Montpellier-Maastricht: across the Massif Central

Day 1: Learning to ride a heavy bike

I started very late (17:30) and pedalled 57km.

The best moment of the day was, when I hit the brakes without thinking longer than a fraction of a second because I saw an uncapped water bottle next to the road. Someone must have dropped it from a shopping bag, I guess. I have taken up the French habitude of keeping an eye open for stuff lying in the streets - it is there for anyone who wants it. They don't just throw things away: they throw them out. It's like second-hand shopping and not only for hobos. You can imagine how happy I was to see this 750ml bottle of cool water waiting for me just when I had started to worry about running out of water.

This evening I learned to drive my fully loaded super heavy and super slow bike. Most of the time right into the wind but at least not uphill. I started looking for a camping spot when it had already gone dark, so I slept (not very well) on grapefields.


Day 2: The horrible climbing day

How can one ever fully appreciate racing down the Northern face of a mountain - in wind and rain - without first climbing up the Southern face for hours and hours and hours in scorching sun? I seem to forget the pain of climbing up on the lowest gear every time I violate the speed limit on bike. I'm ready to do it again!

I'm way behind my schedule and the mountains are to be blamed (and obviously not bad planning). The road started climbing in the morning, with the gradient ranging from motivating to masochistic, and continued doing so the rest of the day. I managed to pedal for 78km this day. I had to take a nap at 18:30 in the evening, when I literally collapsed on a marble picnic table in a road-side parking. I curled up in my cozy sleeping bag and dozed off for an hour. The roaring of the passing cars sounded like a lullaby. I should have slept after lunch - when I first felt the need. The last 1.5-hour bit after the nap was a pleasure. I camped on a lakeside, forced myself to cook some simple porridge with almonds, and then forced myself to eat it. I slept very well through the night. I'm happy to have that huge soft "-13C...-25C" sleeping bag. It's perfect!

I decided that when I grow up (which is never), I will start travelling light, carrying only a credit card and a bottle of water. Or I'll travel by a motorbike. Oh, how enviously I looked at all the bikers!

The recipe of the day: pain d'epices with lait concentré sucré.

The water source of the day: knocking on the doors and asking people to fill my bottles. I did it 3 times.

On y va

Course papers written and handed in, ceilidh danced, bike built with heavy use of cable ties, computer cables, ductape and random metal objects...

First, Alice came to visit in the morning to help me clean my bikey before cycling off to nearby chick pea festival (yes, the french have festivals for everything). Then, Elsbeth sat behind my computer all morning long, searching and booking me plane tickets to Estonia. In a few moments she will be proofreading this text. And what was I doing? I was running around circles, screaming "A-A-A-A-A-A---!", unable to wrap my mind around getting everything done. I think I should hire Elsbeth as my personal assistant. [editor's note: no problem, I'm actually looking for a job...]

The church bells just rang out five times and I'm almost ready to go. Well... I planned to leave in the afternoon, so i'm technically still not too late.

Slow birth of an imaginary project

I always had this vision behind my eyes of how typical adventurous thinkers in old romantic novels and movies or on paintings would appear. Because I am not a smoker, I did not light a cigarette to ever-so-slowly breathe out wisps of smoke. Instead, having finally found what I had been looking for, I poured myself a well deserved glass of red wine and started studying the map of France. Cats miaowed, cars drove past, neighbours laughed and a gentle breeze of Mediterannean night air, coming through the wide open window, caressed my cheeks...

But so far, I didn't notice any of it. To stay true to the character and enjoy playing it, I had to keep on that certain tense yet relaxed look, staring at the distant corner of the ceiling and fiddling my lip, trying to find a catchy title for my research project: something simple enough that most people will be able to understand more than the words "of" and "and"; something simple enough that I will understand myself.

Figuring out the title does not mean that I am ready with the content. It only means that my brain has finished its working hours and I am pushing on to milk it for the last drops of sense juice before it shuts down and must be recharged. Then I plug in the cable that connects me to the land of dreams, refill my head with ideas while I sleep and wait for tomorrow, to start all over again.

That is the life of an eternal student.

Drawing out the details

Swifty and Triini just spent a long evening, mapping out Norway, centimeter by centimeter and day by day. After that, chalking out Finland in several hundreds-of-kilometers-long stretches of unknowness made us laugh madly. We can do that in three days (right?)! Flat as it is... It'd be a shame to miss La Tomatina!

If I ever get the cassette repaired, the back rack and the second pannier bought and installed, the front rack built, my degree finished, and my absolutely gorgeous hometown memorized to the last beautiful detail, I will enjoy myself very much by doing a quick training ride to Maastricht. It should be accomplishable in 10 days. I wouldn't want to miss the last important steps of finishing Uni!

