Ah, oui, I am speaking the language. Un peu—a little—francais. My host, Madame, is speaking un peu anglais. We get by.
She asks at what time—à quelle heure—I want le petit déjeuner. I ask for breakfast at 7. Later I tell her I am un peu fou (crazy), a bit too enthusiastic, and I will breakfast at 8. I have the dining room to myself; I am the only guest. This chambres d’hôtes has one chambre only.
Madame tells me of a special event in Langeac—La Pierre Chany, a road cycling event in honour of a famous French sports journalist, incredibly with the same name, who was born in Langeac in 1922.
The event will be on my sixtieth birthday, 6 août, over circuits of 51, 110 and 150 kilometres. I will be back in Melbourne for two days by then, but today I ride the 51km route. In reverse: the route, not the bike.
At ten past nine I roll out of 7 Résidence Lestival and immediately lose myself in Langeac’s residential side streets. I find my way back and start again.
I cruise out of town on the quiet D590, the road that could take me to tomorrow’s finish of stage 9 of le Tour in St-Flour. It’s cool and overcast, perfect for the solid 10km climb averaging about five per cent I’m immediately confronted with. Lucky I warmed up by getting lost.
The climb takes me from about 550m to 1050 and stays there after I turn into the even quieter D41 through the village of Ferrussac. The views along the Val d’Allier are brilliant, but would be better if the sun shone. Instead it rains a bit.
I lean the Cervélo on a post and take photos. A French farmer comes past on a behemoth-sized tractor loud enough to announce itself in the next valley. I wave; he scowls. Perhaps my bike is leaning on his rotten fence post.
I greet an oncoming cyclist all in black and get scant response before an all-too-rapid but glorious descent out of Ferrussac to Longprat where I pull into the car park of an auberge, Les Trois Vallées, to study my map.
Every building in this departement, the Haute-Loire, is Gallicly medieval, but the auberge looks like something the Nazis might have erected for the Führer’s skiing holiday. All is forgiven because the most amazingly enticing cooking smells waft out the door.
I hang a left onto the D585 and make for the extraordinarily beautiful, extraordinarily medieval town of Lavoute Chilhac, where I cross the Allier on an extraordinary bridge that rises to a pronounced point rather mounted on the traditional arch.
A short climb delivers me to a boulangerie-épicerie in the tiny village of Chilhac. Madame behind the counter fails to grasp the meaning of végétarien. It’s a concept the French just cannot grasp.
Sans jambon? Oui. Sans poulet? Oui. Sans bœuf? Oui. Sans viandes? Oui.
Finally we establish that I would like a baguette just with tomato and cheese. The boulangier will prepare it especially for moi. Which cheese would I like? Give them credit, for €3.60 I eventually emerge from the shop with a U-boat sized baguette bursting at the seams with Camembert that I can barely stuff into my backpack. The Camembert alone would be worth ten Australian dollars.
I cross the Allier again, this time on a long narrow bridge. An oncoming van spares me a handlebar’s-width of passing space. From here it’s seven clicks beside the river to Langeac, entering town under an impressive arched railway viaduct.
Each year’s Tour de France is an edition. This is my third French cycling e(xpe)dition. Each has a first ride, a first time on the wrong side of the road, a first time to marvel that you and your bicycle are in the premier cycling environment, in the premier cycling nation, on the globe.
Bring it on!
[56.3.kms @21.4kph. Montage 868m, max 1055m, max grade 12%]
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