fair amount of English, so we enjoy more than the typical too-brief encounter. He’s on a solo ride from Nice to Alicante, mixing Warm Showers stays with wild camping. He tells us to be sure to check out wonderful Lake Salagou a few miles down the road. Not today, I say with confidence, misremembering our route - but we remember how amazing it is from a day ride there from Pézenas on our last visit (a ride that Mélanie from Maison Conti recommended to us at the time, it’s worth remembering).

The sky is darkening quickly as we drop down from the heights.

But I’m wrong once again, of course. Our route goes right past Lake Salagou, but on the opposite shore from the one we saw last time. At first it’s not clear we’ll be going that way though because our planned route is barricaded at the moment, apparently closed due to flooding. I stare at the map and conclude that we might face a ten mile detour if we reroute so we decide to test the road to see if it’s passable by bicycle. Within a few hundred yards we come to the reason for closure, a stream flowing across the road.

It looks like we could make it through, though we’ll have to take our shoes and socks off and maybe carry the panniers separately so they don’t get flooded. First though we can wait to see how this German couple traveling the other direction fare, who coincidentally arrive just as we do. The man just bikes on through, leaving a nice wake. She’s more cautious though and removes her shoes and socks before wading across with a grimace.

It looks fine, so we do the same.

Not bad at all. The road surface is even smooth and not slick.

On the other side we prop up our bikes and take several minutes drying and desanding our feet before starting up again. I consider biking barefoot for a ways, because the German couple informed us that there’s a second crossing ahead waiting for us; but not knowing how far it is I decide to just reshoe myself and plan on doing it all over again down the road.

Really though, I should have ridden barefoot. The second crossing is barely two hundred yards on, hidden around the next bend.

It takes us a few minutes to dry off our feet and get the sand our from in between our toes before starting up again.

The next few miles along the lake on this dirt/semi paved road are a beautiful cycling experience, silent except for bird calls and the croaking of frogs. Surprisingly we pass two more cyclists and a pair of hikers along the way.

And then, back on pavement for the final few miles to our hotel. We arrive just before four, which is unexpectedly perfect because check-in isn’t available until then anyway. At the start of the day we had both wondered how we’d fill the extra three hours we’d expected to have but that hasn’t been a concern after all.

That’s it for today’s excitement though. Just another day at the office.

Video sound track: The Missing Piece, by Yasmin Williams

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Ride stats today: 34 miles, 2,100’; for the tour: 556 miles, 28,400’

Today's ride: 34 miles (55 km)
Total: 556 miles (895 km)

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Jen RahnI love the flavor of this day .. just the right amount of adversity to keep you on your toes and to add to the uniqueness of this particular 24-hour experience.
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2 years ago

Scott AndersonTo Jen RahnThat’s exactly right - just challenging enough to give us a sense of adventure and accomplishment. Plus, the cat!
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2 years ago

Jen RahnYes! A very handsome cat.
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2 years ago

Rich FrasierYou're on a roll, Mr. Anderson. Your last few journal entries are definitely waking up my traveling itch. Good job!!
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2 years ago

Scott AndersonTo Rich FrasierThanks, Rich. Definitely an inspiring part of the world.
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2 years ago

Kathleen JonesYa know, you keep saying “best of the trip so far” and “top 5 of x ever” etc etc. It seems like you’re just having one more, ho hum, in a series of trips of a lifetime. Good on ya.
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2 years ago

Scott AndersonTo Kathleen JonesIt really has been an amazing run, alright. Each one of these feels like such a gift.
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2 years ago

Jacquie GaudetTo Kathleen JonesI think Scott’s just like that. Every one of his journals has many “best of the trip” descriptions. Certainly not a jaded fellow!
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2 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesYour ordinary day at the office touches lightly on some details that I usually agonize at length over. Maybe you can elaborate a bit for me:

1. You seem to imply that you write the long, well crafted, picture filled, RWGPS tracked, Rachel video enhanced blog entry in the morning, maybe over a cup of coffee, and while conversing with a host in a foreign language. If you say, "well, yeah", then I am hanging up my heavily pounded thru the night keyboard!

2. Faced with an obstacle, you consult "the map". Do you just happen to have a Michelin Regional for this area, appropriately folded and ready for action?

3. Finding something interesting in Moureze, you decide to come back. Did you book two nights in Lodeve because you predicted something like that would happen just here? Did you already know that Lodeve would merit some extra time? I haven't read the Lodeve page yet, so right now I know nothing about it.
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2 years ago

Scott AndersonTo Steve Miller/Grampies1. I select and load the photos at night, but do most of my writing in the AM now, mostly after breakfast and over coffee. I’ve been thinking it over in the meantime though and bring some ideas to the table. It helps that mornings have been cold and we’re in no rush now. When it starts warming up I’ll probably lose some sleep or change the pattern. And nobody bothered me with French conversation the morning I wrote this - I’m describing the day before.

2. The map = our Garmin. We haven’t carried a paper map of any kind for years now.

3. You’ve read the next day by now, and answered your own question.
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2 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Scott AndersonAh, the seemingly magical powers of blogging and touring I asked about have fairly reasonable explanations. But I think at your ages and with your experience you now have a claim to being "master" tourers. Your feats may be explainable but they remain remarkable!
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2 years ago

Rachael AndersonTo Steve Miller/GrampiesThanks for the great compliment!
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2 years ago