Yes, the scope of it is still beyond us. But we wouldn't want to miss the sunsetless nights near the Arctic sea!

Clicky - no clicky

Going out to the mountains for cycle training before the 'Swifty and Triini in Scandinavia' expedition serves many purposes besides it being one of these things that makes life worth living. One would think that the first few hundred (or thousand) kilometers of a 4222km biking trip would count as training anyway. So what's the point in sweating beforehand?


First of all - we want to get stronger as we advance towards the Arctic sea, not weaker. Biking every day with only few days off for almost two months will require our bodies to learn to recover in the speed of light. Training, eating and resting well while still at home with all the resources at hand (good food from the fridge and enough time to stay still while doing the daytime job) will significantly shorten recovery time.


Secondly, it is generally a good idea to learn to repair the bikes before hitting the roads of Norway. Help will not always be readily available around the corner, and mostly not within our budget. I wouldn't want to be stuck in a valley between two mountains near the Arctic sea, 100km away from the nearest village, having no idea why my bike is not moving. That's what happened to me yesterday. Except that in South of France you come across a village every few hours of walking and at this time of year cars or motorcycles are passing by quite often. I was only 40-50km away from home, even though it would mean heavy climbing in strong wind in either direction and we were out of cell phone range at that moment.

Swifty had swiftly glided off ahead and I kept on cycling up the horrendously long curvy road after St-Guilhem-Le-Désert, using mainly my willpower. Suddenly, the pedals of my white stallion stopped turning the back wheel around. With no idea of the cause of the problem or how to fix it, I finally started running, saying to myself that this is what Ironwoman would do. I needed to catch my fellow cyclista who was carrying the repair kit, or at least get some moral support before hitch-biking home. Magically, after a kilometer or so, the system clicked back in and I could continue cycling. However, just before home it clicked back out and stayed this way most of the time. Later that evening we learned that I must change my cassette or else... Without this training trip we would have had no clue about the nasty possibility that even when the pedals are turning and making the cogwheels go round, it doesn't necessarily mean that the bike will move forward.


Also, we learned that Triin must hang her (next pair of) sunglasses around her neck with a piece of string. Otherwise she will drop them and brake them, or keep hitting them on car ceilings while they're on her head (the story of last year's pair), or just loose them by letting the wind blow them into the abyss (what probably happened yesterday). A lost pair of shades means too many lost points on my coolness rating, watering eyes on downhills and sore eyes in the sun.

And, last but not least, we are learning how to work together as expedition partners-to-be. It might well be the most important aspect of a succesful trip. As they say: it is not so much about where you are but who you are with.

Logistical Hell

First, how to plan my June in the most efficient way if I want and/or need to: cycle to Clermont-Ferrand (332km), leave the bike (in the hopes I find a place for it), hitch to Chambéry to hike around Mont Blanc, hitch back to Montpellier to prepare, practice and give three presentations on still unknown dates during an 8-day period, then hitch quickly back to Clermont-Ferrand, bike further up North to Orléans (297km) or Paris (416km) or maybe somewhere even better (Germany?), leave the bike again, find an airport, fly to Estonia to celebrate Midsummer's night and visit everyone, fly back, find the bike, then find a way to transport me and my bike as cheaply as possible to the North coast of Denmark and take the ferry to Norway.

Then cycle to Finland.

Oh, and after all that, fly to India.

I am laughing like a mad hatter already.

The wind is changing

While I was trying to work my way through the muscle cells, to stop them growing too wildly on plastic over the weekend, the greybearded security guard walking along the corridors and peeping around the corners started a cheery conversation, after seeing me seemingly in all the labs at once. Heavy practice of small talk that we don't know much about up there in the cold dark North East has taught me how to chat up anyone I might bump into instead of keeping silent (with exceptions occuring), saying nothing and feeling weird. One word lead to another and the major idea ruling my mind these days lead me to getting a full page worth of advice consisting of unheard-of hints about expedition nutrition, including a secret vitamin C rich plant to pick on the left bank of a Greek lake and veto on eating courgette, aubergine, blette and several other my favorite french speciality (...and that's why the French are always tired!) veggies. Well... at least I got it out of him that dates are still good to munch on during heavy biking though not recommended in everyday life.

To those of you of Estonian breed wondering about the sudden change of language I owe a simple explanation: I know most or all of my friends understand English, while a big part of them do not understand more than few words of Estonian; and putting together written phrases in French is still beyond me. Do not be afraid though, comments are still welcome in any language you want to express yourself in. However, if you wish your voice to be heard I recommend using one that I understand.


Here's my English proofreader Swifty with a nice hot cup of afternoon tea; if you ever find me writing with a slight Scottish accent, the proof must have been read by her nat(ur/ion)al enemy, my fabulous flatmate Elsbeth from the Campbell clan.