Today is our third day of our impromptu, largely unscripted bike tour. Last night we found ourselves on the kind of campsite that we both last went to about 25 years ago, with a little pool, table football and the tour de France playing in the bar.
The evening's entertainment was a guy, perhaps in his late 60s, dressed in a black silk top and taking requests from the assembled campers to sing old French songs white illuminated by a single fishing disco light. For what he lacked in tonal accuracy, he made up for in enthusiasm. He was accompanied by his wife, sitting looking sightly bored in front of a laptop running kareoke software. Sam was digging it, and at one point led a mosh pit occupied for the under twos.
We set off moderately early in the cool morning drizzle to cross a set of hills called the black mountains. Our early progress was hit and miss - it became rapidly clear that Google had no idea how to make directions here, or its bicycle directions are designed to kill off the weak. After one of its suggestions was completely vegetated, we decided to ignore it altogether.
We made good progress for a couple of hours, and happened upon a large group of middle aged men who appeared to be camped in the middle of the road. One of them explained that our planned route would be impossible because of a rally race - with the look of a man who couldn't imagine that anyone didn't know about the rally race.
On further examination, the rally was a huge circuit around the mountain range, making every sensible transit impossible. One of the damp assembled motorheads explained that we could pass in-between the racing sections, so we headed into the forest to bypass the race course.
After 3 or 4 miles of highly inadvisable double-track with a baby Chariot, we emerged into the village of Laprade.
The drivers were assembled. The first adjusted the mirrors of a Fiat 126, while his competitor revved a 30 year old Renault Clio which sounded to be on the verge of an engine seizure.
We began to take the race a little less seriously and took a now very disgruntled Sam to the playground.
While we consumed a slightly stale baguette, a group of more serious cars assembled on the start line and it was explained to us that there would be no leaving the village in either direction until the race finished in 6 hours time.
Incapable of expressing our extreme dissatisfaction at this state of affairs, we (OK... I) stormed off into the forest hoping to think of a plan.
The map suggested a torturous sequence of forest roads which appeared to link to our destination of Mazamet. The dirt road became a steep, rocky track - so we slowly pushed our ridiculous caravan up the hill. Rosie reminded me frequently how lucky I was that I married her. Sam was thankfully and improbably asleep.
After crossing two deactivated electric fences on a trail which barely existed, we emerged onto a perfect road. Instantly suspicious, we continued for lack of a better option until we came to an opening with about 40 assembled pieces of heavy machinery - with one guy sitting in a car.
Hoping to be able to politely English our way out of the situation, we approached the guy with the small comfort that at least in France, he probably wouldn't be armed.
He turned out to be working for a wind turbine company, and was able to speak about the same amount of French as us, talking with a heavy Spanish accent. After clumsily telling him our story, we established that (a) we shouldn't be there (b) he didn't really care and (c) he had no real clue where he was. We left, in the opposite direction to his suggestion and headed east.
Sam woke up, now thoroughly disgruntled at our incompetence as we descended implausibly far through the forest and finally into the town (via the steepest road I've ever seen, which winded through a hilltop medieval village).
We ate dinner in the cafe in the main square, occasionally interrupted by the revving engines and screeching tyres of rally cars - each time to the cheers of the assembled locals. I decided it wasn't the best time to bring up carbon emissions...
The evening's entertainment was a guy, perhaps in his late 60s, dressed in a black silk top and taking requests from the assembled campers to sing old French songs white illuminated by a single fishing disco light. For what he lacked in tonal accuracy, he made up for in enthusiasm. He was accompanied by his wife, sitting looking sightly bored in front of a laptop running kareoke software. Sam was digging it, and at one point led a mosh pit occupied for the under twos.
We set off moderately early in the cool morning drizzle to cross a set of hills called the black mountains. Our early progress was hit and miss - it became rapidly clear that Google had no idea how to make directions here, or its bicycle directions are designed to kill off the weak. After one of its suggestions was completely vegetated, we decided to ignore it altogether.
We made good progress for a couple of hours, and happened upon a large group of middle aged men who appeared to be camped in the middle of the road. One of them explained that our planned route would be impossible because of a rally race - with the look of a man who couldn't imagine that anyone didn't know about the rally race.
On further examination, the rally was a huge circuit around the mountain range, making every sensible transit impossible. One of the damp assembled motorheads explained that we could pass in-between the racing sections, so we headed into the forest to bypass the race course.
After 3 or 4 miles of highly inadvisable double-track with a baby Chariot, we emerged into the village of Laprade.
We began to take the race a little less seriously and took a now very disgruntled Sam to the playground.
While we consumed a slightly stale baguette, a group of more serious cars assembled on the start line and it was explained to us that there would be no leaving the village in either direction until the race finished in 6 hours time.
Incapable of expressing our extreme dissatisfaction at this state of affairs, we (OK... I) stormed off into the forest hoping to think of a plan.
The map suggested a torturous sequence of forest roads which appeared to link to our destination of Mazamet. The dirt road became a steep, rocky track - so we slowly pushed our ridiculous caravan up the hill. Rosie reminded me frequently how lucky I was that I married her. Sam was thankfully and improbably asleep.
After crossing two deactivated electric fences on a trail which barely existed, we emerged onto a perfect road. Instantly suspicious, we continued for lack of a better option until we came to an opening with about 40 assembled pieces of heavy machinery - with one guy sitting in a car.
Hoping to be able to politely English our way out of the situation, we approached the guy with the small comfort that at least in France, he probably wouldn't be armed.
He turned out to be working for a wind turbine company, and was able to speak about the same amount of French as us, talking with a heavy Spanish accent. After clumsily telling him our story, we established that (a) we shouldn't be there (b) he didn't really care and (c) he had no real clue where he was. We left, in the opposite direction to his suggestion and headed east.
Sam woke up, now thoroughly disgruntled at our incompetence as we descended implausibly far through the forest and finally into the town (via the steepest road I've ever seen, which winded through a hilltop medieval village).
We ate dinner in the cafe in the main square, occasionally interrupted by the revving engines and screeching tyres of rally cars - each time to the cheers of the assembled locals. I decided it wasn't the best time to bring up carbon emissions...
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