aka_kim
04-24-2007, 04:20 PM
Or, It's Not About the Bike
Here's my long-winded trip report from my recent bike tour in Provence. I don't have any good pictures to include here, but my album is here (http://s173.photobucket.com/albums/w66/aka_kimj/France2007/Bike%20Tour/?start=all).
Background: in mid 2006 my newbie cyclist mother decides, with urgings from my brother, that she and I need to do a European cycling vacation since it's "the only way poor Kim (me) will ever get to see Europe". Poor (literally and figuratively) Kim somewhat grudgingly agrees to a tour by Euro Bike & Walking called "A Taste of Provence" (http://www.eurobike.com/biketour/2007/tasteprov.html?SESSID=1efef35b0ddec3f77898db4cbffc0e5a) set for April 2007.
Why is my agreement "grudging"? I work for a small software startup and haven't had a real vacation in several years. I really wasn't sure about taking two weeks off to do a luxury cycling tour with a difficulty rating of "easy", with the catalog describing the shopping but not the cycling. If I was going to take the time off, I really wanted to do another "real" cycling vacation - something more about biking and less about luxury. But, I agreed anyway, after all, how else would poor pitiful me ever get to Europe :).
A third generation is added when my brother's 13 year old daughter, Claire, wants to join us for some sort of multi-generational bonding adventure.
Monday - We're in Avignon at the amazing 5 star Hotel d'Europe (http://www.heurope.com). We'd met the whole group the day before for a tour of the Palais des Papes, drinks in the Place de l'Horloge, and dinner. Dinner was a seven course affair, and not exactly vegetarian-friendly. So meaty, in fact, that both my mother and niece become vegetarians for the week. Oh, how happy this must make everyone, we now have 3 people whining about the food. Oh, and everyone, sauf moi, dressed for dinner!
There are two Canadian couples - the guys are friends from school turning 50 this year and their wives are a year younger than me - between them they have 8 (!!!) daughters (!!!). They are not cyclists but all very fit and active. With me, my mother and Claire that brings the group to a very small 7, with two female tour guides.
After breakfast we get our bikes. 35 pounds of metal, what's not to love? How can aluminum possibly be so heavy? The front end of my bike must weigh at least 10 pounds, and as I later find, if I don't hang on to the handlebars when stopped, can drag the whole bike over very easily. One positive, the stem is super adjustable so I can bring the handlebars down to a comfortable level. One negative, which will haunt me all week, the damn saddle, which I can't figure out what to do to improve. I've brought my Eggbeaters, so my first test for the guides is to see if they can install them, since the Eggbeaters take a hex wrench not a pedal wrench. Test passed! Everyone else is using platform pedals, and all but one are using flat handlebars. Also, attached to our rear racks we have trés chic little orange flags with our names. It's okay, though, it's not about the bike.
This is Easter Monday, and we head out from Avignon on quiet roads with overcast skies. Drivers are amazingly considerate to cyclists - they willingly
yield, they don't gun their engines, they don't yell. It's wonderful. We're heading west on back roads to picnic at the Pont du Gard, the 2000 year old Roman aqueduct. Wow!
We've hit a few stiff hills along the way, and my mother soon finds that her lack of hill training is a problem. I think she's a little discouraged that she can't keep up too - since we mostly ride as a group. I ride off the front, the couples and Claire - who by day 2 they will have adopted - and a guide ride together, and mom trails behind. As the day goes on, getting quite warm, she hastily enters the support van whenever the grade tilts beyond 0 percent. I'm also starting to feel sick, with the cold I'd felt coming on for the previous few days finally hitting. We stop at the Musée de BonBon in what to me now feels like 95 degree weather (Il fait chaud, il fait trop chaud.) - a kitschy candy "museum" that would fit well in the US.
We then head out on tiny one lane roads in the foothills towards the medieval duchy town of Uzès and our hotel for the night, the amazing Château d'Arpaillargues (http://www.chateaudarpaillargues.com/). Ride stats - about 50k and 300+ meters for the day.
