What goes down must come up.

Bonjour mes amis.

I'm in a slightly damp but sunny Montpellier today, Friday, after 3 days of mountain life. Huge thanks to my friends Chris and Sophie who have been fantastic hosts.

What a trip! The plan was to get some experience of the heat, the Cols, the climbs and the sheer suffering which I am likely to experience during the Etape on July 16th. I have had the lot.

I arrived on Tuesday, and by way of a warm-up Chris took me for a 40 mile ride out of Montpellier to a nearby landmark called Pic St. Loup. Chris is the opposite build to me. He is around 90kg and built like Tarzan(by comparison I'm 75kg and built like Jane). A sprinter rather than a climber, you could say by way of understatement. He's also recovering from a damaged medial collateral knee ligament, so has not done a huge amount of cycling in the last few weeks. Having said that, he only cycled up Mont Ventoux last Saturday with his local velo club so he can't be that unfit, can he?
The early part of the ride was reasonably flat, but like all power merchants, Chris set a fast pace and dragged me along in his wake.We soon left the crazy French cars behind and started ascending for about 7 miles before cresting the climb and stopping for some photos.The heat was oppressive, about the mid-thirties, and it's amazing how much fluid one needs to drink. More of that later.We met quite a few other cyclists on our ride, and on the way back came across the local gendarmes and firemen at the site of an accident. One of the superfit old boys from Chris' club had hit a car and been carted off to hospital apparently. He was concussed, but is OK.

So, back to Montpellier, at a steady 25mph. A perfect 'warm-up' ride.
Like all beautiful multi-lingual French babes, Sophie came fully equipped with her own chalet up in the mountains, so after dinner and a bottle of champagne Chris and I loaded up the car with our cycling stuff and headed off to the Cevennes region, about 90 minutes away. This is an area of National Park, centered around Mount Aigoual. It's not monstrously high, we're not talking glaciers here, but don't scoff. It's plenty high enough. yes indeedy.

After the exertions of the day, the flight, the early start etc. this wasn't the most pleasant or relaxing drives to undertake late at night. The road began to climb and climb forever. I was fighting the fatigue and struggling to keep us on the road as we negotiated endless ridiculously steep switchback bends in the pitch black. I was very relieved when we made it to Camprieu around midnight to a beautiful chalet nestling amongst the trees. Suffice to say, I slept like a log, looking forward to an epic days riding.

Wednesday dawned hot and sunny, and unfortunately we were too tired for an early start. This wasn't ideal because we would inevitably be out in the worst heat of the day. We strolled into the village for coffee and croissants, and Chris was able to consult the local shop-owner/cyclist regarding suitable routes for our intended day of riding. I was very mindful of the drive-up the mountain the night before which had been simply endless climbing. I tried not to think about it, because the views of the surrounding mountain peaks and plunging valleys were beginning to psyche me out. Were we really going to ride up those?

The day began with about 5 miles of reasonably comfortable climbing, bearing in mind that the longest climb that I've ever done before this week is about 1 mile. Then we descended for an incredible 26 miles! Now, obviously there is a technique involved in negotiating long descents with their inevitable corners and bends, and now was the time to perfect it.
Lessons to remember. Break early, choose your line, use your weight to help countersteer and try to look through the turn. Avoid loose gravel, lizards, fallen rocks and les crazy francais voitures. We tried not to kill ourselves, tried not to melt the brake blocks, and tried not to exceed 45mph. As exhilarating as this high-speed run was, I was only too aware that there was only one way back, and what goes down must go back up. You know that feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach? Furthermore, every time it flattened off a little, Chris pedalled like a demon to keep our speed up, so it wasn't even as if we were conserving energy. He's a monster.

So, after 90 minutes or so we reached a village called Pont de Herault (I think) and we stopped for a quick break. Chris is diabetic, so we had to keep an eye on his blood sugar. He manages himself incredibly well, but you can imagine that extreme cycling, heat and dehydration can play havoc with your glucose metabolism. Plus ingesting energy drinks and powerbars with their complex carbohydrates. We visited the boulangerie for a very tasty apple turnover, refilled our water bottles by the church, before readying ourselves for the climb.

I have to admit, I felt like the condemned man enjoying his final meal, faced with the knowledge that I had just been descending on my bike for almost an hour. Chris also admitted that he was a little worried. He was unsure of our intended route, and had never been up this way before.

La Luzette lay between us and home. Fear of the unknown? You bet. And the heat. Did I mention the heat? So far you're thinking a 20-odd mile descent must have been a lot of fun? We haven't got to the suffering bit yet. There will be a lot of that in the next installment.

More tomorrow.