Day 12 - Thursday 23rd September, 2010
Charlieu > l'Arbresle
53.8 miles
5:55 moving time, 9.1 mph moving average
Tents are soaking with condensation again this morning. After a serious dry off with the towels (we both hate this bit), we decide to leave them up to dry a bit more and head into town for breakfast and the bike shop.
The guy said he'd be open at 8am, but by 8:45 it's still locked up and there's no sign of life anywhere. Check the shop - nothing. Oh well, guess we'll do that later then.
Coffee/croissant/supermarket supplies.
Am still amazed that I felt 'normal' again yesterday, especially considering it was a day of lots of climbs. I just don't know what happened the day before. I put it down to food or complete tiredness or something, and hope that it's all behind me. Still a bit embarrassed since John's been totally fine.
Back at camp we pack down just before the sun comes up over the horizon, and head to try the bikeshop again. This time, he's open and he's busy in the workshop. Neither of us mention the 8am thing and he grabs John a new tyre, and sets to work fixing the now quite buckled wheel. He works at the speed off light. He doesn't even bother taking the panniers off, he just hauls each bike onto the workstand fully loaded!
He has a look at my rear derailler which has been playing up a bit the last couple of days - 'jumping' gear for a few seconds every now and again - and I just don't seem to able to set the tension right. A fiddle and a bit of WD40 and lube, he thinks it's fixed. It's still a bit twitchy, but hopefully I can trim it out later - not so easy on this bike since (for reasons known only to Shimano), they've only put a barrel adjuster on the front shift lever. I assume this is so you end up buying a better set later on? The front derailler's of my bikes have never needed adjusting while out riding, it's always the rear since it's a finer adjustment and it takes knocks. Unless you've got a bikestand, it's easiest to just tweak it on the barrel adjuster as you ride. Adjusting at the derailed end means you have to keep getting on and off to fine tune it to get it right. Rant over.
The mechanic also tries to break off that pesky plastic disk. His English is OK and he says he's no idea why manufacturers bother putting them on. I believe the word merde comes out. What's left of it is actually pretty strong and it takes a few tools and cutters to get it off. Job done. No more squeaks.
With a new stock of inner tubes, a new tyre, a trued wheel, a tweaked rear derailler, one less disk, and a general re-lube, we're about ready to go. My bike tips over on it's stand - again - and everything in the bar bag goes flying out into the road. Great. No damage done though, and before long it's all back in place, and we're actually off.
As we leave we see a poster for a big airshow. Maybe that's what those people at the cafe were here for? We'll never know.
So, it's a later start than anticipated, but that always seems the way on camping days.
It's hot, and we go straight into climbs, and a long steep climb to 1,200 feet.
Still going up
It's pretty relentless, and we laugh about it as we go. Each day we make a point of giving an award to a climb that we think is the new winner for steepest/hardest/longest climb of the trip so far. This gets the first award of the day.
The countryside is absolutely spectacular though, and the sun's out. This is what cycling's all about.
A few roads are busier today with logging lorries, but mostly quiet. A couple of impatient drivers today for some reason. Although there's not much on the road a couple of people take offence to the few seconds we've held them up. Shame as in general the traffic's been really good to us, and people tend to take more care and pass with more distance and at a slower speed than in the UK. Maybe we've just been lucky so far?
We climb again and again. We're sweating buckets and it's the hardest cycling I've ever done. It's enjoyable at the same time though (not like 2 days ago, that was another thing altogether), and it really feels like we're on a proper tour.
No sign of the top
We take on water everywhere we stop, and we get through tonnes of it. We're soaked through.
We stay on one road for a while and we get the feeling we've been climbing for a long time. We climb and climb. It's a long, steady gradient, and the feet are spinning quite quickly at times as we drop into the lowest we've got. We're glad we've had a couple of weeks to get fit as if we'd hit this at the start of the trip we'd never have made it up. Not that we know where 'up' is. We joke that it will carry on around the corner at the end of the bit we can see, and sure enough it does. And again. And next time. And another award.
