Riding through the forest was simply divine.
Just a short soundtrack of my day!
Sloooow down Tuesday:
Having made the decision to take a leaf out of Daniels book and slow down, I awoke with a calmness which has been missing. Knowing I could do my 85k and feel ok about it was refreshing! After an excellent petit dejeuner with my hosts, I set off to enjoy the day. I listened to podcasts, stopped to take photos and drink coffee, and generally reflected on a number of things, something which had gone astray in recent weeks. I had forgotten what all this was about. It had become about the destination not the journey, about emptying myself and in the process missing the bloody point…and then feeling so wrecked as to simply want to sleep! I’ve spent a career doing that, as well as spending a life dominated by seeking external validation. Lessons on this trip come from the strangest of places!
It was an utterly enjoyable day, full of off- road tracks, forest roads and cycle paths, though the open fields threw up their own challenge of strong cross winds! I stopped for lunch in a small crossroads/cross track in the middle of a forest…a moment to savour. I found myself just being happy to be on the bike and in my own head, reflecting on how old habits are so stubbornly rusted on. The urge to keep pushing on, to do huge distances, when actually that stops me from really enjoying the experience.
I loved this quote in reading Bessels book (again!)
‘Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer’
Rainer Maria Rilke
I love the idea of ‘loving the questions’…and not trying to answer them!
Slowed down: Wednesday
I don’t think anything prepared me for todays riding experience. I had heard about the ‘haut vente’ of the Loire – winds that whip across the wide open plains of central France. Well they didn’t disappoint 🥲. I remember doing a 62k climb in Malaysia to the Cameron Highlands. Today was a 64k ‘climb’ except with almost zero elevation!
Kilometre after kilometer the wind smacked in to the side of the bike which has the aerodynamics of a shipping container! Hour after hour at 15kph….expending huge amounts of energy to go nowhere is soul destroying. With a cadence of 90-100 it’s exhausting simply to stay upright and whenever there was a slight downhill my speed would increase by a measly 2-3kph and then only with pedalling. If I freewheeled I think I’d have been pushed back up the hill 🤣. At least when you’re climbing there’s a sense of elevation, scenery, the challenge of the climb. Here….”boring as batshit”, as the Aussies would say. It was the French equivalent of the Nullabor! I must confess to simply hating it. There was no enjoyment whatsoever….nothing to see, except seeing the road disappear across the plain knowing you had to get across to that horizon only to be greeted with….more of the bloody same! A lesson in mental fortitude and bloody mindedness 😊. I arrived at my Warm Showers host utterly stuffed. But nothing that a hot shower, food and a warm bed won’t resolve!! Rest day tomorrow- after 8 days of cycling (admittedly some days only being short ones) my body, mind and soul need a break!
My hosts adorable cat!
They make very small coffees here but it’ll put hairs on your chest 🤣
The French equivalent of the Nullabor (emphasis on ‘bor’!
Lunch break in a forest hut 🛖
Incredible autumnal colours.
My lovely hosts
Well it has been a great read, we are back home and ready to follow your blog once again….love the photos too
Take care dear friend