I mix cold medicine and local Rosé wine, and am well cooked before dinner. Add a few (or more) glasses of wine, and I don't care that my vegetarian dinner might as well be grass clippings. I do care that the others get ice cream for dessert, but since vegetarian = vegan in France there's no glace pour moi ce soir. (I am not vegan.) Oh yeah, everyone, sauf moi, is dressed for dinner!
Tuesday - We're to ride a little and canoe a little today, but I opt out of canoing due to a shoulder problem. The guides find a climb for me to do while the others canoe. I'll do a short climb in the hills above Collias, then cross the valley and head back to Uzès and the château - all without support. This has my mother frantic - OMG, her 46 year old daughter might get hopelessly lost in the wilds of Provence! I'm reminded why traveling with my mother didn't originally sound like such a great idea.
I leave on my own with a cell phone borrowed from a guide, a map, and my French vocabulary now expanded to include "Je suis perdu, pourriez vous m'aider ..." in case I need help. Despite my cold the climb feels great, and I can stay in my middle chainring. Several road cyclists, in full cycling attire pass and say "bonjour". This is something I notice throughout the trip - the roadies greet fellow cyclists, even ones with orange name tags hanging from the rear. The many casual cyclists we see just stare at us - like why are those people on dorky bikes wearing helmets and road gear?
After the climb and before heading back to Uzès I have a coffee with our guide from Amsterdam. Turns out she did the BikeCentennial across the US in 1976, and has traveled extensively. She plans to retire in a few years so that she can play and travel full time. How cool is that?
I complete a very pleasant ride of about 45k and 450+ meters under overcast skies, and return before the paddlers.
We're on our own for dinner tonight in Uzès, and the Triplettes, as my mother, niece and I are now known, due to our, uh, princess-like ways, chow down at an Italian restaurant in the Place aux Herbes. Thoroughly fed up with grass clippings, we're all starving and eat huge bowls of pasta, with three kinds of chocolate for dessert.
Wednesday - I'd told the French guide I was trying to learn French, but why does she have to pepper me with French first thing every morning? Does she not realize that a) imbibing healthy quantities of alcohol + b) lack of sleep + c) a sinus headache, does not equal even basic comprehension of the English language, much less French, without a large quantity of strong coffee and more cold meds? She asks if I'm "Toujours malade?" this morning. Hmm, does she mean still sick, or always sick? Due to my blank stares each morning she stops attempting to help this poor student any further.
And about the lack of sleep - the entire trip I was unable to get more than about 5 hours sleep a night. Maybe it was due to sleeping on a cot in a room with two other princesses, I don't know. But by this time I'm also starting to equate new gray hair with sleepless nights - like each less than optimal night means one new gray hair. (I came home with alot more gray than when I left! :( )
Today we are supposed to drive to the morning market at St Remy-de-Provence, then drive somewhere down the Camargue delta to bike about 20k back up to Arles. The market is a treat, a farmer's market on steroids - with more soaps, herbs, cheeses, sausages, artwork, handcrafts, etc than you can imagine, all with the lyrical sounds of French everywhere.
Queens for the day, the Triplettes refuse the biking and insist on being dropped off at Arles to have more time to see the ancient city. Glad we did, we apparently didn't miss anything on the bike and Arles is amazing. We're staying at the very nice Hotel Jules Caesar in Arles for the night.
Dinner? I don't quite remember. I do remember drinking other people's wine as well as my own, all in the name of its medicinal properties. Claire's new adoptive parents also make another try at hooking her up with a nice French boy, in this case the apprentice pastry chef. And, everyone, sauf moi, dressed for dinner!
Thursday - We're to ride from Arles to St Remy-de-Provence, about 40k. It's cool, windy and overcast. We stop at the very cool medieval Abbaye de Montmajour, then start heading out to the Alpilles. I hang back with my mother, and we're soon dropped entirely from the group. She's really been taxed physically all week, and we take a leisurely shortcut through the beautiful hamlet of Paradou before she gets in the van when the climbing starts. The climb from Paradou up the Alpilles to Les Baux-de-Provence (http://www.lesbauxdeprovence.com/index1.htm) is quite fun and a bit challenging. Les Baux is an interesting medieval hill town, which due to rain and a restaurant mix-up we really didn't explore much. 400 meters on a slight uphill past Les Baux is the very cool Cathedrale d'Images (http://www.cathedrale-images.com/) - an old bauxite quarry turned into a multi-media experience - this year it's Venice.
