May 21, 2022
A medal is in order
I THINK a medal is in order. The Great Star of the People. Or the Sacred Chamois of Bygone Saints. I shall have to think about it.
These Eurovélo routes don't come from a moment's map-doodling. Someone has to know not just the quiet lanes but the tracks and paths too narrow for drivers but wide enough for the donkey outline of a man with panniers.
Such maps belong in council offices. They may show up on GPS maps, but to use a GPS is to numb your brain and let a battery and diode do the thinking. It finds the shortest route. But cycling is not to take the shortest route, efficiently, charmlessly; to follow roads that only cyclists know is to tour, to enjoy, to explore and not just submit.
We haven't ridden far to reach Trébéden. I also know we haven't ridden in a straight line. We have ridden more to see more and - so far as traffic is concerned - to avoid more.
We never intended to ride far. Nor have we pottered light-headedly. Instead, we have risen and we have fallen, time and again. If you average one per cent of gradient all day, you will have climbed enough to cross the Tourmalet. The Tour de France suffers when it passes that way.
We haven't ridden all day and we haven't ridden as fast. But we have nevertheless climbed more than one per cent today, just as we did yesterday and will no doubt climb again tomorrow.
The rising sun cast a soupy light over the sea when I looked at it through the unzipped tent this morning. If the waves were curious last night, they had lost interest by morning and retreated the depth of the sand and now they played among themselves in the distance.
Small white boats sighed at their reflection. At night they pointed one way, by morning the other. It has always been so.
We looked down on Celtic bays as we rode, one with a fisherman's graveyard.
Then came abandoned roads left to their fate, and hedges hiding the occasional offended cow, distracted by the chit-chattering of our tyres on stones and holes.
We stopped in early afternoon, happy with our morning. From near here you can walk out to rock islands when the tide obliges. We may do that tomorrow. I doubt it, though. It sounds fun but it also sounds like what you do when you arrive by car with fresh legs and a need to do something, to justify the journey.
For the moment, life is plenty good enough. Good enough for a medal.
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1 year ago
1 year ago
Oh how I am jealous. Brittany is one of my favorite places, and you two have it all to yourselves, while I have none for me.
And amen to your GPS comment. Lost is what a traveler never is.
Cheers,
Keith
1 year ago