30th July.  Friday.
Time for our first ride.  A foray into the unknown.  Having already shopped in Bergerac we had a feel for how far away that was, and besides which heading out that way meant only taking one conveniently folded map with us, which is always good.  We decided to head for Monbazillac, and recce where we would be visiting for real later.  It was all new, but all good.  There’s the being on the wrong side of the road thing for starters!  The terrain (or should that be terroir?) around here turns out to be very rolling: lots of gradual ups and flying downs.   Although Dad would have you believe that they’re not ups but are actually hills 😉  We added landmarks to our map – the hat on the stick, the sad wooden boat in the barn, the house propped up by ladders, the re-surfaced road (to be avoided henceforth at all costs!).

Although it was overcast it was still pretty warm.  With the traffic absent and the roads to ourselves we were free to enjoy the great views, and to wildlife spot.  We saw buzzards, a kestrel, and an elegant sufficiency of sunflowers.  We passed others enjoying themselves as much as us – tanned leathery calves abounded, including “le calamar” bringing up the rear of the little peloton that passed us on one of the longer climbs.

Time: 1:54:19
Avs: 13.7
Dist: 26.26
Odo: 5260

For the first ride of the holiday it went pretty well.  Ok, not fast, but we were in explorer mode, not contador mode!  And it looks like the cycling around here is going to be pretty good 🙂

1st August. Sunday.
Apparently at 8.30am on Wednesdays and Sundays a cycling group sets out from the boulangerie in Lauzun.  How cool is that?  Well, not very if you turn up and there’s nobody there.   So Dad and I consulted the map and headed off on our own route. Well we were out…it was warm…it would have been daft not to.

The road to Castillones stretched away from us into the distance, wide and straight, in tempting fashion. And it was as nice as it looked.  Smooth, wide, all swoopy – ups and flying downs.  The few cars that passed did so wide and polite.  The exceptions to the rule always turned out to be English…  Actually the road surfaces are so lovely that the cars don’t make enough noise comiing up behind you.  And I wasn’t even wearing my mp3 so I can’t blame that.  Who knew there as a downside to lovely roads? *grin*.   I think I can live with it though 🙂

We were fair flying along, grinning all the way, as we approached the first point on our itinerary.  Castillones is a bastide town.  Bastide towns are generally on the tops of hills, which didn’t bode well.   However the climb to the top proved to be a long slow gorgeous climb.  With views and shade and a huge sense of relief that it wasn’t worse!

We found the central town square, and pulled up under an arcade at the café there.  A rather dour man at a table gesticulated and babbled at us – something along the lines of don’t park your bike there, we don’t make a mess here.  So we moved them, girded our loins and braved the lion’s den again.  Turns out he was in charge, but you’d have thought it was a different man who politely took our order. Well, ok, still a tad surly ’round the edges, but we got two coffees and and an orangina ok, which we duly consumed.  Shades of L2P 🙂

We headed out, prospecting for our route, which we found on the other side of the church. As we went down the cool, tree lined and thus evenly shaded, avenue, we spooked up two red squirrels, who played tag with each other, before we treed them.

Then it was more fabulous roads and swoopiness to Isigeac which was, we discovered, having a Sunday market.  We pushed our bikes through the narrow streets, attracting odd looks (us) and assessing looks (the bikes).   I think we came out on top.  Maybe.  Out the other side with a quick detour to check out the glass blower – average and expensive.. We were feeling very cycle tourish by now, all the fun and none of the pannier embarassment *grin*.

