The music of life

Three days of good, head-high waves out here on the far western tip of Breizh. This country’s very like Cornwall: windswept open moors or fields, tight little valleys with trees huddled in the bottom, granite coasts, low houses.

Just down the road is a beach with at least three names. An attempt by local surfers to keep its identity obscure? More likely the product of being somewhere with two languages, and an uneasy relationship with the rest of France. The local Mairie has a plaque outside, noting that two deputies from this region voted NON to Pétain’s accommodation with the Germans in 1940.

The surfers here are the usual mish-mash: kids practising aerial 360s in the shorebreak, older gentlemen on larger boards (more and more, stand-up paddleboards), everything in between. You couldn’t, in your wildest dreams, say the surf was busy. I haven’t seen more than 20 people in the water, in conditions that would have an equivalent British beach looking like a sea of fibreglass.

I’ve been riding my 6’4” Bear Wombat. It’s a board that has a particular feel to it. The soundtrack in my mind when I’m riding it is always the late, great Michael Petersen in Morning of the Earth: all pivoty, jangly 70s fun. Though obviously there's less hair, less style, less speed, and quite a lot less heroin involved in my version than MP’s.

In an attempt to give the board a different soundtrack (Sure Feels Good by Brian Cadd wears thin after a while), I’ve been experimenting with different fin setups. (Apologies to non-surfers reading this: just skip to the photo of the food, if you prefer.) The results so far:

1) Single-fin only: slow, boring, ponderous – some Wagnerian overture, or one of those mind-numbingly endless guitar solos by Lynyrd Skynrd.

2) Full-size FCS side fins, but nothing in the middle: unreliable, frivolous, you shouldn’t like it but you do – it’s got to be Middle Period Kylie, some time around I Just Can’t Get You Out Of My Head. Or maybe the Pussycat Dolls' Don't You (Wish Your Girlfriend Was...). 

3) Proper Mark Richards twin fins: fast, zippy, snappy – no-brainer, it's Acid 8000 by Fatboy Slim.

4) Thruster setup, made possible by Ade Keane, a well-respected former shaper who got tired of the toxic fumes of board manufacture. I was telling him how I wanted to try a thruster setup, but couldn’t because an FCS centre fin wouldn’t work in the longboard-style finbox. Two days later, a thing of great beauty (albeit to a very specialized audience), shown left, turned up on my doorstep: a handcrafted fin. Merci beaucoup, Ade. I haven’t tried this fin combo in good waves yet, but I have high hopes the opening chords of The Ace Of Spades will start to play as I paddle for the first wave.

Meantime, yet more beauty. Yes, my Glamorous Companion – but also, look at that fish supper! Without going into detail, it tasted as good as it looked – apart from the cockles. Why do they always have to put in a bum note like that? An Islamic stitch?

Back in business

We apologise for the interruption to our service over the last 6 weeks. The author has been cloistered in a low-ceiling cottage in Dorset, alternately banging his head on the beams and writing Swim Better, Swim Faster (Bloomsbury, available in all good bookshops next year).

Manuscript sent to publisher this afternoon, van being packed up tomorrow, Eurotunnel on Friday, and we're back on the road. First stop, Brittany. Whoo.

President Claude

“No no – you must stay another night and ride with Claude and his friends in the morning. He is the President!” Too good to miss: a club run with the Vaison la Romaine bike club in the morning, a bit of wandering around Roman ruins with my glamorous companion in the afternoon, a quick ascent of Mt Ventoux tomorrow, then home.

At 8.00 a.m. the next day I’m feeling self-conscious about my lowly Cannondale. It doesn’t even have a four-figure price tag, for God’s sake. On a quick tally up, the 30-odd bikes gathered in the car park have a total value of about €75,000.00.

Fortunately one or two of the riders aren’t, without wanting to be unkind, quite as lightweight as their machines. Isn’t it the way? Start to feel relieved – at which point, my overweight safety net saddles up and rolls off on the débutants ride. What’s left behind is me, Claude, and a bunch of wiry old roadies with hair-free, sinewy legs and a kind of lean looseness that spells trouble. “Allez!” And we’re off.

Actually, they’re very gentle. They still screw me, with just short of 100 km in three hours of classic puncheur territory – but at least they’re gentle about it. I even get to top out a couple of climbs ahead of the pack, and take a few good pulls on the front of the chain gang that rolls through the last 25 km in about half an hour.

Next morning, 10 km into the climb from Malaucéne to the summit of Mt Ventoux, those pulls don’t seem like they were such a good idea. My aim of roaring up here like a mountain lion is long forgotten. This lion has mange and a thorn in its paw. Possibly also toothache and a touch of cat flu. Canine dysentery, even. This is a hard climb, almost all of it spent on the triple’s 30-tooth inner ring. A couple of times I have to look around to make sure no one’s watching, then click it on to the 28 at the back. Not a soul here – the road's closed – but I'm embarrassing myself.

