By Greg Dickinson
Griffon vultures with wingspans pushing three metres will circle high above newborn goats in the Gorges du Verdon. Countless dogs will chase me from the safety of their front gardens.
Between here and there I will feel every contour, and glide down some of the best downhills in Europe
I find it hard to know how much time has passed on this hill climb. It feels like forty minutes but could be a fraction of that. My perception of time will warp in unexpected ways over the days and weeks to follow. I will recall lost memories and conversations, locked-away by the shackles of normal London life.
On a long, empty road in Provence – cloaked in a fog of lavender – I’ll wake up after an hour or more of cycling void of any conscious thought. I’ll later Google this and discover it’s a common phenomenon among cycle tourers called “bicycle meditation”. It’ll be hard to describe this to people back at home without sounding pretentious.
I reach the top of this unremarkable hill and I sit on my saddle and roll; my toes are numb from the strain. The terrain looks flat up ahead, but I tell myself there will be a downhill eventually. There has to be.
In two weeks’ time I will end up on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, where I will dip my toes in the cold sea and they’ll become numb again. Between here and there I will feel every contour, and glide down some of the best downhills in Europe.
One of these will be on a car-advert road that hugs the craggy wall of the Gorge de la Nesque, famous for its bright turquoise waters.
I will roll for twelve miles without pressing my pedals, and as I round a corner towards the bottom I will see a slow, heavily laden bicycle up ahead.
As I pass I will say “bonjour” and the woman will hear that I’m English too, so we will pull over and chat.