5. Even the Ducks Looked Sad.

30.10.23 – 02.11.23 : Genève – Gap

Laurent was our gracious host for the night in Genève, saving us a small fortune on a hostel (prices for which would’ve made the De(Le)weck bill look like pocket change). Not checking his exact address – we thought simply Genève would do the trick – we ended up re-riding the final 5km of our journey back out of central the city centre. This didn’t amuse Joe. But he did concede he’d rather cycle 5km than spend €50, the going rate for half a hostel room in Switzerland. When we arrived, he welcomed Laurent’s mattress like an old friend and couldn’t even be tempted out with a cold beer. I stepped up for guest duties. Good thing, too. Laurent was highly interesting. When it came to adventure sports, you name it, he’d done it. His working life was just as interesting as his hobbies and included a stint as part of the Solar Impulse team that engineered the first solar-powered flight around the world. Bits of the plane hung around the apartment. He shrugged off cycling as low on his list of hobbies (which, among other things, included flying a light aircraft from South Africa to Switzerland in 46 hops, carrying $30,000 dollars in cash for fuel, visas and the like). But even as a side-hustle, Laurent had managed to complete Genève to Hoek van Holland – the reverse of our own trip so far, over 1000km – in just three days. At eight days in ourselves, we’re moving at nearly a third of his pace.

Standing outside a bakery in the morning, where Laurent had kindly bankrolled one of the pricier croissants of our trip, we all agreed the weather looked like it might hold. Clearly none of us are meteorologists. It was, without a doubt, the wettest day I’ve ever experienced. And I’ve been in India during the monsoon. It started with a fairly routine drenching. Business as usual. But by the time we’d made it to our second bakery stop of the day, the downpour had become a deluge. Even the ducks looked sad. We had a semi-serious ride on the cards: 115km with not insignificant elevation. And we’d started late. 

For most of the trip so far, Joe’s tyres had proven troublesome. They’d begun life as tubeless (ie, self-sealing). In Belgium they started to sulk at the prospect of fixing their own punctures so we put some tubes in. Then, under the stress of the load, they started to wear thin. Our patience headed in the same direction as we began mending at least one daily puncture, sometimes as many as four. At some point during our traverse of Le Jura, a serious gash in the back tyre had required us to boot it. Another technical term. I don’t mean to say Joe gave up on pneumatics altogether. A boot is a thick strip of rubber that’s glued to the tyre itself, rather than a patch that’s glued to the inner tube. It’s surgery, only used in serious circumstances. Usually enough for the tyre to hobble to the next bike shop, but seeing the price of frites in Switzerland, we’d decided to wait until the border to replace it. My good friend Johnathan Bristol, an excellent mechanic – not from Bristol – once said: never leave a job half done. Well, Johnathan, looks like you’re allowed to say I told you so.

In a fairly typical turn of fate, the tyre chose to perish during one of the wetter stints, on one of the busier roads, in one of the more remote places of the day’s route. Having read Rutger Bregman’s Humankind on a previous bike tour in Scotland, I felt optimistic to find its eponymous milk. So began a very long, very cold half hour standing at the side of the big road, trying to flag down some help. We targeted vans that looked as though they might have space enough in the back to take us and the bikes to the nearest bike shop. I sneakily hoped they might even be going all the way to Chambéry, today’s destination, to save us from some pretty dour riding. Mostly, suitable vehicles indicated around the Lycra clad idiots dancing in the road. It seems this particular area of France was on a mission to wean. When at last we managed to flag down a van – complete with an empty bike rack, no less! – we explained our situation, affecting our most doleful and defeated expressions. The young holiday-makers looked a promising pair. But they were very Swiss, and very law-abiding. They only, they explained, had two seatbelts in the van. So clearly it would be illegal, not to mention immoral, to let us sit on the bench seats in the back. They drove off, apologising profusely, their taillights swiftly engulfed by the driving rain. 