The snow that blocks the road and forces a Torvill-and-Dean ice dance in cleated shoes almost comes as a relief. 2 km of tippy-toes later I’m out of the trees and into the lunar landscape of the summit dome. Spooky-lonely, like an old Doctor Who set – the ones that were all filmed in a deserted quarry somewhere in Hertfordshire, and which had the 7-year-old me hiding behind the sofa. Keep looking behind to make sure nothing’s creeping up on me. Must be the altitude.

From the top, rather than skid down across the ice I carry on across the summit and down to Bédoin. Anyone who races down here without shouting Whooooooooo! Woo-hoo! Whaaaaa! at least once just doesn’t have any love in their heart. Think of my friend Tim, the demon descender, who must have loved this. Miss the Simpson memorial, but that’s easily done at 70 kph on a sun-dappled road surface. Concentrate.

Bédoin very pretty; the ride back to Malaucéne over the Col de Madeleine even more so. Back at Vaison there’s just time before we go for President Claude to sandbag me one more time. “We drink a good beer, yes?” It turns out to be a Belgian leg-wobbler that makes steam spout from my nostrils and my feet start tingling, and sets me up nicely for the drive home.

[Bonus photo of the Sky boys shepherding Wiggins, B. through Castellane, on the way to victory in Paris-Nice:]

Altitude Inflation

Joy, joy, joy in the morning! The launderette at Colmars has opened again after a six-week break.

There are only two launderettes within driving distance of the cabin. One's 10 km down the valley in Colmars. It's a sweet little launderette, made all the sweeter when you notice that it has a bar attached. Even better, the bar is staffed by a friendly, welcoming, helpful landlady – not exactly a rarity in France, but not a commonplace either. You can nurse a grand créme or a pression through the hour-long wash, gorging on the free WiFi access madame gladly dispenses. If Heaven doesn't feel like this, I'll be giving it a very bad review on TripAdvisor.

The other launderette is 10 km up the valley in La Foux d'Allos. I HATE this place. If I met the owner, I'd tread on his toes really hard. Unless he was bigger than me. Or as big, actually. Or one of those nasty little fellers who come at you from below and are tougher than they look. Anyway, fifteen minutes in this place is enough to make you want to throw yourself under a piste-bashing machine.

It's also the worst example of Altitude Inflation I've ever come across. Down in Colmars (altitude c.1200 metres, at a guess) a machine big enough to wash an entire rugby team's away kit after a tour of Flanders in winter costs €6.00. Up in Foux, with an altitude gain of about 400 metres? €13.00. Yes: eleven English pounds, to do a load of washing.

Even lettuce doesn't increase in value that much as it gains height.

Snowbound

At last, a huge dump of snow hits the Mercantour National Park. The shopkeepers are dancing in the streets. Non-locals are appearing on the slopes. There's some off piste going down.

As a result of the off piste, I’m keeping the board-repair guy’s kids in private education. My record? Sunday morning: "Your board is ready, bien sur."  Sunday afternoon, I'm back in the shop: “Your feet: they have rock magnets, yes? Ha ha!” Well, apparently, yes.

Over a metre of snow falls overnight. It keeps coming, and we’re pretty much stuck in the cabin all day. I could go riding, but visibility’s pretty patchy even down here: up high it’ll be worse. Best to keep my powder dry for tomorrow.

So, things I’ve achieved while snowbound:

Sorted out the non-clickingness of the right-hand shifter on one of the road bikes. Because obviously that really needed doing, now it’s snowing.

Done a rubbish repair on the other snowboard. Fairly sure it’s going to drop out as soon as the board flexes.

Cleared the path down to the road (this is pre-cleared...)

And in the debit column, things I haven’t done while snowbound:

• Any work on my children’s novel

• Any ukulele practice

Console myself with the thought that at least I’m doing better than my companion. Still in her pyjamas at 3.30 p.m. 

In search of the rhythm

“When he was pedalling he had rhythm. I had tempo.” Stephen Roche, on climbing the Col de Joux Plan behind Robert Millar in the 1983 Tour de France. I’m still not sure what it means, but the quote came to mind unbidden this morning.

The route down the valley is a perfect warm-up for a climb. Slightly downhill, your legs spin fast even in a big gear. The cold makes it hard to feel my fingers by the time I reach the turn for Thorame Basse, but my road swings to the left, uphill and into the sun.

Like a lot of climbs in the Alps, the uphill pitch is steady but relentless. The road snakes rather than hairpinning, and at this time of the morning, with the sun low behind the mountain, it weaves in and out of the shade. There’s no traffic: the mountain silence, which has a different quality from other silences, bears in. Some pocket-bound thing in my jersey chinks with every pedal stroke.

I shift to a bigger gear a couple of times, wanting to push harder, but force myself to shift back down. The mountaineer Doug Scott used to say you should never forget that when you got to the top, you were only halfway home. Pretty quickly the road swings left and levels, and the little hamlet of La Colle St Michel appears ahead.

Last time this was the turnaround, but today I need more pain. Through the houses, back onto the big ring, on the drops, two fingers on the brakes. Down we go.

