7. The Beginning of the End of the Beginning.

05.11.23 – 12.11.23 : Vaison-la-Romaine – Montpellier

In Vaison – well, more accurately in a forest just outside of Vaison – we had a leisurely start. With plenty of time to take the tent down in the morning sun, we rose late, idly turned some pages of our books and generally dawdled. This laziness allowed the bad weather of Northern Europe to wave us a final tearful goodbye in the form of a short shower, dousing us and the tent just as we decided to pack up.

Despite the wall-to-wall sunshine forecast, we’d secured one last WarmShowers host just outside of Nîmes: a surefire sign we’d resigned ourselves to the life of soft adventuring. Our route out of Vaison cruised through vineyard after vineyard; the names all too familiar from British supermarket shelves. 

[I’m pretty sure I’ve stolen this line from Kenneth Wilson’s Highway Cello, a truly wonderful book written by my friend Kenneth about his journey from Hadrian’s Wall to Rome. By bike. With a cello. It’s so wonderful, in fact, that, even three-quarters read, my copy made the cut and took up valuable luggage space on the first half of this adventure. I left it with Andrew in Grenoble, who I’m sure you remember. Kenneth, I’ve no doubt he’ll be in touch with some kind suggestions for its improvement. I hope this heartfelt recommendation serves as sufficient apology for my plagiarism.]

For Joe, Vaison had felt like a symbolic end to the journey. It’d somehow taken on some significance for me too, via convivial osmosis, and I felt a real sense of coming to the end of my own journey – Phase 1, anyway. As it happened, my journey to Barcelona was far from a foregone conclusion – an emotional rollercoaster remained – but that’s a story for another time. 

So, for now, I was basking in the cosy afterglow of effort – the comfort that the end of a journey brings – allowing me to dream up other adventures, for other lives, as we rode. Passing through Châteauneuf-du-Pape, I fantasised about a wine-charged cycle tour around all the other 8 châteaus of the Pope. Clearly my French hadn’t improved much in the last few weeks. The name Châteauneuf translates as new castle, not ninth, and dates back to 1309 when Pope Clement transferred the papacy from Rome to Avignon, due to his great love of burgundy wines. Sounds like my kind of religion, your holiness.

Our ride that day was something from a film. Easy pedalling, soft sunshine and picnics. The only departure from this fantasy was when both Joe and I managed to cycle through a shin-deep trough of manure. All stops after that attracted a business of flies. To shake them, we put our heads down and made haste to Nîmes. There, we stopped for a beer, soaked in the last of the sun, and I paddled in a fountain to try and wash off the worst of the stench. 

A busy Nîmes sky. Joe is out of shot, busily surveying.

An hour later, we stood waiting at an unlikely doorway of an unlikely street in an unlikely town just outside of Nîmes. With a whir, the green barn door in front of us swung open on electronic hinges and we were ushered into a small tunnel. This tunnel contained, amongst other highly interesting nicnacs, a bright green-and-yellow vélomobile (think: recumbent bicycle with three wheels and a profile closely resembling an aircraft fuselage, thanks to its aerodynamic outer shell). The person doing the ushering was also unlikely and, as it turned out, highly interesting.

Not a comprehensive enough description? Ok fine, here’s a picture.

Karel van Loon is a retired physician. He looked the scientific type. Between the bushy eyebrows and exuberant moustache, he cut an Einstein-esque silhouette. Having worked for several years as an MSF doctor in many of the African countries I’m choosing to skirt around, he moved to New York to take on a head-honcho role at a Big pharmaceutical company – capital B. There he picked up his husky mafia-don lilt which, combined with his native Belgian accent, give him a real Don Corleone. And, to top it all off, what an epic name. So close to De Niro’s fictional billionaire and crack financial trader in Limitless, Carl van Loon. 

In Karel’s case, life imitates fiction. He’s clearly done well. Beyond the foyer-of-many-fascinations, his house opened up into a private courtyard, bike workshop, and annex – our home for the evening. On our brief tour, I spied a vintage Campagnolo Shamal wheelset glinting through a crack in the door of yet another unexplored outbuilding. A choice collector's item; Karel was clearly in the know. I asked when we might see the bike collection. What makes you think there’s a collection? was the response. I raised an eyebrow. He conceded with a smile, and swung the door open to a six-figure inventory of bikes that spanned everything from a pristine vintage Cinelli, to a lime green Moulton. I was transfixed. Once we’d finished ogling, Karel asked if we’d like a swim. I forgot to mention, he also had a pool.

Joe and I were left to our own devices after that. By his own admission, Karel wasn’t much of an evening person. We’d chat over breakfast. So, tucking into the bottle of wine that was left out for us, we settled in to some sketch shows and had chocolate for dinner. Decadence at its finest. 

In the morning, Karel had put on a spread. The table was piled high with warm pastries, fresh bread, cheeses, and various conserves. We had a long breakfast. So long, in fact, that we were on our third coffee (and pastry now I think of it) by the time our planned departure time had been and gone. Karel didn’t eat with us. Instead, he stood leaning against the kitchen counter, colouring in his past. 

This comfort was too tempting. We had a day to spare thanks to our Holiday-Riding-replan, with no accommodation in Montpellier to cover our budget underspend, and no budget to cover a hostel. So, the decision was made to take a rest day in paradise. Karel was very obliging, but did mention that he liked to keep himself to himself. He meant it. We didn’t see the elusive billionaire again until the next morning. Perhaps I should add Bruce Wayne to his list of fictional counterparts. I spent a happy day tinkering with Madonna in the workshop, trying, among other things, to get her rack straight.