After a stiff climb that only the 2 guys, the guide and I try, we have a long twisty and wet downhill in the rain to St Remy. Along the way, while riding on narrow roads among the farmhouses we have a close encounter with a herd of newly shorn sheep, as interested in us as we are in them. A brief command from the shepherd, and his border collie soon has them back under control.
We're spending the next two nights at the amazing Hotel les Ateliers de l'Image (http://www.hotelinprovence.com/modules/edito/content.php?id=1) in St Remy. Dinner is on our own in St Remy.
Friday - A loop from St Remy of about 30k is planned for our last day. It's overcast and cool, with quiet cycling through the countryside to Eygalières (http://www.provenceweb.fr/e/bouches/eygalieres/eygalieres.htm), where we find another Provençale market in progress. On to a picnic hosted by the guides at Domaine de Valdition winery, then a ride through wind and rain back to the hotel. This turned out to be many people's favorite day of riding, and really was quite pleasant even with the rain.
After riding we all did the van Gogh walk around St Remy, also in the rain, and also a lot of fun. In St Remy we found what my niece and I call "the world's best chocolate, ever" at Durand Chocolatiers. Yum.
At the "farewell" dinner, which for once was finally non-vegan and actually satisfying, we celebrated the impending 50th birthdays of the guys (the two guys were surrounded by 7 women all week), and Claire's 14th birthday. And, everyone, sauf moi, dressed for dinner!
On Saturday, it was off to Paris for the Triplettes.
Overall - I would not generally choose this type of trip for myself, but despite the lack of "serious" cycling it was really quite enjoyable. Since we did the "luxury" tour the trip was quite costly, but you do get everything you pay for (well, maybe not if you're a vegetarian). The routes are well-chosen and cycling friendy, maps and route sheets are comprehensive, and the hotels are spectacular. The guides were great - knowledgeable, helpful, patient, and strong! - they lifted those 35 pound bikes into and out of the van and on and off its roof many, many times. :p
Here's my long-winded trip report from my recent bike tour in Provence. I don't have any good pictures to include here, but my album is here (http://s173.photobucket.com/albums/w66/aka_kimj/France2007/Bike%20Tour/?start=all).
Background: in mid 2006 my newbie cyclist mother decides, with urgings from my brother, that she and I need to do a European cycling vacation since it's "the only way poor Kim (me) will ever get to see Europe". Poor (literally and figuratively) Kim somewhat grudgingly agrees to a tour by Euro Bike & Walking called "A Taste of Provence" (http://www.eurobike.com/biketour/2007/tasteprov.html?SESSID=1efef35b0ddec3f77898db4cbffc0e5a) set for April 2007.
Why is my agreement "grudging"? I work for a small software startup and haven't had a real vacation in several years. I really wasn't sure about taking two weeks off to do a luxury cycling tour with a difficulty rating of "easy", with the catalog describing the shopping but not the cycling. If I was going to take the time off, I really wanted to do another "real" cycling vacation - something more about biking and less about luxury. But, I agreed anyway, after all, how else would poor pitiful me ever get to Europe :).
A third generation is added when my brother's 13 year old daughter, Claire, wants to join us for some sort of multi-generational bonding adventure.
Monday - We're in Avignon at the amazing 5 star Hotel d'Europe (http://www.heurope.com). We'd met the whole group the day before for a tour of the Palais des Papes, drinks in the Place de l'Horloge, and dinner. Dinner was a seven course affair, and not exactly vegetarian-friendly. So meaty, in fact, that both my mother and niece become vegetarians for the week. Oh, how happy this must make everyone, we now have 3 people whining about the food. Oh, and everyone, sauf moi, dressed for dinner!
There are two Canadian couples - the guys are friends from school turning 50 this year and their wives are a year younger than me - between them they have 8 (!!!) daughters (!!!). They are not cyclists but all very fit and active. With me, my mother and Claire that brings the group to a very small 7, with two female tour guides.