We spin down for a while, and then… up we go again, some really steep stuff into an absolutely beautiful village, and we pop into a local tabac to get some water and have a cold drink. The village is on an extremely steep hill itself and of course the shop's nearer the top. We've earned this drink!
It's really hot now, and the ice cold orange makes a welcome change from warm water. I don't think I've ever sweated so much and am glad I have re-hydration-thingy tablets in the water. I must absolutely stink as I catch a whiff of myself every now and again! Mmmm.
While we drink and take a break, a huge grasshopper (?) flies over and sits on my saddle. I've never seen anything like it. He's a big fella. He flies away a bit later, looking slightly out of control.
Sunbathing
The elderly lady fills our bottles and asks us where we're headed. She says "It's all downhill from here". When we tell her what we we're doing she adds that we we're mad/brave. Not the first time.
Maybe she'd forgotten about a few hill details, or maybe we really are foolish to just let the Garmin's guide us 40 or 50 miles at a time with scant consideration for the terrain, but we were in for a surprise.
The 'all downhill fro here' seems to be just ever so slightly incorrect. In fact, it very much seems like an 'all uphill'. We've been on the same road for what seems like an hour, and all we seem to have done is go up, and up, and up. Many awards are given, and we laugh and practically go into hysterics as the road seems to be endless, with the gradient never letting up. There's the odd even steeper section, and the odd section where the road gets busier and we go in a cycle lane on the edge. We lie down at the side of the road a few times to catch our breath and rest. Then back on.
Amazing views
We don't see another cyclist for a long time, then someone speeds past us coming down the other way and they look to be enjoying themselves a lot more than we are. Food and drink stop. Eat every and anything we've got, including two mars bars we bought at a petrol station earlier in the day.
We stop for a 'photo-off'
This is certainly the longest climb either of us has ever done. We stop to take some photos after what feels like the whole day going up (it isn't, in reality) and a few cars bib their horns. We're not sure what we've done so we ignore it - a bit bemused. Now curving round into more of a climb, we're sure it will level off but it doesn't and we head up into a section we saw from miles back and hoped we wouldn't end up in. More cars sound their horns and we get a bit paranoid. Is something hanging off the bikes? Are we not meant to be on this road? There's a cycle track so we're sure that's not it.
We keep going, really having to find some power from somewhere.
There ahead, finally, after guessing wrong so many times, we see the road looking like it might be levelling out, and going over the ridge.
This could be the top!
We see a sign that says 'Col du Pilon 727m' and realise that we've routed over one of the highest points we could have picked!
At the top.
We've researched the Alps and seen a lot of people's website journals of their tours, so we know 727 metres isn't the highest peak in the world. But for us it's the biggest climb we've ever done and we're really proud of the achievement. A few more people beep their horns, and it finally dawns on us that they're beeps of encouragement or congratulations. I feel like a silly boy, I'm so happy.
Our hotel's quite a few miles on, so I joke that it could be downhill all the way.
Then we get one of the longest, most beautiful downhills we've ever done.
It's really magical, with quite steep drops down to our right, and hints of views right down to the valley. It makes us ride well clear of the edge a bit as it's quite unnerving even with a railing. All the road traffic must have peeled off somewhere because very few cars seem to be at the top section.
It's dream-like really. Just amazing cycling and my hands get pretty tired of holding the brakes to control speed.
We pass a car sitting at a lay-by, and sitting inside, the driver looks very surprised to see us. He then gives a huge smile and waves at us with both his arms as if to give us a cheer! I guess not many loaded-up tourers come through this way?
The wind's really in our ears, and we roll nearly all the way to the hotel. We're careful to make sure we don't miss it as there's practically nowhere to stay in this area, and we don't want to have to come back uphill again to search.
We've come down from about 2200 feet to about 800 feet, and feeling elated we turn off for the hotel, and smile with joy.
