My crazy first bike ride

So I had a really crazy first bike ride through the south of France. It all started 36 hours ago... This is going to be a long post because it was such a strange and awesome experience that I want to share it in detail with everyone.

I woke up yesterday at 9AM. I hung around the hotel until noon and then walked a mile or two to a food truck to get lunch. I'd had that food the night before, but it was probably the best Ive had since I got to France, so I needed to try it again as I realized when you find something that you absolutely love...it might be the last time you have it as well which is really strange to me. I then walked 6 or 7 miles to the bicycle shop with my loaded pack to finally get my new bicycle around 3PM. Since it was new to me I was real excited to use it so I rode it straight from the bike shop to the train station around 4PM as I was ready to get out of Toulouse and on with the trip! I got to the train station and asked what the best way to get to Rome with a bicycle would be. They were baffled/confused. They said in broken English "You want to get to Rome tonight!?" I explained that's where I'm heading, but I did not have to get there tonight in very broken French and English they could not understand...I just wanted to head in that direction. So they eventually were able to print me three itineraries...one from Toulouse to Avignon from 5:50PM Until 9:30PM, one from Avignon to Marseille 10:40-11:40PM, and one from Marseille to Italy 5AM - 10AM or so. With a bike, you can't use the more direct high speed trains..only the local ones which really slows you down, but it's actually pretty nice seeing the scenery on the long train rides. It's part of the fun...seeing new things. I got on the train and went to Avignon. Rode my bike around Avignon for an hour, then took the train to marseille and got in around 11PM last night. I was not sure if I would stay in marseille or what I would do. I heard Marseille was not the nicest city in the world. A good amount of crime and dangerous parts...but I've ridden in rougher places in the past and on a bicycle, you're generally pretty safe. I've never heard of someone randomly pushing someone over on a bicycle...but I'm sure it does happen. I have also ridden at night before many times and I enjoy riding at night. There are NO cars on the road which to me actually makes it a lot safer as long as you have lights. So I got to Marseille and checked out the scene to see if it would be worth staying... remember each night I stay in a hotel is another chunk off of my trip's length. The city looked nice, but I was really excited to get out in to the French countryside. So I decided to book a hotel in Six-Fours-Les-Plages France (as it's on the way to Cannes where the film festival is currently taking place, Nice which is supposed to be beautiful, and then of course Italy) and set my GPS to take me there. The hotel was booked for the next night as I was leaving the train station on my bike at midnight now once I got everything in order. This was supposed to be a 36 mile bike ride, but it turned out to be much, much longer and more difficult than I expected.

I had never used the bicycle GPS before and I never rode much in France. I have had years using a Garmin GPS in the car and figured it would not be much different. I began to ride and it quickly took me to a rougher neighborhood of Marseille which I completely expected. Right outside of the city center you generally have the rougher neighborhoods, then suburbs, etc. The neighborhoods I was in never looked so bad that I thought it was best to turn around. If they had, I would have. You can sort of tell by the level of spray paint, the types of cars, the look of the people, and the condition of the houses. Graffiti eventually covered all walls and even some of the houses and cars. The cars were old and beaten up...parked in yards, etc. so this was not the best area.... but the houses were not boarded up. There were still stores all around and all in all it looked like a fairly poor area, but still a normal functioning neighborhood... not the type of neighborhood where good people don't want to live any more. The windows were not broken, the houses were not boarded up, there weren't groups of people hanging out on street corners... it was an ok area to ride a bicycle through. My reasoning turned out to be alright as 20-25 minutes later, the spray paint began to disappear and the houses began having yards and the yards and houses began getting larger and larger...the houses then started having grape vines growing... then the houses became mansions and I was clearly out of the rough area and in to the expensive suburbs. At this point I began walking up steep hills to rest my legs in case I ended up back in a rougher area and needed to pedal. also, I had 12 hours to check-in time at my hotel so there was no rush and I wanted to take in the scene.

Now I was able to enjoy myself instead of being extremely cautious of my surroundings. I was in a very peaceful neighborhood in the South of France which is a place i've always wanted to see ever since a Star Trek episode where captain Picard visited his family's vineyard... too much information? Ok....well, It was beautiful...peaceful...the houses all have red clay shingles and gardens... lots of plants, gates at the end of every driveway...some were right on the road, some offset. Each with a unique look, but made out of the same earthy materials. It was really what you think of when you think French wine country, but in a small community town...except I was on the east side of the country so there are many mountains as you start to get in to the Alps. Also, keep in mind it was 1AM and cloudy so it was almost pitch black except for the lights on individual houses and my headlamp and headlight bouncing around off streets, signs, and foliage, etc. Many of the yards had dogs behind the 8-10 foot fences covered with vines. They barked at each other and me as I rode by, but luckily none of them could get out and chase me!

I ran in to three women in their 70's or so around 1:15AM or so, each walking a small dog and one of them yelled to me "Bonsoir!" and "something in French I didn't understand". I stopped and said "I'm sorry, I only speak english". The lady whom yelled called out "I speak english too. Where are you from?". "Boston" I said... "Massachusetts"...... "Ohhhhhhh Boston" she said "You're far away from home, where are you heading?" I told her I was heading to Nice (to be simple) and she was very surprised and happy to see my bike with all my bags, I think. I mentioned she was out very late to be walking dogs, but she didn't understand me. Then we ended with the usual French phrases... "Bonsoir", "Bonsoir" she said. I kept on my way through the nice neighborhoods.

