The Caunes-Minervois Cycling Club

Sunday, June 21, 2013

     Yesterday Bob Thorp told me that the Caunes-Minervois Cycling Club would be going out at 7:30 a.m. in the morning today, so I planned to join them at their regular meeting place, on Avenue du Minervois in front of the farmacie.  There were eight guys in all, every one of them older than I am, some of them wearing team shirts, which have the image of the abbey on the back.  Bob introduced me around and we shook hands in greeting, as acquaintances always do.   Everyone looked with interest at my bicycle: as a folding bicycle, the circumference of the wheels is considerably smaller than on a road bicycle, although mine is kitted out with racing handlebars.  It also has only five speeds, while most road bicycles have twelve or more.  My bicycle is puny by comparison with those of the club members, but everyone was too polite to suggest that I might be overmatched, although it was logical for them to think I would be.

     The members of the group include a former gendarme, as well as an eighty-one year old, Jean, who everyone calls Jeannot.  The average age of the men is about seventy.  I think there are no women members.

     Three days a week the club goes out for three or four hours.  The destination changes each time.  This time, as luck would have it, the goal of the ride would be the Pic du Nord.  I'd heard about the Pic the day before, in Lespinassière.  I thought it was a local landmark because there was a television tower at its top.  It turns out that there's a television tower there because it's the highest mountain in the region.  This climb would not be for sissies.

     We set out, pedaling towards Villefranche, a nearby town, where we would turn in the direction of the peak.  There was low-lying fog everywhere and it was cool.  The visibility was not good.   Georges, who rode wearing a a pork-pie hat and a red shirt with the cross of Rousillon on the back,  had a tail light on his bicycle, so he rode in the front to keep club members in a line and away from any oncoming cars that might be out that early in the morning.  The fog was a thick mist until we got to the turnoff at Cabrespine, where people were out early, preparing for a white truffle festival later in the day.  The sun started to shine and burned the damp off our clothes just as we started to climb.

     And climb we did.  Every once in a while I or someone else flagged, but another member of the club would turn back to check on the lost sheep.  When I needed to stop to drink water, the group stopped with me and made sure I was willing and able to continue.

     --Nous sommes solides, on n'abandonne pas-- (We look after each other, no one is left behind.) And I rode on.

     I pedaled for twenty-three kilometers, just over fourteen miles, before stopping at Pradelles, six kilometers from the top of the Pic.  From Pradelles to the summit of the Pic is a ride at the steepest possible grade.  The group stopped for five minutes to determine who would go all the way: Jeannot had already said he would not go further than Pradelles, and someone else also decided the ascent would be too much for him.  There was a long discussion about why I ought to stop and turn back, which it was not difficult to persuade me to do.

     One of the oldest men in the group, a stocky, barrel-chested man with a twinkle in his eye, said he hadn't thought I would ever make it this far, and that if I'd had a proper bicycle, I'd probably be in the lead.  Others agreed and said I had nothing to reproach myself for, having gotten to Pradelles, if I turned back now.  I agreed with the wisdom of the club's decision and we made plans to meet again next Tuesday.  By then, one of the club members would have a suitable bicycle for me.

     By the time the three of us got back to Caunes, four and a half hours from the start, near noon, I had pedaled about twenty-eight miles.  Before I turned off towards home, one of the men who'd turned back with me said I'd earned the respect of the club, including his.

     The day ended with me watching the final stage of the Tour de France, a race around Paris that ended after sunset, when Paris is all aglow.  Watching the battle of the sprinters --Mark Cavendish, David Millar and the winner, Marcel Kittel-- all big men with propulsively powerful legs--  I couldn't help feeling proud of my first outing with the club, solide.