At that point, we accepted our fate and began the 2km trudge back to the last smattering of civilisation we’d passed. Entering the village, we saw an old man retrieving his sodden post. Our eyes met; invitation enough to pounce. We conveyed our tyre troubles in broken French and were quickly ushered into Jean’s garage where, to our amazement, he had a single 650b tire hanging on the wall. 650b (or 27.5” for you imperials) is a unique tyre size, making it an unlikely find in the garage of an old apple farmer in rural France. While we set about setting it up, Jean busied himself in the kitchen and returned with a six-cup cafetière, two bowls, and a heap of sugar cubes. We divided the sugar cubes, filled the bowls to the brim and promptly downed the hot, sweet coffee. Jean watched, impressed, and returned minutes later, cafetière replenished. We repeated the exercise, offered him a croissant by way of thanks, and shot off. Milk’s back on the menu, baby!

Bowl of coffee no.1 in Jean’s garage. Can you tell Joe is relieved?

After six coffees each in about as many minutes, the next kilometres flew. They needed to. It was 3.30pm when we left the refuge of Jean’s garage and we still had 75km to go. So, singing Queen and laughing maniacally, we tore through the valleys. That was until Madonna, jealous of the attention Joe’s bike had received and craving some limelight herself, decided to puncture too. So now: pissing rain; pitch black; coffee worn off; wet through; run out of Queen; struggling to see the funny side. 

We rolled into Chambéry after nearly 12 hours on the road, noting, with irritable incredulity, the idiocy that led the town planners to plant rose bushes along the extent of the city’s cycle lanes. Perhaps we were jaded by the day's events. Bedraggled, we arrived at the apartment of Timothée, our host for the evening, and dripped our way up to his apartment. Towels were laid out: wet-kit-quarantine. As we peeled off our layers, we realised that even our fancy waterproofs hadn’t held back the flood. Where’s Gary Barlow when you need him?

We sat around the dinner table with Timothée and Fien (note the and, they spoke very good English) feeling the relief of warmth and wine wash over us. I also detected another feeling. An unmistakable spike in my throat. The day’s soggy slog had taken its toll. I was getting ill. But it was another wonderfully convivial evening, so I was determined to keep spirits up. Quite literally, in fact. After a fascinating lesson on the boozy Carthusian monks of the Chartreuse – brimming with both botany and history: for Joe, a perfect antidote to yet another day of non-holiday riding – a bottle of the good stuff appeared on the table. Originally distilled as an elixir for long life, Chartreuse is still produced by the monks to this day and contains over 130 different herbs. I took back a healthy measure or two, hoping it would work its magic. 

It didn’t. By the next morning, Spikey Throat had worked its way into a full blown cold. We’d had lengthy discussion around the dinner table (fairly typical by this point) with TaF about our route for the coming day. As part of the great restructure, we’d planned to escape west of l’Alpe d’Huez and head to Gap via Grenoble instead, leaving us with a meagre half-day of riding today. The night before, after a dram or two, we’d both pretended to flirt with the idea of taking the mountain road through the Chartreuse that had been recommended. We had to maintain the impression of adventurous folk, you understand. Said route would have nearly doubled the distance and elevation of today’s ride. Making sure we were out of view of TaF, we set our GPS for the flat valley road and set in for an easy day’s riding.

On the way out of town, we picked up a spare tire, saving ourselves from having to suckle at another teat further down the line. Ok, I think I’ve milked this human kindness analogy just about enough. In the bike shop’s bargain-bin, I identified a rather striking pair of thermal bib-shorts with a leotard-like aesthetic. Anything to keep warm. 

[I’ve since been assured by Ellie that she’s more than a little keen on the leotard look. A private viewing has been requested. I have warned her I look more Torvill than Dean.]

The day’s ride proved tricky. Even in my high-compression spandex, I had jelly legs. Perking up slightly after a micro-nap at a bus stop, I began to gear up into guest mode. Our host in Grenoble was Andrew – our first native English speaker – an American from Colorado – who worked at the university as a geochemical researcher. Despite our best efforts to avoid such hardships, we’d had another five days of slog so the planned rest day was very welcome. We hadn’t met Andrew yet, but off the back of our success so far, we’d booked ourselves in for a double bill. 

Ringing the bell, we were greeted by an ephemeral intercom voice and asked to wait downstairs. Close to 10 minutes later, Andrew arrived. Taking one look at the bikes, which had suffered through four days of stormy riding since their last clean, Andrew kindly requested we give them a rinse in the local fountain. We obliged. Returning, we were faced with the not inconsiderable task of hiking the bikes up four floors of ancient spiral staircase. At the top, I remembered just how ill I felt. Guest mode was beginning to wear off. 

