June 14, 2025
Day 13 - Ruoms to Bernas
Too much climbing on a really, really HOT day
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When we left on this tour, we were in the middle of spring in the south of France. Cool, raine weather with a good dose of wind. Now, after 2 weeks on the road, we’re in full-blown summer weather. Hot, hot, hot. The cicadas are chirping like crazy, and you really don’t want to be out in the afternoon sun. Except we’re riding a bike all day…
Today was pretty brutal. On paper, it was just barely the hardest day of our tour. More vertical than we’ve ridden by a couple of hundred meters, and fairly long for us (64km). But when you try to do that in the summer heat of southern France, everything gets more difficult.
We were down for breakfast at the crack of 0830 - the earliest they would serve breakfast at Sous le Tilleul. Another beautiful breakfast - we even got « pain perdu » i.e. French Toast! We managed to get away from our hosts at around 0930h, and cycled through the cool morning air of Ruoms as the local merchants were setting up for a day of selling stuff to tourists
We merged onto a fairly busy road that started with a good shoulder and then had a less good shoulder. All the drivers were polite and careful with us, though, and we sailed into Vallon-Pont-d’Arc in good shape. Vallon-Pont-d’Arc looked a lot like Ruins, but on a hill. Similar vendors, all setting up in the morning sun.
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We pushed on to the parking area and walked down to look at the Pont d’Arc, a natural bridge that spans the Ardèche river. Lots of river users on this Saturday morning, swimming in the river and floating by in kayaks.
The light wasn’t the best from the north side of the bridge, so we went a bit further along and snapped some photos from the south. Much better light - the trip photographer approved.
Tourism completed for the moment, we turned our attention to the primary difficulty of the day - the ascent of the Selle du Tourre. According to RideWithGPS, this climb is 2.9km long and averages 9%. Rich was sure we were in for a 2.5km walk.
But amazingly, team Schnooks powered our way up that sucker! We stopped 4 times, but we pedaled Every Friggin’ Inch of it, arriving at the belvedere at the top to absolutely no acclaim from the picture snappers accumulated there. We were proud of ourselves, though! This might be the lowest col sign we’ve snapped, but it was among the toughest we’ve ever ridden.
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1 day ago
In our minds, or at least in the mind of the route maker, we had a nice downhill coast all the way to Saint-Martin-d’Ardèche. But that was not to be. We had many, many sharp climbs to contend with and with the loaded tandem and the rising heat, we were struggling. We stopped for a few of the overlooks to take pictures, but despite the views, we eventually lost interest in everything except getting down off the dang mountain.
It seemed like forever before the town sign for Saint-Martin-d’Ardèche appeared. We soggily coasted into the quiet town and targeted the “Juicy Bar”, where we immediately found the coolest corner, ordered cool drinks, and powered down a full carafe of water. We had a nice lunch of French Tacos (more like Mexican burritos than tacos, but with frites in them…don’t ask…) and the nice young man behind the bar refilled our water bottles with beautiful cool water.
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We couldn’t stay in the Juicy Bar for the whole afternoon, although it was tempting. We walked out into the sweltering afternoon, pushed the bike up the street, waited for the traffic signal, and rode across the Ardèche on the one-lane bridge. Then turned right towards the beau village of Aigüèze. And immediately were confronted with a climb. With no shade. In the heat….
Somehow we got ourselves into Aigüèze and in a feat of superhuman willpower, Robin scoured the town while Rich sat with the bike on a shaded park bench. It’s a lovely town, but in the heat it was a bit difficult to appreciate it.
We had 14km left to get to our accommodation for the night, so we once again hit the very hot road. At this point we were pretty toasted and the 3-5% grades on the hills put us into some of our lowest gears. The hills seemed never-ending, but eventually we hit the top and coasted 6km downhill to the turnoff to the village of Bernas. Which was uphill. Ouch.
When we got within .5km of the hotel, we just decided we’d had enough and we started walking. We were actually astounded that we’d actually made it to the endpoint of our route! Les Clos des Sully looked like a mirage. Or a miracle.
We stumbled into the coolness of the beautiful old building and were swept up by a lovely hostess who helped us carry all of our bags up to the room, where the air conditioning was already running. Bliss. Schnooks got relegated to a covered storage area.
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It took us a while to clean up. Rich had to rest up to gather enough energy to take a shower. But we eventually wandered downstairs and got drinks from the bar. The restaurant area extends through a beautiful courtyard and out into a lovely covered terrace. The restaurant team was setting up for the dinner service but they told us to just pick an unset table anywhere. Which we did - in the shade.
We sat and hydrated and chatted until our dinner reservation time. We found our room name on one of the tables, set down, and had a great dinner in the courtyard. We had just enough energy left to climb the stairs to our room. At this point we’re wondering whether we have the energy to pedal anywhere tomorrow.
Let’s see what a good night’s sleep can do!
Today's ride: 65 km (40 miles)
Total: 624 km (388 miles)
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1 day ago