Mostly Bikes ⨯ Me
Nyons and La Route de l’Olivier.
2026-08-26
Our usual olive guy wasn't at the market yesterday. Today we rode to Nyons via La Route de l’Olivier, a small spur road off the climb the Col de la Croix Rouge, to source them ourselves.
ACP Paris-Bordeaux Fleche de France
2026-08-19
It’s drizzling lightly riding out of of Paris into the dark. The rain will stop soon, but a stiff wind is forecast by 3pm. It arrives at 10am and doesn’t stop. Across potato fields, through villages and vineyards, the wind would blow from the southwest, our direction of travel, for three days. Passing Château de Chambord (again), a designated “Brevet de Cyclotourisme National” control, Jenn and I remark on the dry grass brought on by this historically hot summer. Day one hovers near 95F. The gusting doesn’t help. We call to cancel the dinner reservation we’ll miss and grab pizza. The cycle repeats on day two. We ride tight against hedge rows as a wind break. A small herd of Poitou donkeys is as curious about us as we are of them. If this was a standard issue brevet time limit we might’ve been over the limit, but Flèches de France offer race, rando and tourist limits. The rando limit prescribes a pace similar to a Super Randonee 600. Despite the wind, we’re moving faster than the prescribed 200km per day, leaving us with a short final day, and plenty of buffer for a leisurely evening in Bordeaux before our 6am train back to Provence.
Savoillan & Brantes.
2026-08-09
One of FFCT's plus beaux sites de France. I've ridden past Brantes at least a dozen times, but never bothered to take the turn because I'm always on my way to Savoillan and its shockingly good bakery.
Watching the Femmes
2026-08-07
Le Tour de France Femmes rolled through the area. After being shooed away by the gendarme on the D19, Ed, Mary, Jenn and I rode up to the long sweeping curve on the climb out of Malaucene to watch the racers roll by
Col du Galibier & Alpe d’Huez
2026-07-31
Galibier before breakfast, with the sunrise, before the traffic, in the company of whistling marmots. Three marmots on the way up, another two on the way down. They prefer to perch on boulders, so they’re pretty easy to spot. Alpe d’Huez was an easy bonus, since it was actually a descent from Col du Sarenne, which we had to ride anyway on the way to Grenoble to catch the train home. Maybe we’ll come back and do it from the other side some day.