After breakfast we get our bikes. 35 pounds of metal, what's not to love? How can aluminum possibly be so heavy? The front end of my bike must weigh at least 10 pounds, and as I later find, if I don't hang on to the handlebars when stopped, can drag the whole bike over very easily. One positive, the stem is super adjustable so I can bring the handlebars down to a comfortable level. One negative, which will haunt me all week, the damn saddle, which I can't figure out what to do to improve. I've brought my Eggbeaters, so my first test for the guides is to see if they can install them, since the Eggbeaters take a hex wrench not a pedal wrench. Test passed! Everyone else is using platform pedals, and all but one are using flat handlebars. Also, attached to our rear racks we have trés chic little orange flags with our names. It's okay, though, it's not about the bike.
This is Easter Monday, and we head out from Avignon on quiet roads with overcast skies. Drivers are amazingly considerate to cyclists - they willingly
yield, they don't gun their engines, they don't yell. It's wonderful. We're heading west on back roads to picnic at the Pont du Gard, the 2000 year old Roman aqueduct. Wow!
We've hit a few stiff hills along the way, and my mother soon finds that her lack of hill training is a problem. I think she's a little discouraged that she can't keep up too - since we mostly ride as a group. I ride off the front, the couples and Claire - who by day 2 they will have adopted - and a guide ride together, and mom trails behind. As the day goes on, getting quite warm, she hastily enters the support van whenever the grade tilts beyond 0 percent. I'm also starting to feel sick, with the cold I'd felt coming on for the previous few days finally hitting. We stop at the Musée de BonBon in what to me now feels like 95 degree weather (Il fait chaud, il fait trop chaud.) - a kitschy candy "museum" that would fit well in the US.
We then head out on tiny one lane roads in the foothills towards the medieval duchy town of Uzès and our hotel for the night, the amazing Château d'Arpaillargues (http://www.chateaudarpaillargues.com/). Ride stats - about 50k and 300+ meters for the day.
I mix cold medicine and local Rosé wine, and am well cooked before dinner. Add a few (or more) glasses of wine, and I don't care that my vegetarian dinner might as well be grass clippings. I do care that the others get ice cream for dessert, but since vegetarian = vegan in France there's no glace pour moi ce soir. (I am not vegan.) Oh yeah, everyone, sauf moi, is dressed for dinner!
Tuesday - We're to ride a little and canoe a little today, but I opt out of canoing due to a shoulder problem. The guides find a climb for me to do while the others canoe. I'll do a short climb in the hills above Collias, then cross the valley and head back to Uzès and the château - all without support. This has my mother frantic - OMG, her 46 year old daughter might get hopelessly lost in the wilds of Provence! I'm reminded why traveling with my mother didn't originally sound like such a great idea.
I leave on my own with a cell phone borrowed from a guide, a map, and my French vocabulary now expanded to include "Je suis perdu, pourriez vous m'aider ..." in case I need help. Despite my cold the climb feels great, and I can stay in my middle chainring. Several road cyclists, in full cycling attire pass and say "bonjour". This is something I notice throughout the trip - the roadies greet fellow cyclists, even ones with orange name tags hanging from the rear. The many casual cyclists we see just stare at us - like why are those people on dorky bikes wearing helmets and road gear?
After the climb and before heading back to Uzès I have a coffee with our guide from Amsterdam. Turns out she did the BikeCentennial across the US in 1976, and has traveled extensively. She plans to retire in a few years so that she can play and travel full time. How cool is that?
I complete a very pleasant ride of about 45k and 450+ meters under overcast skies, and return before the paddlers.
We're on our own for dinner tonight in Uzès, and the Triplettes, as my mother, niece and I are now known, due to our, uh, princess-like ways, chow down at an Italian restaurant in the Place aux Herbes. Thoroughly fed up with grass clippings, we're all starving and eat huge bowls of pasta, with three kinds of chocolate for dessert.
Wednesday - I'd told the French guide I was trying to learn French, but why does she have to pepper me with French first thing every morning? Does she not realize that a) imbibing healthy quantities of alcohol + b) lack of sleep + c) a sinus headache, does not equal even basic comprehension of the English language, much less French, without a large quantity of strong coffee and more cold meds? She asks if I'm "Toujours malade?" this morning. Hmm, does she mean still sick, or always sick? Due to my blank stares each morning she stops attempting to help this poor student any further.
