Day 2: Cantalejo to Lerma

We woke late on day 2. The night had been cold but the campsite owner had lent us a tent so we slept comfortably. My legs were stiff from day 1's climbing but I still felt pretty fresh.

The ride ahead was 10 k shorter with much less climbing than the previous day. It promised no major challenges.

We eventually pulled out of the campsite by 10am.

Soon we were riding in a creek beside the Rio Duraton. The landscape on top of the meseta is shades of brown: light brown corn to red brown earth. But here in the creek it was green and terracotta. The sandstone wall of the creek was covered in green vegetation and wind rustled the leaves of Poplar trees by the river. It felt like Eden.

Back on the high plain of the meseta, the roads were arrow straight and the sky big, blue and dotted with white clouds. It is a harsh landscape, all above 800 metres; hot in the summer, bitterly cold in winter.

We'd expected heat to be a problem but it was surprisingly fresh. Rory stopped to put socks on under the sandals he was riding in. The wind was blowing steadily in our faces and dust whipped up into eddies across brown fields.

After about 3 hours of riding we came down from the meseta and stopped in a village for pastries and a rest.

A friend of Rory's from work was spending time at his parents' house in a village about an hour's cycling away and we had planned to meet up so we called ahead. Javi invited us to have lunch at his parents house and came out to meet us on his bike. I was weary of the cycling and was looking forward to lunch and a rest.

Eventually we pulled into Navas de Roa - 700 inhabitants - and the hospitality of Javi and his parents. If I had wished for a lunch my imagination would not have come up with a meal as tasty and well-suited to a day's cycling as we were given at Javi's house. Pisto - courgette, potato, boiled egg, peppers and tomatoes - and barbecued lamb chops with a glass of wine.

After lunch the head wind was more noticeable. I don't know if it was stronger or just felt that way but we were now riding in deliberate formation. One of us would take the lead, taking the brunt of the head wind, for 20 - 30 minutes before dropping back and taking a rest in the slip stream. Javi stayed with us for maybe 30 kilometres. The landscape was a washed out brown and green. Cornfields and scrub land. But for the most part I wasn't looking at the landscape. If I was out front I had my head down out of the wind; if I was following I was concentrating on Rory's back tire trying to tuck as close as I could into his slip stream.

Lerma is hidden into the landscape so we were approaching for a long time but couldn't see the town. It was disconcerting for two tired cyclists who just wanted a shower, a beer and to watch the European cup final. It was past 8 o'clock and we still hadn't seen Lerma.

Eventually we crossed a dual carriage way, followed an unsurfaced road, rounded a corner and Lerma was directly in front of us.

I'm doing another trip

This one's shorter than the last - 500km - and I'm not doing it alone but with Rory, a friend and fellow bike fiend. We're cycling from Madrid to Santander.

This trip is a lot harder than the last one. Day 1 was very hard. 134km and over a mountain pass which topped out at 1,850km. We hit the worst of the climb at lunchtime so it was either eat then climb or climb then eat.

We chose to climb first, which was a mistake. About 250 vertical metres from the top I started feeling light headed and shaky with hunger. Eventually we got to the top and ate an over priced lunch on a surprisingly cold sun terrace and chatted to a pair of mountain bikers and a roadie riding with a club from Valencia. The way down was fast through hairpins but we got stuck behind a caravan. I wasn't bold enough to pass him on the hairpins so we just followed him down. We got to the bottom at 20 past six in the evening and still had a good 50km and 2.5 hours of riding to go. We'd been on the road since 10am.  

Soon, though, the riding became very pleasant. We turned off the main road at San Ildefonso and took smaller roads though rolling farmland and scrub to Cantalejo. We finally rolled into the campsite just past nine in the evening.

We ate barbecued chorizo for dinner and slept like the dead.

Arrival

Sunday, August 30.

On the last day of the trip, I fitted new brake pads and and set off down the Gorge de L'Alagnon between Massiac and Lempdes. It was past 9.30am but the road was quiet.The cycling was beautiful, down a winding, well-surfaced road. I saw a buzzard from about six feet away, standing on a fence post.

Yesterday's sense of despair had lifted. The answer to the question, "why make the trip?" wasn't important. It was enough that I was coasting along through fine countryside and, by evening, I would be enjoying dinner in the company of family with a feeling of satisfaction. It wasn't why I had made the trip but it was all that mattered.

In Lempdes, I ate a custard Mille Feuilles and a croissant by the river for breakfast. I bought supplies and went indecisively from cafe to cafe trying to establish the best. I settled on the fullest and sat down for a coffee. A friend called to ask how I was getting on and suggested another reason for doing the trip: it would be a good story to tell.

