A Perfect Day for Cycling

By Wednesday morning it was quite clear the mistral was over. The day was calm and sunny and looked to be heading for a high temperature of about 27. I headed off in the late morning for a bike ride and went to the Toulerenc valley (via St. Leger du Ventoux) and then past Savoillans and up a short but steep climb to Reilhanette, where I discovered a lovely little restaurant in a panoramic setting – L’Oustau de la Font – approved of by Gault Millau and Michelin and everyone else who rates these things. I promptly sat myself down and had a delicious tomato bavardoise with goat cheese ice cream and drizzles of olive oil, tapenade and balsamic, followed by cod and a variety of vegetables in buerre blanc. The latter was so tasty that I sopped it all (and there was quite a bit) up with baguette, and I washed the whole down with a glass of viognier from Chateau Pesquie, and a (rather disappointing) coffee.

Immediately after lunch I headed in the direction of Sault, which involves about a 5 or 6 km climb out of the valley to Aurel. The buerre blanc did not sit that well for this part of the journey. From Aurel to Sault, however, the road is quite flat, and maybe even slightly downhill so I had some recovery time. In Sault I determined from a brief visit to the tourist information office that the official start of the Cotes de Rhone grape harvest and the blessing of the vendange etc. is being celebrated this Saturday in Avignon. I also discovered (which I realize at least once every trip) that toute droite means straight ahead and not “to the right” as a consequence of which I never did find the public lavatories. By the time I realized my mistake I was well on my way (downhill) out of town, so I simply carried on, and went via Monieux to the Gorge de la Nesque, which deserves a separate paragraph, even though I wrote about it last year.

Approaching from the Sault side (as I did both this year and last) there is a not-very-steep climb of 1 or 2 km just before and after Monieux (which I did not actually visit) and then begins what I had thought last year (because I did not know what was coming and paid no attention to my odometer) was a 23km downhill, but in fact, lasts 30km! All the way to Villes-sur-Auzon I need not have pedaled at all, but I did pedal, primarily to save face with the multitudes of poor planners on two wheels who were labouring up those same 30km from the opposite direction. Did they know that once they got to the end of that stretch they would have to ascend the Col des Abeilles (8% grade from Sault to Villes-sur-Auzon) to complete their circuit?

Once again I had to head towards Flassan (this time it made sense to do so) from Villes-sur-Auzon, and once again I did not enjoy the sun-baked climb even though it was not steep. From Flassan to home via Bedoin was quite straightforward, however, and I had a large plate of pasta with grilled artichokes for dinner, having finally digested all the buerre blanc!