And about the lack of sleep - the entire trip I was unable to get more than about 5 hours sleep a night. Maybe it was due to sleeping on a cot in a room with two other princesses, I don't know. But by this time I'm also starting to equate new gray hair with sleepless nights - like each less than optimal night means one new gray hair. (I came home with alot more gray than when I left! :( )
Today we are supposed to drive to the morning market at St Remy-de-Provence, then drive somewhere down the Camargue delta to bike about 20k back up to Arles. The market is a treat, a farmer's market on steroids - with more soaps, herbs, cheeses, sausages, artwork, handcrafts, etc than you can imagine, all with the lyrical sounds of French everywhere.
Queens for the day, the Triplettes refuse the biking and insist on being dropped off at Arles to have more time to see the ancient city. Glad we did, we apparently didn't miss anything on the bike and Arles is amazing. We're staying at the very nice Hotel Jules Caesar in Arles for the night.
Dinner? I don't quite remember. I do remember drinking other people's wine as well as my own, all in the name of its medicinal properties. Claire's new adoptive parents also make another try at hooking her up with a nice French boy, in this case the apprentice pastry chef. And, everyone, sauf moi, dressed for dinner!
Thursday - We're to ride from Arles to St Remy-de-Provence, about 40k. It's cool, windy and overcast. We stop at the very cool medieval Abbaye de Montmajour, then start heading out to the Alpilles. I hang back with my mother, and we're soon dropped entirely from the group. She's really been taxed physically all week, and we take a leisurely shortcut through the beautiful hamlet of Paradou before she gets in the van when the climbing starts. The climb from Paradou up the Alpilles to Les Baux-de-Provence (http://www.lesbauxdeprovence.com/index1.htm) is quite fun and a bit challenging. Les Baux is an interesting medieval hill town, which due to rain and a restaurant mix-up we really didn't explore much. 400 meters on a slight uphill past Les Baux is the very cool Cathedrale d'Images (http://www.cathedrale-images.com/) - an old bauxite quarry turned into a multi-media experience - this year it's Venice.
After a stiff climb that only the 2 guys, the guide and I try, we have a long twisty and wet downhill in the rain to St Remy. Along the way, while riding on narrow roads among the farmhouses we have a close encounter with a herd of newly shorn sheep, as interested in us as we are in them. A brief command from the shepherd, and his border collie soon has them back under control.
We're spending the next two nights at the amazing Hotel les Ateliers de l'Image (http://www.hotelinprovence.com/modules/edito/content.php?id=1) in St Remy. Dinner is on our own in St Remy.
Friday - A loop from St Remy of about 30k is planned for our last day. It's overcast and cool, with quiet cycling through the countryside to Eygalières (http://www.provenceweb.fr/e/bouches/eygalieres/eygalieres.htm), where we find another Provençale market in progress. On to a picnic hosted by the guides at Domaine de Valdition winery, then a ride through wind and rain back to the hotel. This turned out to be many people's favorite day of riding, and really was quite pleasant even with the rain.
After riding we all did the van Gogh walk around St Remy, also in the rain, and also a lot of fun. In St Remy we found what my niece and I call "the world's best chocolate, ever" at Durand Chocolatiers. Yum.
At the "farewell" dinner, which for once was finally non-vegan and actually satisfying, we celebrated the impending 50th birthdays of the guys (the two guys were surrounded by 7 women all week), and Claire's 14th birthday. And, everyone, sauf moi, dressed for dinner!
On Saturday, it was off to Paris for the Triplettes.
Overall - I would not generally choose this type of trip for myself, but despite the lack of "serious" cycling it was really quite enjoyable. Since we did the "luxury" tour the trip was quite costly, but you do get everything you pay for (well, maybe not if you're a vegetarian). The routes are well-chosen and cycling friendy, maps and route sheets are comprehensive, and the hotels are spectacular. The guides were great - knowledgeable, helpful, patient, and strong! - they lifted those 35 pound bikes into and out of the van and on and off its roof many, many times. :p