Pic St. Loup

Today was perfect. I've realized (yes, again) that all energy comes from the sun, and all happiness comes from energy. The sun was shining, and I rode to Pic St. Loup, north of Montpellier, feeling pretty good.

The route leaving the city was easy to follow, almost always using bike lanes, either separate  or designated. I didn't get lost at all, unusual in an unfamiliar city.

Riding along, through a typical French alley of plane trees (sycamores at home) a crow, I believed, flew into a hole. Didn't realize crows nested in trees .... and quickly thought: stop! I am in no hurry .... my goal (besides Pic St. Loup) is to enjoy being a flaneur, by bike. And there I stopped, and waited. Many of the trees seemed to have resident birds, very crowlike, though with heads browner than our crows. The babies must have hatched.

Fields were brilliantly yellow with blooming rapeseed, for canola oil.

From time to time at home people complain to me about bikes, and cyclists on roads. Generally, the attitude is so different here. A good part of my route used this road, divided into 3 lanes: one northbound for cyclists, one for cars, and one southbound for cyclists. In total, the cars and the bikes are allotted about equal parts of the roads. Yes, the car section is wide enough for one vehicle at a time.

  

Lunch was cheese, bread and fruit on the side of the River Lez, in Les Matelles, a beautiful medieval village near Pic St. Loup. From there I traveled very small roads, sometimes gravelly chemins, around the ridge to the east before starting up. I hadn't been worried about the climb, but these are my first outdoor rides this year, my only training has been 8 weeks of only 7 hours a week, 7 very intense hours, and my last real climb was up to the corniche above Nice.

There were many cyclists, of all sorts, out for a spin.

Pic St. Loup is a long, rocky ridge, dominating the plain around it and visible for miles and miles. Road bikes skirt the side of the mountain, a foot trail goes to the top. It turned out that only one short section of the road was reasonably steep, the climb was generally lovely, and before long the road levelled out and descended the other side.

Back in centre ville, the old city of Montpellier, the sound of jazz caught my ear. The quartet was competent, pretty good actually, playing tunes from the songbook of jazz standards. I stopped, listened and watched the crowd for 45 minutes or so, before buying a cd and returning to the apartment.

A perfect day in sunny southern France.

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