I cycled for another couple of hours and stopped by a river for the final picnic lunch. I lingered longer than I had planned and it was past 4pm when I set off again.

I was now very close and as I cycled through the final few villages - Auxelles, Cunlhat, Les Gouttes - my pace picked up. From Tours-sur-Maymont, I followed a route I had ridden before on a day trip. At the top of a long, steady descent, I sat back in the saddle, tucked my body low out of the wind, shifted into the highest gear and wound my legs up until I was racing down the hill. I felt exuberant with the success, relief and achievement of reaching the end.

The final section was a two-kilometre climb up a steady, winding hill through conifers. My legs were tired but I was too excited to notice and stood on the pedals to charge up the hill in a high gear. I felt the end of two weeks of effort, the relief at success, the comfort of knowing the road and the anticipation of arrival.

The small village of Augerolles was empty but I was afraid, briefly, of a car knocking me off my bike and forcing me to walk the last 500 metres. Breaking a limb would have been OK so long as I could coast the short stretch to my Dad's house; buckling a wheel would have been terrible.

I rode down the short stretch from the village and round the side of the house, leaned my bike against a bench, walked in through the open back door and, in the kitchen I found Dad and Anthea and warm congratulations.


I've done it.

BC

Why did I do it?

Morning on the lake at St Etienne-Cantales

Today, for the first time since I began planning this trip, I asked myself, what was the point of this odd endeavour?

It was in the late afternoon. Long after I had stopped for a morning coffee in Jussac and watched the terrace fill with locals. Some drank beer, some drank coffee; some brought children, one brought a bike, one brought a child and a bike. It was after this.

It was after I had finished the second big climb of the trip, over the 1588m Puy Mary. I climbed the 11km without stopping, then went back a kilometre to photograph the climb.

Looking back down the second big climb of the trip

It was after I had sat in the grass in a wide valley eating lunch and wondering at how similar the landscape was to the Peak District in England, where I was brought up. It was after I fell asleep in the grass with the sun on me and after I woke up groggy.

I had pulled up onto a wide, high, barren stretch of moorland. Dry-stone walls divided large sections of tussocked grass. A cold headwind blew. The question came to me first as a sense of despair, of utter pointlessness.

The objective of this trip - a farm house in the countryside above Clermont Ferrand where my Dad and his wife, Anthea have lived for five years - has always been abstract. Each day had it's own objective. Day 1: reach Cogolludo; day 2: reach Almazan. Now that I was within a day's ride of the end, it was tangible and the pointlessness of the endeavour was thrown into relief. After all, why NOT just hop on a plane?

The despair ebbed away. I was pleased I had made the trip. But I couldn't answer the question, why had I done it? Neither, in fact, could I answer the question, why was I pleased to have done it? What would I get out of it? What, in the end, was the point of the whole endeavour?

A sense of achievement, yes. But it is hard to say what I have achieved. The Guinness Book of Records is full of people with a sense of achievement. A man holds the record for the longest time spent standing in a tree; his record is measured in years. Among the tree-standers of the world he is the Gold Standard and I have little doubt that he feels a huge sense of achievement.

No, not a sense of achievement. I do feel I have achieved something, but that's not the answer.

I have seen France and Spain, I have had an adventure, I have enjoyed it. I like the idea of leaving my house in Madrid on a bike and arriving at my Dad's in France. I like that the route almost links the geographical centres of the two countries. I like that it has been a physical and mental test of stamina.

All these are part of the answer but not the answer. None of them, alone or combined, seem to justify the effort.

I spent three hours searching for a satisfactory answer. I dropped down off the moor into the cold and unwelcoming town of Allanche. I watched men play boules in the square. I pulled up onto another high moorland and coasted for 20km into Massiac. All the while I mulled this question and all the while the answer eluded me. It still does.

In the end, if anyone asks me why did I cycle 1,250 km from Madrid to Augerolles, I will just have to say,

"I'm not sure, really."

Coasting off the moorland into Massiac, not sure why I had set off in the first place.

One day to go.

BC

Getting closer

Friday 28

I started the day early with a dip in the river at 7.30 and was on the road by 8.00. I had a long day ahead of me and wanted to arrive at my destination, a lake, in good time.

I made satisfactory progress along quiet roads, still following the river. I stopped in a village around 9 and bought a few supplies for lunch and a slice - more of a slab - of apple tart for breakfast, which I ate by the river in the morning calm. The sun hadn't yet reached this deep in the gorge and only a few people went about their morning business. Two young boys arrived, running, and played quietly on a nearby seesaw.