The weather, which had been overcast with spells of brightness, but warm enough, started ooming (that’s boding to the unitiated – or the verb “to ominous”) ahead of us.  Risk of thunder as forecast… The sky grew purple and almost orange at one edge, and we actually saw the lightening fork….. We headed for home as fast as we could, racing the rain.  We grew a little as we were irrigated on the way, which was practically invigorating and did make me giggle.   The skies darkened and the first fat drops started to fall as we hit the final straight.  “Fly you fools!”.  It would have made a great photo 🙂

We got home, revelling in our close escape, and pulled into the garage as hubby arrived back with bread for lunch, and the rain started to fall in earnest. Timing is all 🙂

Time: 1:54:40
Avs: 14.3
Dist: 27.38
Odo: 5286

I can’t tell you how much fun it was. Awesome roads. When we were’nt going uphill we were totally flying 🙂 And there were some long sublime downs…. Almost better than…well, ok, this is a family site 😉  I’m already planning on going back and doing it again. And again. And again. And faster *grin*

I got the most perfect chain ring tattoo at one of our map spotting checks. Almost geometric mayan.   I left it and printed it onto paper when I got home, but due to sweat and sun cream it had blurred a little by then … 🙁

3rd August. Tuesday
We are staying near a little town called Lauzun, and if you visit the Syndicat d’Initiative, they will provide you with various walking and cycling maps, and charge you 50c each.  Which isn’t a lot, but since I’d checked out the website before we came, I’d printed out the “Circuit du Duc de Lauzun” and brought it with me.  If you do the whole thing it’s like 110km but it’s designed in such a way, whether intentionally or not, that you can cut corners all over the place.  So we decided to do a chunk of it and see how we got on.  As it turns out it’s mostly very clearly marked, with big yellow signs, some of which even have tourist information on, if you can be bothered to stop for long enough to read them.  It’s always nice not to have to stop and map check – though I had the map with me just in case.  Can’t imagine anyone doing routes like that around here, more’s the pity.

The Circuit is a bit of a tour of the local happening hamlets, round wiggly country lanes.  Well, ok, the hamlets are mostly pretty much sleepy affairs.  The closest we came to a “happening” was when the previously dozy sleeping dog at one corner went and got his mate and chased us off his property *grin*.  We were “bonjoured” by various friendly farmers, met a deer by the side of the road, and met an extremely fit (in both senses of the word) cyclist making going up hill look easy.  Which to him it probably is.   I was tempted to follow him and find out…but thought Dad might have trouble explaining where I’d gone to hubby *grin* 😉

The undulating countryside made for lots of lovely views.  Nothing stunning per se, but just uncluttered simple rurality – very nice.  We had coffee and orangina (Dad’s a convert now) at Miramont – another bastide town – at the Café du Commerce, where the barman clearly found us vaguely amusing or bemusing, take your pick.

Time: 2:15:27
Avs: 14.5
Dist: 32.76
Odo: 5320

5th August. Thursday
Apparently all this cycling can be less than popular with your other half, and Dad suggested that we cycle somewhere where the rest of the holiday peloton could at least meet us for coffee.  After looking round the map we settled on Villereal, which was a realistic distance away down reasonably familiar roads, and about which the guidebooks had said nice things.  Yes, you guessed it, another bastide town.  Now there’s a surprise.  At least you always know where the cafe is going to be…

It meant getting to re-use the long fast straight roads from our previous trip which didn’t sound like a bad thing, and wasn’t.  In fact it was so straight, albeit with up and downs, that it almost got boring.   However the speed that the cars went past you at – due to that very straightness – tended to keep you on your toes, as did the blind  summits caused by the ups, as they can’t see you until they’ve crested the top, which is a tad hairy…   Dad had been dreading doing the hill up to Castillones again, and found it so easy he was convinced we must have joined it half way up this time.  We didn’t!  As we reached the top an old french monsieur, unloading his car, cried “Allez allez” to us, as well as something else encouraging, which quite made our day 🙂

We met the family as planned in Villereal where we duly sat outside and had coffee and, you guessed it, orangina.  It was a tad chilly when the skies clouded over and there was more than a little wind.  After a quick look round the main square and church we split up again and Dad and I headed to Isigeac.  Man was there ever a headwind!  It was a long hard slog, which at least stopped us feeling chilly, but could not precisely be described as enjoyable.  There were also a couple of long slow climbs, and some more badly behaved cars, so it was just time to put my head down and pull.

