Summer now someplace far behind, a distant memory, naked on a beach. Byways of rural France, sticky heat, sharp lung rasping sears on inclines through run down villages. Over priced cafes, water and fruit, sandwich fromage for the day at the stops I’m forced to make.
My legs ache, and on long climbs my right knee feels even worse. Skin burns beneath over long exposure to continental sun. I revel in warm freedom, shorts and jersey from morn to evening. I’d forgotten the sensual nature sitting astride this thin steel and titanium machine, companion of sanity and escape since childhood. I’d raise my body stretching feline like, gripping bars firmly careered down long descents on well banked roads, thin hard tyres bouncing over sticky bubbled tarmac. Exhilaration. Breaking sharply, cranking this too heavily weighed machine into bends. Streamlined body parallel to top tube watching computer log up miles per hour not peddling.
Dancing on pedals, turning legs becoming brown as old memories return at speed, muscular hollows and defined sinew. Michelin map checking old routes first travelled decades previously. Then discovered France deserted, land of bountiful nature, wilting sunflowers, exhaustion and dehydration, though I never stopped drinking and fat fried off me in the searing heat wave of seventy five.
Welcoming municipal camp sites. Pitch tent first then a shower alternating hot and cold water until my skin cools and I feel able to dry my aching, limp body. After eating I repose beneath my lightweight nylon waterproof cocoon fixed into baked earth by aluminium pegs. My heart hardly appears to be pumping blood in waking state as I sink quickly into a state of unfeeling unconsciousness leaving no prints of my mortal presence. My body’s shrouded in a plum maroon sleeping bag, long zipped. Cast off sweat stained clothing my pillow, small torch within easy reach. Notebook partially scribbled aide memoire to the day’s events: record of distance, average speed, hours astride my steel horse. Odd comments, my reflections on this journey alone heading south Arthurian like clanging chain over miles of narrow highways beneath azure sky.
Welcomed in Normandy as liberator. Fifty years belatedly reliving war to banish aggressor from lush pasture’s rolling hills. National and regional flags hang from house to civic building, cotton bright colours of symbolic aspirations bowed on breezeless days of everlasting July sunshine. Newly named streets and places in English. Debts honoured freshly inscribed with British, American and Commonwealth names, regiments and ranks. Potted histories of military thrusts eastwards, inventories of causalities and deaths. Northern medievalism, stone rock hard, smote kindness, dug deep into my soul reminding me of loneliness. Kicked hard on pedals, matt black, after in clear town square fountains, drank my fill of antiquity. Wheels turn France, swallows my physical pain, enveloping me in expansive emotions and pride, memory and collective connections. Celebrations fade as my mind turns onto my destination: forest and sand.
Fresh ambition awakes as I mull through the route over breakfast. Pack my tent, cover my exposed body with sun protection. In the years since last time I’d forgotten dehydration’s toll; lip cracked salt mixes with breakfast’s fine pastry. With myself I dialogue each mile, egging my body into greater physical stress adding another mile to those already completed since day break. Saddle soreness immobilises unrealistic keenness to remove years from my age and relive thirties fitness. Day ending sunset slips beneath the hill I’d climbed to pitch my tent, transports me through the night searching recuperation.
Southerly each day. Another forty miles clicked off. The map, biro marked each night, records my Michelin guided route. It’s not possible to drink enough fluid. My daily stops centre around water, cafes, or roadside shops if the mood takes me. Gulp down ice coldness. I make ninety miles the third day crossing the Loire. Two more days each of seventy five miles. Forests become deeper, hills flatten, villages approaching Cognac poorer, more depressed, the roofs red, Mediterranean. Norman sentiments long forgotten. Neat rows of vine, quieter roads, crossing the Gironde at Blaye enter Medoc. Relax over a celebratory café plate du jour, soon my journey will end. Push on through the hundred mile barrier. The terrain is flat, limbs ache, tiredness fights a guerrilla war to sap me to force surrender to the exertion and weakness I feel.
Long straight roads. Parallel lines rise to meet the horizon, mirage wet tarmac. Miles tick off slowly. Now the sun once high and baking on my face is sinking and forest cool air refreshes me. Fatigue is temporarily allayed, a svelte deer scamps across the road. I revel in the secret life of the forest: a huge grin jogs spirituality, I dream of forever living deep within its morn and dawn dampness. Sun drenched late afternoons, filtered light shafted towards earth. Irrigation pipes spray water over reclaimed sand light fertile soil full of maize and reforested pines, I deliberate ride through them, drenched, my skin glistens coolly.
I peer at my arms my legs now deepening brown. Drink water, lower a gear clanking in the process, echoing in the quietness of the forest. Stretch my whole body high from the saddle and blue frame burdened with bags, sense satisfaction as I see the first sign to my destination. Pressing on victorious I greet old friends, pitch tent, organise my possessions, shower and sleep.