In the morning, another spread was laid before us – this time with noticeably fewer pastries… clearly our appetites threatened to bankrupt even Karel – and we had another three-coffee breakfast before crushing the final 40km into Montpellier, where we’d be meeting our significant others for a few days. Our list of tasks before Sophie – my sister, Joe’s girlfriend – arrived was short: (i) find a bike-sized box for Joe’s bike (French TGVs have very backward rules concerning bike travel: all bikes must be packed up if they’re to be taken on board, rendering them useless at either end) and (ii) shower (Eau de Joe, as I’d nicknamed it, didn’t promise to make hearts flutter… not the preferred choice then for a romantic reunion). I designated myself chief-bike-box-finder given my experience both with Ellie’s De Rosa, and with my own bike in Georgia after meeting my friends Tom and Mike for a stint of their UK to China epic the year before. Confidence, or luck, paid off. 

The first bike shop we stopped at was owned by Erwin, a Dutchman who’d lived in France for the last 40 years. He, like Karel, had a fascinating timbre. The native Dutch blended with learned English and French gave him an accent straight from a Guy Ritchie film. Erwin is one of life’s Good Guys. After a successful career in the French stock exchange, at 30 he decided to pack it in and set up a campsite in rural France where he raised his kids. A campsite is a great place to bring up kids, he said. You wave them goodbye after breakfast and don’t see them again until dinner! Once they’d left home (permanently), he lived out a childhood dream and retrained as a bike mechanic so he could open his own bike shop. He really got life and immediately clicked with the adventure that had brought me and Joe to his shop. He had a bike box and gave us free reign of his workshop. He made coffee for us and then the three of us set about dismantling Joe’s bike. Afterwards, he had to run an errand or two so left us in charge of the shop, even giving us the keys to the cash register.

So, a day or so later, when Joe, Soph, Ellie and I were looking to hire some bikes to cycle out the beach, Erwin’s shop was the obvious choice. We were welcomed like old friends and presented with four crimson Dutch bikes. After a wonderful day of windy-picnicking, bracing-swimming and flamingo-spotting (much to the delight of the resident ornithologist) we set off for the cycle back, Peter Andre’s Mysterious Girl blasting from a speaker to help us brave the offshore headwind. We all agreed it was the Best Day Ever.

The idyllic picnic – quickly coated with a thin layer of sand thanks to the coastal gusts.

An ecologist’s fantasy.

Typically, disaster chose that moment to strike. After a brief stop to marvel at yet more flamingos, Ellie and I set off in the same direction. Like Scalextrics at a crossover, we collided, Ellie’s front wheel nudging my derailleur into the spokes of my rear wheel. For such a low-speed collision, the damage was impressive. The derailleur was mangled beyond recognition, twisted into the spokes. It had taken out the fender in its way past which had jammed itself between the tire and the chainstay, bent double. We held our breath. Peter Andre was silenced.

After some discussion, it was decided that Joe and Soph would ride ahead as an advance appeasement party, while Ellie and I walked the bike to the nearest tram stop, which happened to be over an hour away. I tied the derailleur to the chainstay with my sock so that the bike could be wheeled and we began the trudge. The mood was gloomy. There’s nothing that induces quite as much guilt as letting someone down who’s shown you such generosity. The relationship with Erwin had been so unexpectedly special, but we worried we’d left it as mangled as his poor bike. The concern for the relationship far outweighed the financial worry, but the latter was still measurable. Ellie, not quite knowing the cost of a repair job, quietly budgeted €800 in her head. But, as we walked, we began to make peace with the situation and mused happily about how the Best Days Ever always need some adversity thrown in for colour. The mood brightened and the walk back breezed by. 

Two crimson bikes – pre-mangle.

Luckily, the advance appeasement party worked their magic. They texted saying that Erwin was, in their words, totally chill. And, no surprise for someone of his temperament, he was. Shit happens, he said, and poked some fun at how I hoped to cycle to South Africa if I couldn’t make it to the beach and back without a major mechanical. We promised to pay for the repairs, Ellie steeling herself to part with €800 for a €200 bike. He put €20 on the card machine – half of what the rental alone should have cost – and refused all attempts from us to pay more. The lesson? Be more Erwin. 

We met Soph and Joe in the town square, who welcomed us back with cold beer and hot chips. We all wrote 2-minute poems about the day. I’ll leave you with our attempts. I think one of us has real potential. The rest of us reverted to limerick, which I’m told is the lowest form of verse.

Soph:

Flamingos are whiter and smaller than I thought, 

And rental bikes flimsier, and Erwin friendlier,

And beaches windier, and picnics sandier. 

Even the South of France has a Blackpool equivalent, 

A pleasure beach, a face less chic.

But cigarettes are chicer here, 

Much less the grungy nightclub pause, 

Much more the territory of budding poets on their phones.

Joe:

We’ve spent a jolly day in Montpels,

Myself, Jake, Sophie and Els,

The derailleur went clank,

That was a bit wank, 

But hey ho, all’s well that ends wells.

Jake: 

When derailleur makes mischief with spoke,

Take stock, pace about, or just smoke, 

But really don’t fret, 

For you surely can’t bet, 

On the warmth kind Erwin can invoke.

Ellie:

There once was a kind man named Erwin, 

Who had all of the Dutchie’s head turnin’.

He lent us four bikes rosy red, 

So we could go check out the Med.

Although known for her great cycling talent,

Els failed to stay upright and balanced.

But what happened next doesn’t matter, 

Because it was probably the Best Day Ever. 

Ellie admits she remains confused about the structure of a limerick.