Author: Rob Ainsley

From Sault, the summit of Mont Ventoux looks trivially close (pic). And not that much higher. Indeed, Sault is the easiest of the three options for base camp towns for the climb every cyclist wants to do, being the highest (700m) and having the shallowest road to the summit (5%). And the best facilities for…

My cheapo place last night should have been called Hotel California. It was almost impossible to leave. The only exit east was a motorway bikes are banned from, or an absurd backtrack on scruffy lanes through retail and industrial estates. The only sensible way to get out of North Avignon’s badlands was by a short…

An easy day of flat cycling with tailwinds and in excellent company. (In other words, English cycle-tourists.) Among vineyards, which helps. The Rhone isn’t the world’s most picturesque river to cycle alongside (pic), though it was enhanced by classical French sights: countless vineyards, and a nuclear power station. A short length of cycle path (pic)…

Today I crossed into the South of France. In the morning I was wearing woolly hat and gloves to skirt the Cévennes out of Villefort; in the afternoon I was baking under a hot cloudless sky. I was about the only person baking, though. On Monday it seems almost all the boulangerie-patissiers close. My breakfast…

An easy day today, the first half uphill in the Lot valley, the second half one long downhill. I slipped out of Mende – which is something of a mountain biking hub – this morning via the Old Town, where several shops have the same pro-cycling-message sticker in their window (pic). Not that this passer-by…

The longest and hardest day of the whole trip today: 74 miles’ riding (whatever that is in kilometres) and 1600m of vertical climb (whatever that is in rods, poles or perches). After a dawn start I cycled alongside the Lot for a couple of hours on a misty, damp, atmospheric morning (pic). If you look…

A tedious start to the day, parcelling up and sending home the camping stuff that I won’t be using now that I’m tentless. Then I took a wrong turn and ended up on a main road for ten miles… But it got better. Much better. Better even than the raspberry crumble custard cake thing I…

Despite drizzle all day, the fabulous scenery more than made up. With over 1,000m of climb, so it should have. Things started flat enough, though, with this pleasant railtrail (pic) out of Sarlat. The smooth tarmac and lack of gradient made my bike feel much lighter. Actually, it was lighter. When I unpacked the tent…

A whole day’s rain-free cycling, despite forecast storms, on main roads. My morning coffee stop was in the town of La Douze, where they’d festooned the main street with these beautiful flowers (pic). Until I looked closer, and realised they were plastic bags. There’s an environmental disaster coming when they decommission this lot. An easy…

My progress down west-central France continued with a day of mile-eating on lightly-trafficked main roads under cloudy, sometimes drizzly, English-like skies. The theme continued in the picture-postcard Dordogne town of Brantôme (pic). I wondered why so many French visitors had such drab dress sense and spoke such clumsy English. Then I realised they were English….