We entered the flat to stately sounds of Hans Zimmer’s collected works. Andrew kindly requested we take our damp socks off. We were shown our beds at the end of the living room. Heading over, hands full with our bags, we startled the cat, Geebie. Andrew kindly requested that we approach the cat slowly, palms raised. Geebie struggled with strangers. Joe, searching for conversational common ground, asked whether there was much climbing in the Chartreuse, pointing vaguely in the direction of the mountains we’d skirted that day. Andrew kindly requested Joe be careful where he points. The Chartreuse, you see, are more this way than that way. At this point, we kindly requested that we be excused to take a walk, preferably via a pub. Dinner that evening allowed us to find our Andrew rhythm. We had a jolly cultural-exchange-type back and forth, and found our common ground through climbing and British panel shows. Geebie remained suspicious.

Joe pointing – I’m sure you’ll agree too vaguely – at some of the climbing in the Chartreuse on our way to Grenoble.

After a day’s happy solo writing, shaking the illness with a hot chocolate binge, we had to tackle our biggest day of climbing yet: 2500 vertical metres over 110km. We were apprehensive: Andrew’s forecast had shown heavy rain. We set off in the dry and packed our panniers with emergency pastries. Midway up the first climb of the day, the heavens opened. We sought shelter at a bus stop and took stock. Stock suggested we seek refuge in the cafe opposite. The door was stiff and we saw much boisterous gesturing from inside to use some force – what’s the French for oomph? – which we duly did. The wind took over and the door banged open. We hurried in and shut it behind us. Getting the latch to engage was a faff and we stood awkwardly in the doorway shoulder-barging the stubborn thing until it stayed put. Swiftly employing the Jean tactic, we ordered four large coffees with lots of sugar. We spent a happy half hour in the warm, watching as local men came and went, each performing the pantomime with the reluctant door, with those inside repeating the oomph gesture. They kissed one another on arrival and on departure and each swigged a glass from the communal bottle of house red. It was 10am. Having exchanged brief snippets back and forth in French, I half hoped we might have earned a glass and a kiss. But we were charged tourist prices for the coffee and left without a wave.

Luckily, the onslaught subsided and we were treated to mere drizzle for the rest of the day. Still, by the time we’d been stung by the final climb – an unrelenting A-road col, Bayard – we were ready to dismount. We’d managed to secure yet another WarmShowers host in Gap but, before arriving, we swung by the local boulangerie to fortify ourselves with yet more baked goods. This, we later found out, was a mistake.

Arriving at Alain’s door, I had to speed through the common courtesies. I needed a wee, you see. One disadvantage of the leotard, I’d discovered, was that it required me to strip entirely naked to go to the toilet. Not fancying disrobing by the side of the road, for fear of letting the cold in, I’d put off spending that particular penny until safely indoors. By the time we reached Alain, I’d been saving for close to three hours. So, when I finally released, I had to spend the following two hours lying in the foetal position while my stomach cramps subsided. Meanwhile, Joe was slowly cooking in the lounge. Alain was ex-military and had a Maslowian approach to hosting.

Dinner took a similarly utilitarian form. A dense three-ingredient pasta bake was presented (pasta, cheese, black pepper – salt didn’t make an appearance). We eagerly spied a covered pan on the stove that we hoped might contain some veg. When this made it to the table, we discovered it contained hearty lamb sausages. We were also loaded with Leffe Ambrée, one of Belgium's heavier exports. Safe to say, we didn’t go hungry chez Alain.

During our brief stint of sunshine in Giromagny, at the bottom of the Ballon d’Alsace – no double entendre intended! – we’d witnessed a fire erupt in one of the village’s buildings. I’d assumed that, after such relentless rain, the building had been so surprised by the moment of sunshine that it had spontaneously combusted. In a welcome turn of fate, the converse of this bizarre meteorological event took place after our night at Alain’s. The furnace of his lounge somehow triggered the end of the rainy riding and the start of weather more fitting of the South of France… God did we need it.