May 15, 2025
To Annecy
So here's a short but consequential ride report followed by a bit of news, also consequential.
Today's ride
Today we finally arrive at the northern end of this peculiar loop, for the start of another regional mini-tour. This one has been in the planning for quite a long time, perhaps for a half-year or longer. I forget now where this idea originated, but I'm pretty sure it was either with Susan or me when we started brainstorming where we might cross paths on our European tours this year. Once a concept was hatched though it wasn't long before we roped Suzanne and János into the plan, and later Jacquie and Al. In the end, it was designed as a two week tour. With Suzanne, János and Susan we'd travel from Annecy to Pont en Royans, with layovers in Chambery and Grenoble. Al and Jacquie will meet us in Pont en Royans going in the other direction, on their way east toward the high Alps. And at the end we'd bike west to Valence with Susan, where she'd catch one train back to Paris and we'd catch another up to Briançon at the summit of the Alps, our launching pad for a drop into Italy and across the Piemonte to Milan where we'd catch the train back to Bari to retrieve our suitcases and fly to London.
In Pont en Royans we planned to stage what we believe is the largest CycleBlaze meetup to date in Europe. And beyond that we planned another CycleBlaze meetup near Milan with Lyle and Kirsten, coming west from Slovenia at the end of their tour.
All these other folks have their own blogs going, so you can get other perspectives on how all this goes - as well as follow them along if you aren't already:
- Susan: Circling the Hexagon
- Suzanne and János: Southeast France: Mounrains and Lakes
- Jacquie and Al: Les Grandes Alpes
- Lyle and Kirsten: Oh, the palaces You'll Go - 2025
So, today's ride. There's not much to say about the ride itself, an easy nine miles from our hotel last night to the Valence TGV station for our ride to Valence. I assure Rachael that if we leave by 9:30 we'll arrive in plenty of time for our 1:15 departure. The ride is reasonable enough but it's largely through Valence and its suburbs, on reasonable bike paths the whole way. Because they mostly parallel busy arterials though it's not the most esthetic experience and doesn't really warrant any photos or videos. It's just a ride.
They're pretty slow stop-and-go miles with many stoppages for red lights or to figure out the right way across one busy traffic circle after another, so we don't arrive at the TGV station until shortly after noon - still, in plenty of time for our departure, and in time for lunch at the excellent snack bar inside the terminal. When we arrive I eye the departure board and see that our departure to Annecy isn't listed yet, so we proceed to park our bikes against a wall, find a table, and reel in some pastries. I have a quiche Lorraine and an almond/raspberry tart, and Rachael has a sandwich.
While we eat we periodically check the departure board to see if our gate has been announced yet, until I'm shocked to see the Annecy departure listed and flashing because it leaves at 12:26, and is just departing. So we miss the train again! And it's entirely my fault - I mentally scremble the actual departure time of 12:26 with the arrival time of 3:15. And the real fault is a mistake we (I especially) seem to be making over and over again of not verifying some important detail because I'm certain that I know - because in the past I did (nearly always) know. I don't know if it's still a prednisone effect, but I'm often wrong now; and try as we might, we haven't retrained ourselves to always verify some detail like this. It's beyond frustrating, really.
Fortunately we have tickets good for all day and the next train leaves in two hours - still early enough for us to arrive in time for our dinner date with our friends - so other than the embarrassment and frustration it's just a matter of cooling our heels here in the terminal instead of our apartment in Annecy.
We make it down to our departure platform with nearly 45 minutes to spare. While we wait Rachael looks up and then points out a bird that just alit on the fence across the tracks. There's barely time for me to pull out the phone and get a shot off before he disappears, much too soon for me to pull our the Canon for a better closer-up.
2:26 comes and we board our train. We grab the closest of several bike cars on the train, claim the only two hangers on the car, and take our seats. For the next two and a half hours we take turns napping, reading, and staring out the window. The whole ride passes through spectacular country, essentially following the route we plan to bike in the other direction in the coming days.
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About midway through the journey two more bikes come board, and since the hangers are occupied they get leaned against the folded-up seats across the aisle from us. Then they leave and another man gets on with a more complicated load - his bike, a bike trailer, and his 3-1/2 year old daughter with her bike. I watch with a mixture of admiration and envy as he calmly and good-naturedly manages the situation, interacting patiently and lovingly with his delightful daughter while he wrestles all of his equipment into place and settles in. Young parents like this are me just a bit awe-inspiring now - where do they find all this energy and adaptability! And it invokes feelings of wistfulness because I was a figure somewhat like that too, 20 years ago. It's like looking back now in awe at Rachael's and my biking accomplishments in our strongest years, especially right here in these Alps. How did my younger self find the energy and patience for all that?