The descent from La Colle St Michel to Le Fugerét is – so far as I know – unremarked. Like a surfer who discovers a new break, I hope it stays that way. I swing down reckless, low over the front of the bike, railing each curve like a hard bottom turn, pushing out of the saddle for speed on every straight section. I notice someone’s laughing like a lunatic. “Haa-hahahaha!” It’s me.

A rude awakening from euphoria at the bottom, as I coast into France’s Least Friendly Village. A bunch of locals sit outside the café in the sun. “Bonjour, Messieurs et Dames.” No response, unless you count blank stares. Scurry in, get a coffee, come out again. A woman pointedly pulls the only spare seat toward her and puts her coat on it. No worries: that wall by the fountain looks plenty comfortable, thanks.

Climbing back on the bike with a scorched throat from too-hot coffee, I risk a photo. The general air of open-hearted friendliness is summed up by the gentleman second left. He lifts his cheek and farts – which I take it is not a local sign of respect. Whoever said it was better to travel than to arrive must have just arrived in Le Fugerét.

As the road leaves the village there’s a sign: La Colle St Michel 14km. Wish I’d bought some food. But my legs feel good – better than they should, considering how little riding I’ve done lately. Find a gear that needs a bit of effort to turn – this is what I backed off for earlier, and I don’t want to twiddle up it in a tiny gear. I want to roar up it like a mountain lion. Yes, an old one, possibly a bit mangy and with a dodgy knee, but a mountain lion nonetheless.

The road kicks here and there; instead of changing down, I concentrate on keeping the same cadence in the same gear. About halfway up, Stephen Roche whispers in my ear. Is this what he meant? Normally I’d shift to an easier ratio when the slope picks up, find a gear that keeps cadence and effort the same. Tempo. This is something else. Rhythm?

On the way home I pull into a little place called Beauvezer, to fill my bidon at the village fountain. There’s a war memorial on the wall nearby, so I wander over and read it. Stand frozen to the spot for several heartbeats. You could throw a stone from one side of this place to the other. A generation, gone.

Winter's Bone

There’s a farmhouse on the road through Villard Haut, tucked into a tight little corner of the road. It’s so far up that it looks down like a royal butler on Seignus, the highest settlement on the other side of the valley. I’m pretty sure it’s the last building on the way up the mountain.

This is one of those broken-down, added-to French mountain buildings where it’s hard to see where the habitable bits begin or end. Corrugated iron roofs, drunken walls with holes in, a large barking dog tied to a rope, incongruous lace curtains in a couple of windows, a snowmobile from about the time Jimmy Carter entered the White House. There are doors everywhere, but it’s not clear which one you’d knock on. First sight, Emma nailed it: Winter’s Bone.

This afternoon I wound my way up through St Brigitte in the van, toward the pull-in where you can park and walk into the mountains. On to Villard Bas, then a second-gear creep into Villard Haute. When I rode up here on a road bike on New Year’s Day, the road was clear enough for narrow tyres. There’s been a little snow since then, but really just windblown flocante.

Round the bend at Winter’s Bone, suddenly there’s thick, packed-down snow on the road. You can usually roll over this, especially with a two-tonne van bearing down on the tyres. Keep the gas pedal steady, and we seem good. Then the tyres start to spin a bit. OK – still moving forward. Then not.

It’s a strange sensation when something that normally does one thing – in this case, pressing on the gas pedal to move forward – apparently begins to produce an opposite effect. Suddenly two tonnes of van doesn’t seem such a great thing. Take a moment to reflect that the thing that was helping me by pressing the tyres down, gravity, is now the enemy. We slide back down what suddenly looks like a very steep, curved road, with a nasty, expensive, and possibly painful bang at the end.

A bit of brake pedal, a bit of handbrake – somehow movement eases, then stops. OK, good, think. Snow chains in the back. Foot off the brake pedal, and the van starts to slide again. Not good.

Sit with my foot back on the brake pedal, paralysed by stupidity and slow-wittedness for a moment. Shift into first gear, turn off the engine – thinking that I’m royally fucked if this doesn’t work, because the brakes are servo and I won’t get started again before we hit terminal velocity – and lift the clutch. Success: the front wheels lock. If you can call being precariously parked on an ice sheet in the middle of a road to nowhere success.

Scared, cold fingers make slow work of the anyway-laborious job of getting the chains on. Every second, I expect the van to skid back over my hand/arm/leg. Obviously the fact that I’m typing this demonstrates that a) it didn’t and b) the road home was successfully driven. “Chill out in the mountains,” they said, “it’s the most relaxing place.” Pah.

As I roll back past Winter’s Bone, a man who could be any age between 45 and 70 waits on a balcony. His sweater has holes in it, the baggy trousers he’s wearing were once some sort of grey colour. He’s trained a couple of strands of lank hair over a bare pate: people do have standards, even up here in the mountains. He’s been watching the whole thing.

I look over; he raises his beer bottle and nods.