Reaching Isigeac and changing direction came as quite a relief.  We left town on a road that clearly belongs to the very old dog who was waddling down the middle of it yawning, and moving for no man.  The ride back was much nicer.  The road surfaces aren’t so good there, included that unfortunate resonance that deteriorating French roads seem to have which tries very hard to convince you that you have a puncture.  However it was much quieter, and the wind, if not behind us, was certainly less in our faces!  We stopped to watch a fox in a field for a bit, and also took yet another detour on the way home trying to take the “correct” route from Falgueyrat and failing dismally.  However we did get to see a very nice watermill and associated waterways, and it meant we actually approached Queyssel down the usual down, so it wasn’t exactly disastrous 🙂

Time: 2:05:03
Avs: 16.2
Dist: 33.88
Odo: 5353

As it turns out it was the wrong time of month to be doing this which may explain why I wasn’t really feeling it today.  If you consider that, the headwind and the recent wine appreciation, I think we did pretty well!

7th August. Saturday.
Time was more limited today as plans were afoot to do other things later, and besides which, the more time we spend out, the greater the potential for resultant grumpiness from the rest of the party, so we decided to re-do the route from our second ride based on the principle that we knew how long it would take, wouldn’t have to look at the map much, and really enjoyed it first time ’round!

However I think I may actually have been sweating rosé this morning, and a lot of those things that felt like ups last time definitely felt like hills this time!  It turns out that there’s a hill early on that is worse than the Castillones one, but, as we skipped it last time we went that way, we’d forgotten all about it!  Which did make the Castillones one seem even nicer than usual, but then that could just have been the prospect of extremely necessary coffee…  There was no grumpy barman this time, I almost missed him, but maybe if we’d tried to park our bikes by the wall again this one would have been just as grumpy, who knows?

I managed to get into the zone on the way to and out of Isigeac and we pretty much flew home, arriving home to a family who were mildly surprised to see us back so early!  See, aren’t we good? 😉

Time: 1:38:00
Avs: 16.5
Dist: 26.83
Odo: 5380

Dad’s chain came off a couple of times today which annoyed him more than me – any excuse to stop and take a breath – but we were both pleased that our average speed was up again.  Not that we pay attention to such things.  Much…

9th August. Monday
This was one of those mornings when GB and I meet each other in the Square with great plans and decide that coffee in Glastonbury is a much better idea.   After the very enjoyable Fete in Lauzun the night before which involved a lot of drinking and eating and not a lot of sleeping, neither of us were up for much.  We looked at the map, picked a town that looked not too far away and that was hopefully large enough to have a café and set off.

We headed north only to find that all our landmarks had gone.  The house was no longer being held up by ladders, and the hat had been re-claimed.  We never did get to check and see if the boat had sailed off too 😉   I was all tired and consequently all tensed up which ain’t great for going round corners.  I had to make a conscious effort to relax and I think my shoulders dropped six inches!  It was hard going and our break in Sigoulès which did, thank deity, have a café, was very welcome.  And it wasn’t a bastide town either – ooh, the novelty…which may explain why it was slightly harder to find the café though 😉

We came home and twisted the route to take in the flying downhill from St Aubin de Cadelech to Queyssel which really was fabulous.  If you lived round here and knew the road better, man could you have some fun down there!  Even in our state of ignorance it was pretty darn good *grin*.

Various folk gave me funny looks today – the old lady in Sigoulès, the group of men by the side of the road – which reminded me that I’d forgotten to mention that women cyclists seem to be a rarity around here.  I don’t know why, maybe it’s a male territory thing…  If I lived around here I’d be cycling all the time, maybe then they’d get used to it?! *grin*

Time: 1:28:59
Avs: 13.7
Dist: 20.45
Odo: 5401

Unsurprisingly we were slow today.  And they’re slow roads too…which didn’t help.  But it was still a nice ride.  Better than no ride for sure.

So, in conclusion, we managed six rides in two weeks, and I didn’t go to casualty once.  Result!  Fab riding too.  Good for damage limitation on the waist increasing front, and totally sanity saving too.  I do love my bike 🙂