Back on the Bike!
Exploring the Area Around Montpellier on Two Wheels
There’s a bit of common advice that’s usually given around sports: don’t try out new gear the day of a big hike/bike ride/rock climb/whatever. I have disregarded that advice several times recently with cycling, with guitar playing, and with personal grooming. Yeah.
We wrote last year about me bringing my road/touring bike to France. I’ve used the bike to bop around town, mostly out to Park Peyrou with a thick mat for my yoga workouts. Before yesterday I had only done a single long ride which took me to the coast and back by way of the gorgeous bike path along the Lez River. I promised myself that I was going to do more biking in France this spring, maybe even an overnight tour to a nearby city.
In preparation, I ordered some stuff to round out my kit - generic cycling shorts from Amazon are fine for runs to the coffee shop and short hops around town but I wanted something better for longer rides. Rapha has been my go-to brand for cycling clothes since they first showed up in the early 2000’s, they make thoughtfully designed gear for people who ride a lot and don’t like big logos and garrish colors. I also bought a handlebar mount for my phone so I could use a new (to me) app called Komoot to find routes and stay on-course, and a 32oz aluminum water bottle that fit the large size bottle cage that I ordered years ago from Velo Orange.
I also ordered some new cycling shoes. I long ago gave up clipless pedals (the kind that lock your feet to the pedals) in favor of a normal platform pedal. I’m not a racer any more and I’m not riding a fixie/track bike so I’d rather just be able to walk like a goddamn human being when I get where I’m going. For short rides my slip on Converse All-Stars are great (no laces to get caught in chains), but the soles are too flexible for longer rides. There’s a bunch of BS that all the pedal makers publish about how locking your feet in will allow you to pull up on the backstroke, supposedly making your pedaling more efficient. I read a study a few years ago and it turns out that not even the pros actually pull up on the backstroke. Everyone pushes down with the back foot, creating more resistance for themselves. Pros push down a little less than mortals, but EVERYONE pushes down to some degree. So the only legitimate argument for locking yourself to the pedals are: 1) the super stiff soles are more efficient for transferring power to the pedal, and 2) your feet will stay in optimal position on the pedal. Those advantages make sense if you are racing, riding a fixed gear bike, or just prefer to have your feet stay in position for (say) touring or longer rides. I digress.
The shoes I got, the Giro Tracker, have flat, stiff soles and a device called BOA which is basically a thin stainless steel cable that you tighten with a rotating winch instead of using shoelaces or childish looking velcro straps. There are no floppy laces to get caught in the chain, the sole is stiffer than my Converse All-Stars, they’re still comfortable to walk in, and they look like part of a proper cycling kit. They’re marketed as a mountain biking shoe, but several reviews suggested they were well-suited to touring and general riding. Perfect.
For my first ride I chose a route in Komoot called Les sources du Lez a 26 mile loop starting about a mile from our apartment. The Komoot app was fantastic! The map is shows your position and direction with a red arrow, it’s easy to see when you make a wrong turn and deviate from the course, and the top of the display shows your speed, distance so far, and upcoming turns with street names, and distance/direction of the next turn. I had no trouble with the app except for the GPS position sometimes lagging a few seconds which required me to turn around and backtrack to correct my course. I suspect this was due to lack of a strong signal in more remote areas and not a problem with the app itself. I never had to back track more than 20 meters.
The route was gorgeous! I rode through vineyards, big parks, small towns including some older towns. I saw an aqueduct, sheep being guarded by a sheep dog, lots of other cyclists, and gorgeous country roads lined by neatly pruned plane trees. At one of the protected park areas along the way I was surprised by how loud the birds were and made this audio recording (sorry about the passing car).
My only complaints about the ride: the new shoes rubbed a little at the front of my ankle, but only on my right foot. When I got home I realized that I had cinched down the BOA thingy with the tongue partially outside the vamp - user error! Another problem: I thought my new Rapha “Core Cycling Short” chaffed a little - maybe this was new unwashed shorts being a little stiff or maybe it was the inevitable outcome of some seasonal manscaping that may have taken place the day before.
The old advice is sound: don’t go long distances the first time out in new shoes (or with freshly groomed nethers).
In truth, this particular 26 mile ride (30 miles counting a few missed turns and a short ride to/from the start point) wasn’t a crazy undertaking for trying out new gear. The Sources du Lez is a loop that follows largely the same roads on the outbound and return routes. I could have turned around at any point and cut the ride short if there was a serious problem.
We cyclists like to classify ourselves and fine-tune our snobbery. Are you a roadie? A mountain-biker? An old-timey guy with your penny farthing and tweed cap? A touring cyclist? Do you ride a cargo bike with your dog in the front (ahem)? Or maybe you have a beer gut, Birkenstocks, an unkempt beard or one of those mustaches with waxed twirly ends and too much tye-dye in your wardrobe? If that sounds like you I’ll bet dollars to donuts you ride a recumbent bike. Me - I overlap a few categories but I am definitely not a racer any longer. I ride a heavy steel touring bike with down tube shifters, nine speeds, and platform pedals. That’s not a racing setup - but the dead giveaway was on my Sources du Lez ride when at about the halfway point I spotted a pile of freshly cut logs on the side of the road and saw my opportunity to collect some greenwood for my spoon carving projects! All I had to do was jostle the log pile to scare away any snakes (are there poisonous snakes in France?) then strap the green 15 pound log into my Carradice saddle bag.
No serious road cyclist would voluntarily add an extra 15 pounds to their bike - for some that’s the weight of a bike frame!
All things considered, my first long ride was a great success, I can’t wait to get back out there and discover the areas surrounding our new home. With Montpellier being so new and charming, it’s easy to forget that it’s still a city and it feels great to venture into the countryside where there are trees and agriculture and wildlife. That said, I was happy to get home to a serving of pasta primavera leftover from the previous night’s dinner.
And now for something completely different: My non-cycling error with using new gear had to do with guitar playing. Carolyn and I both performed (separately) at an open-mic last week. I went into the performance knowing that I get terrible stage fright - my hands might shake and fuck up my fingerpicking, my voice might quaver, I might forget the lyrics or chords to songs that I have played hundreds of times. But I practiced and I practiced, I made cheat sheets with lyrics on them in case my brain froze, and then just before we walked out the door to head for the club I decided to put a strap on my guitar for the first time ever (with this particular guitar). Bad idea. I hadn’t dialed in the length so the guitar was a little too high and the angle of my right (picking) hand was all wrong.
It wasn’t a complete disaster, but it was certainly not my best playing. I’ll do better next time. I’m going to keep going back to that open mic until I get comfortable on stage or they ask me to stop.
Jusqu’à la prochaine fois (until next time)
Roberto & Carolyn
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WOW !!! Good on you !!
Excellent on the bike ride! I'll be bringing my road bike to Brittany next March. Thanks for the tip on the app.
Ciao!