I left to get a coffee. I passed two cafes in the village but both were closed so I carried on to the next village. This village didn't have a cafe at all, nor did the next. I spent the morning hoping for, but not finding, an open cafe.

Just before 12, nearly three hours after my search had begun, I rolled into the town of Figeac and found a restaurant which would serve me a coffee by the river.

I stayed for a second coffee. I'd had an early start and made reasonable progress so I needn't hurry.

After Figeac, I carried on to the town of Maur where I'd planned to have lunch but I couldn't find a pleasant square to sit in so I headed out of town.

I found a spot with a small rock to sit on where a small river fed into a larger one. I unpacked my picnic then cooled off in the river. I climbed out of the river but the water had been so nice that I got back in again.

As I was sitting on the rock eating my lunch three boys turned up. Two were the same age, ten or eleven and one was younger. Maybe eight.

They had been fishing for freshwater crabs and were taking their catch back home to eat. They wondered where I'd come from when I told them, Madrid, it didn't really register with them. They knew it was in Spain but didn't have a sense of the distance. The boys identified more clearly with the 60 km I had cycled this morning and the 14 days I had been cycling for in total. They were astonished to the point of disbelief that I hadn't needed to change a tire. When I think about it, this comes as a surprise to me too.

After lunch the road rose steadily through thick woodland for close to an hour. As I was climbing the hill I noticed something familiar about the landscape. At the top, I passed a sign advertising produce from the Auvergne, the region where my Dad lives. I am two days' cycling away.

I ended the day with a swim in a lake, dinner on the hotel terrace and a hot bath.

BC

[edit: I changed the title of this post because I realised that the original title could have been read to mean this was the last post, which it isn't. I had meant "close" as in near, not "close" as in shut.]

Casting judgement

Thursday 27

After lunch, I cycled along the river Lot.

The Lot is about the width of the Thames at Barnes and cuts a tightly winding furrow through limestone. The road clings to a limestone cliff and in places is cut into the cliff side. The cycling was good with pleasant and changing views.

Fine cycling along the River Cele.

In fact, throughout the day I had enjoyed very good cycling.

The cliff-side road along the Cele

In Cabrarets I found a campsite by the river Cele - a tributary of the Lot - and took a long time to find a space. Eventually I settled on one, stripped to my shorts and cooled off in the river.

The village of Cabrarets

An elderly couple was sitting outside their motorhome watching a gameshow on television with a portable satelite dish.

I marvelled at the logic of driving such a cumbersome vehicle out to a campsite only to sit and watch television. It would be cheaper and more relaxing to stay in a hotel.

As I climbed up the bank, the wife asked if the water was cold. I replied that it was fresh and the husband laughed and explained that the river is shaded from the sun all day. In fact, the water had been very pleasant.

Later, as I crawled into my open-air sleeping quarters, beside a bike on which I had ridden close to 1,000 kms over the past two weeks, I reflected that this wasn't everybody's idea of fun either and that I was in no position to judge how other people spend their holidays.

BC

Wine country

Thursday 27

Yesterday was a rest day in Valence-en-Agen.

Valence is a nice enough place but has no obvious attractions and I spent the day wondering whether to be pleased to have found the "real" France or disappointed that there was not more to see. In the end it didn't matter much - I was too tired to have made much of the sights, had there been any.

Getting into bed last night I felt the same nervousness about leaving that I had felt in Sadaba. My day in Valence hadn't been remarkable in any way at all, but it was unnerving to be striking into the unknown again.

The feeling didn't last this morning and within a few minutes of leaving Valence I was enjoying myself and making steady progress, although my legs were stiff from the day off.

I wanted to make ground quickly this morning so opted for an A-road with plenty of get-outs in case it was too busy. It wasn't busy and meandered attractively through fields of apple trees arranged in rows, like vines.

The sun was shining in a clear blue sky and I enjoyed being on the road again. It took about an hour and a half to make the medieval town of Lauzerte, which sits on a rise above the shallow valley, where I'd promised myself a coffee.

I sat for nearly an hour in a well-kept square eating pastries, drinking coffee and listening to the holiday conversations of the English middle classes. A girl had a year to go before her law degree; a woman in her forties had lived in New York when she was younger but grew tired of it; a family wanted a more substantial lunch than they served here, so they left.

I chose a minor road for the next section to Cahors. It was a good choice as the surface was good and there wasn't much traffic.

After twenty minutes the green, rolling farmland abruptly became harsher and soon I was climbing the side of a limestone plateau through small oak trees. At the top I was in wine country. Neat rows of vines stretched across white, limestone soil.

I dropped into Cahors and had lunch overlooking the river Lot, by a monument to the Army of the Rhine.

BC