La météo (or weather forecast) promised a sunny day, so I decided to blow off any crazy qualms about getting any work done, and me and my bicycle took the early bus, first to Périgueux to the north, and then to Sarlat to the southeast (yes, I could have gone due east to Sarlat, but there is no direct bus service between Bergerac and Sarlat. I took off at 7:45 am and got down from the bus at 11 am, so it was a comparatively long ride through lovely landscapes and old town so I didn’t mind.
Sarlat is built on
pretty rough terrain, so I quickly abandoned my first idea of riding around
town. Instead, I saw that there was a bike path that followed La Dordogne
for about 25 km and that caused triggered an idea that I have been rolling
around in my head for a few days now. In July I am going to Porto, Portugal, to
meet Margarita, Chrissy, and Raimond, for a 7-day adventure bicycling from
Porto to Santiago de Compostela (the Portuguese route of the Camino de
Santiago), and each of the 7 days we will be biking between 40 and 60 km. Now,
I think I am in pretty good shape an riding 60 km is no big deal, but here was
a perfect place to test my stamina. At 50 km for the round trip, I would be
able to reassure myself that I was ready for the Camino de Santiago.
The bike path has been
built, with black top, along the old route of the train that used to go from
Sarlat into the deeper portions of the Perigord, so it has a gentle grade, goes
through impressive railroad cuts, and now and then enters a quaint town where
the train station has been turned into a café or a community center. It
reminded me a lot of the roads I biked from Montreal to Quebec oh so long ago.
Now and then there was a detour to join the streets, or a small hill to go
over, but in general it was the most sedate and beautiful path. At least on the
way out. On the way out, I realized that I had been following an overall down
slope, and of course anything that goes down must come up, so on the way back I
had to fight a pernicious (gentle but still pernicious) uphill slope. Like a
thief in the night, my right knee started complaining and my butt started
realizing that the narrow seat was not anatomically correct. I stopped a couple
of times to get the kink out of my knee by walking a few meters, and to drink a
glass of water, and to admire the view, and to take off my jacket, and to put
it back on when it started to sprinkle (never trust the météo).
Suddenly, I realized that the way back was taking me longer than the way out,
and a look at the watch told me that there was no way I was going to make it
back to catch the bus back (but if I didn’t take too many breaks, then I had
time to catch the train back).
Now and then I would
be passed by old timers riding electric bikes. Now, I consider that cheating
and shameful. What is the point of riding a bicycle that propels itself? They
might as well have taken the bus … grumble, grumble. Goodness, the way back seemed
a lot longer than the way out. Surely I had seen that café almost at the start
of the trip, and know it had teleported 10 kilometers down the old tracks.
At the end I made it
back in time to catch the train, and the hour it took to get back to Bergerac
was enough time for my muscles to cool down and start to ache, and for the knee
to declare itself in strike. This simple ride down the Camino de Santiago is
all of a sudden looking like a major expedition!
No comments:
Post a Comment