After these neighborhoods, things became more serious very quickly. The roads became fierce and fast, very narrow within only a few kilometers. Luckily, it was night time, so there were literally 5 or 6 cars every hour and there were tons of street lights which lit up the road....that was very, very nice. I was able to learn the French roads and understand the bike space, read the signs, stop and take in my surroundings without crazy drivers flying past me. I got a feel for what it will be like when there are drivers in the road. I ended up on a road with 2 lanes and a cement divider. The speed limit was 90km/hr.... which... let me look it up.... is 56mph. I had about a 3 foot space on the right which is sufficient, but not comfortable. This space disappeared for certain stretches and I was very happy that I was trying this at night instead of the day with no cars to worry about.

And then...... my GPS told me "take the unpaved road on your right...200 feet". As I got closer and closer, all I saw was an old seemingly abandoned building. There was a dirt road on the right next to the building, but it went in to the woods and just looked like a big black hole in the trees. I pulled out my phone to take a picture for all of you. As I turned it on... the last of what was supposed to be 10% battery left in my iphone had failed and I was not able to take the picture which really frustrates me haha because this was a crazy scene. To my left, the divided highway I was on bright and lit up... and might still go where I need it to..... to the right... a dirt road with one of those train gates red and white which was lifted up as if it was safe to enter, maybe 5 feet wide but the gps says it's how I need to go to get where I'm headed. I decided to go left of course.

I kept riding down the divided highway "D8N" I believe it was, around rotaries, etc. which eventually turned in to "D1" I think it was. The road seemed simple enough...it was a paved road heading up a hill in the direction of the town I wanted to go to. The only strange part to me was all of the street lights disappeared so I had to once again use my headlamp to see. 

The road turned from a normal divided highway in to a one lane...winding, narrow, pitch black, cliffs on the right, mountains on the left, very steep mountain road. And it wasn't the nice kind of mountain road heading downhill.... it was uphill only... like I'd been excluded from the downhill club and I was only allowed to ride uphill out of punishment of some sort. Over the next hour I continuously and amazingly thought to myself that eventually I would be at the top of this hill and it would be a downhill ride, but it never was. I got to the next uphill and it sort of looked like there might be a downhill next but there was not. The temperature got cold and I had to start mixing walking with riding because my legs could not take riding uphill non stop for another hour. I stopped repeatedly to check my gps and make sure that I was still at least heading in the right direction, which I seemed to be, though the GPS continuously updated to tell me to take trails and unmarked hiking paths.

I realized that there were a ton of really bright stars in front of me. I stopped many times and shut off my headlamp to see the stars in more detail. When I shut it off, I not only saw probably some of the most stars I'd ever seen, but also my fear rose significantly of what animals were in the woods around me. I knew that I read earlier that the European wild animals were not very aggressive.... black bears, etc. that were more timid than aggressive, however being by yourself 4/5 or 3/5 up a giant mountain in the middle of the night with no one passing by for 30 minutes at a time.... you start to think maybe you missed the excerpt on the angry grizzly bear that eats anyone on top of this particular mountain peak when cars are not there to scare him away. In any case... the stars were awesome and I still felt pretty brave turning all of the lights off and staring at the stars..... for 5-10 seconds at least.

I kept riding upwards...still feeling like the downhill part of this mountain would be right on the other side of the next hill...but it never was... my feet started to get cold because the air was getting thin and I saw the bright reflection of my own moisture coming out of my mouth in the bright light of my headlamp and thought was snow... in actuality, it was probably only 35F-40F degrees out (65F when I left Marseille), but my toes were still cold. Oh and this whole time I had shorts on instead of pants. I thought the benefit of pants vs. the weight i'd have to carry in the pack and on the bicycle was not worth it as we shouldn't have cold days so I only packed shorts.

Every .5 miles or so...my GPS would tell me to take the next Unpaved road to the right or take the trail to the left. It's probably great for a mountain biker offroad... but for this case... It basically was useless in finding me the place I was heading to except thank god...you can pan the map and see where you are which is the only reason I didn't have to sit still for the sun to come up and wait for a cab to pass by.

Finally... I saw on the GPS map a major intersection was coming. I thought that might be the peak of the mountain and it was. There was a campsite at the top called Le Camp. I was angry at the unoriginality of the camp's name...but really I was mad at France for letting me get stuck like this on the top of their mountain because they did not work with Garmin to sort out the do's and don'ts of GPS guidance in this area..... however of course I know it was my own fault and I just wanted to get off of the mountain before my toes froze or I ended up getting stuck at the "Departmente of Var" which was also on the top of the mountain. I thought this as France's Area 51 at the time being in the middle of the woods on top of a mountain in the pitch black at the time. Right next to the sign there was a huge brick wall and gate. I found out later that's just their way of saying the province of Var which is named after the Var river.

In any case...it was all downhill from there. I rode down about 100 hills through farmland until I got to a Boulangerie et Patisserie or Bakery and Pastry Shoppe at 5AM. They didn't open until 6AM, but I had made the mistake which I will never make again of not bringing enough food or water on this trip. I was absolutely exhausted and dehydrated. I sat my bike next to the shop and freezing I pulled out my sleeping bag, sat on the sidewalk and went to sleep next to my bike for 1 hour... In a sitting stance of course so not to look homeless... saying bonjour to their delivery driver who left and came back every 15 minutes. At 6AM I went in to the bakery and got all the food and water I needed and from there I was good to go. I rode down through an awesome gorge with cliffs on both sides for quite a while.... traffic now picking up... until the gorge ended in the town I'm at now and Voila (There you go).