We pull up outside, right where the GPS said it was and head to reception. The doors are shut so we ring the bell. As we stand and wait we notice a sign on the door. It takes a few secedes to translate, and John is quicker. But the message is the same. Closed for 2 weeks for holiday! It's another week before it's back open. OMG. That's not what we were hoping for.
Sorry, we're closed!
A man appears inside and comes out to see us. There's no way we're staying here he says - it's properly closed. He knows the other local B&B is full. Oh dear. It's about 13 miles to the town where there's another hotel he knows of, and he phones ahead for us. He says 'it rolls well - as long as we take the long way round, and don't try and cut across'.
Feeling just a little bit stupid for not phoning earlier to check, we take some extra directions and get on with it. It's cooler and into evening now, and we haven't really got much energy in reserve for this mission. On the hilly terrain, we only did 20 miles since lunch, and we're tired. No choice though, and as time's short and this section of the road's getting busy again, we kick on. We don't really want to ride in the dark.
Tired.
Stupid.
It does roll well as it turns out, but not quite as well as we'd like.
We wouldn't want to come back this way, it seems like an even longer climb. You'd need some real guts.
We see a campsite sign but we know storms are forecast tonight and we only want to do it as a last resort.
The man's route has us go level with the town and then side-track across to it, rather than direct. After ignoring a couple of turn-offs, we see another one and decide we'll chance it.
After slogging it up a steep climb, and with no idea how much further it will continue, we abandon it and go back to the track he had us on. Much better. Derailler's still causing problems, skip, skip, skip. Urgh.
After riding on another couple of long, smooth roads, dusk approaches as we finally near the town. Visibility is fading, so when both Garmin's say something different we don't know what to do. Which direction?
We pick one, and as it turns out it's the wrong one. It's a small track that's so steep I can hardly keep the front wheel on the ground. I nearly come off as I slip into the wrong gear and struggle to control the bike. I get back on, and nearly come off again trying to start from stationary. I give up and push the damn thing up the rest of the hill. John stands up and manages it.
It's 'magic hour' now, and we're at the top of the steep hill, in a sleepy village and it's beautiful. So is this the place? Apparently not, there's a bit further to go but it must be up here somewhere. Right?
Wrong. It's further on, and right back down on further along on the road we came from - so there was no need to do the climb after all. Not the first time. Thanks Garmin - another fine bit of routing logic.
The town's a lot bigger than we expected, so with no other information than the name of the town, we wonder how we'll find the right hotel. And now it's pitch black.
It becomes clear after querying a few locals, that there's only one hotel, and it's 'up the road'. We're surprised there's only one hotel because it's quite a big place and looks historic, so should be tourism. But it doesn't matter we're here and it looks like a nice place.
Sadly, 'up the road' turns out to be over a mile, right on the edge of town, and slap bang in the middle of a horrible industrial estate type area. Great.
It turns out he's sent us to another hotel of the same chain so most probably there were other options on the way. Oh well, it's late, we're tired and hungry, and we're here.
It's expensive and pretty horrible. A depressing place, and my room smells really awful, all mouldy.
We do some serious clothes washing, which turns the bathwater brown, and then eat at the restaurant as there's nowhere else to go or get to. It's a set menu. It's not great food.
We have a couple of beers and do some planing for tomorrow. It's going to be wet so we get all the gear ready. We try and pick a route through Lyon although we're not sure of the best way. We don't know if it will be quicker to go in and out on the major routes, or to skirt round. Sometimes skirting round means you're just stuck in the horrible outskirts for a long time, so there's no real benefit, but going in might be a lot of traffic. On this schedule we decide to skirt.
Download cameras and videos and get some kip for tomorrow.
We're getting close now. If we can make beyond Lyon tomorrow, then it's on to Grenoble and the Alps. We haven't got a definite route through the Alps, so I email Russell at the Grenoble cycling pages website and ask for help. I've looked through it for initial research but forgot to send the message before the trip, so figure it's worth trying now. He's got huge experience of cycling in the Alps and there's a good forum and readership. Fingers crossed.
We congratulate each other again on a good days riding.
Hold nose to try and block out smell of room, and drift off.
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