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It's a complicated scene when we arrive at Annecy, and it's a good thing that it's the end of the line and the train will be here for the next fifteen minutes. It's a situation that calls for cooperation as we get the bikes, baggage and the girl off the train while other departing passengers are trying to thread through also. Rachael mostly helps with the lifting at first because she's stronger and has two functional knees, but then she gets reassigned to watching the girl and I do the best to help unload the rest of the catastrophe without destroying my legs.
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But finally we're off the train. The guy (who we've learned is a serious bike traveler from Switzerland - before the girl arrived, he and his wife bikepacked through the mountains of Columbia and Peru) and his daughter cycle off, and we load up our bikes in preparation for the short four block ride to our hotel.
And then we discover that Rachael has a flat front tire. And then I discover (Patrick will love this) that the bolt has pulled through the cracked board that stiffens the back of my pannier again, after I first noticed it was cracked over a year and a half ago. This brings back to mind the fiasco back in Portland when we couldn't pack our bikes for the flight to Tucson without removing the front wheels because I thought I had left the pedal spanner in Barcelona - remember that stupid story? I had it all along, but looked for it in the wrong pannier - one of the older ones I yanked out of storage by mistake rather than the ones that went to Europe with us. And then on top of all that I had a plan for those old panniers that I forgot about when the time came - to scavenge them for a replacement for the broken one.
So we manage to strap my pannier to stay on the bike, and Rachael's leak is slow enough that she can ride it so we walk/ride to our apartment four blocks away and get the keys from the lockbox hanging on the bike rack across the street, but then we find that the key won't open the front door to our building. Someone opens the door and lets us in, fortunately, and Rachael walks up to the third floor to validate that the key to our room works, so at least we're inside. I send a message to our host, who apologizes for not testing the new key she just has cut and says she'll be by in a half hour with a fob to replace it.
Which is fine, except that it means we'll be late for dinner so I call Susan to give her a heads up, and then we take the bike to the elevator and find this:
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I can hardly believe it. This one too is too small to fit either bike in without removing the handlebar stem. At least I've more or less got the right technique down, but still. Between that and the agony of walking the quarter mile to the restaurant, it's all too much, the proverbial last straw.
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The end of the road
So this is it. After we return to the apartment Rachael and I talk it through and have no difficulty agreeing that it's time. I haven't really talked as much as I might about how my knees are doing, but they really are terrible and getting worse week by week. They're bad enough that my walking radius has gotten reduced to just a few blocks because it's just getting too painful to walk. And it's painful to come to gorgeous places like Annecy and not really being able to appreciate them because I can't cover much territory and I can't look up easily and I just can't mask the discomfort enough to appreciate the experience. It's obviously time - past time, really. Knowing what we know now, if I hadn't been busy going blind this winter maybe I would have realized it then.
So that's sad. The news isn't all bad though. On the vision side, I'm doing well. My blood test results continue to be encouraging, and I've dropped my prednisone to 15 mg/day. I'm less swollen and bloated, and it feels like I'm on the road to recovery and hopefully an end to prednisone in my life. I'll always have to deal with the fact that I've got monocular vision and a large blind spot, but that feels manageable. It still feels like a blessing that I've been left with the sight I still have.
We're still detailing out the plan - especially how to manage retrieving our suitcases from Bari, a good three or four days journey by train to the south of us; but once that's resolved we'll book a flight home, book lodgings in Portland, and schedule an appointment with my PCP for some fresh knee X-rays so we can get a plan together. I suspect that we'll fly home by the end of the month, but at a minimum it means first Spain, and then England, and now northern Italy have all been scrubbed from this year's plan, long with hopes for another 300 bird year. At this rate I'll be doing well to break 200.
So what does this mean for our vagabond life, and for this journal as far as that goes? Beats the hell out of me, but we'll probably drag this out at least long enough to get a plan from the knee-replacers before changing much of anything. With luck there will still be some riding and biking to be reported on, but time will tell.
Today's ride: 9 miles (14 km)
Total: 694 miles (1,117 km)
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| Comment on this entry | Comment | 29 |
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Have you heard of furnishedfinders.com? It’s another option for extended stays. There are quite a few in Tucson. Friend Bonny uses them.
Cheers to you on doing what is best.
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Never quit exercising!
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Assuming they're both done, I plan to do them separately and then we'll hole up somewhere attractive while I rehab - Tucson in the winter would be perfect of course, if the timing is right.
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