If you would have told me, five or even just two years ago, that I would get excited about the idea to cycle towards and even across the alps, I wouldn’t have believed you.
Me? Cycling up a giant mountain chain? Never!
And now I am here crossing at least one mountain before breakfast and that since a few days.
In one day, we left the "massive central" in France, crossed the valley of the Rhone. Out of one mountain chain into the next.
There is so much water everywhere, I am amazed. Cristal clear rivers flowing down and passed us. We are following them, cycling up the streams getting closer to their sources which all lay somewhere high up in front of us.
We cross some lavender fields and wonder if the mountains in front of us are already the alps.
A few days later we discover how wrong we were, to mistake those initial “hills” for the alps.
We are in a region now where pretty much all cycling is upwards. At times we mistake some small up and downs for flat rides. But must realize over and over, that “flat” doesn’t exist anymore.
coming from here...
For any downhill you pay with an even steeper uphill. And I love it, how come? What happened? A few years back I thought I was a “sea-person”.
...going there.
I am amazed about all the landscape I pass through and amazed about how much I apparently am able to change.
How did I end up here? That’s the question I am asking myself when I go up and I can’t take it anymore. But it is the same one I am asking when I discover another unpredicted mountain lake in front of me. Or when I get to enjoy a fresh beer at the end of the day, with a view I couldn’t imagine in my wildest dreams.
My favourite part about those endless horizons, at that stage, is, that no matter how far I can see, I know that it is only my bike and myself who carried me there. And this is a pretty cool feeling. Guessing where the point we left in the morning must have been. Sometimes still visible and at times far gone.
When you pass through those massive piles of earth and stone, that we simply call mountains, the view is constantly changing. Any one of those mountains looks completely different from each angle you look at them.
Any road that leads you around a bend is offering new horizonts with shapes you didn’t expect. And the further we go, the higher they get and the fresher the water is.
How did I get here? I don’t know, but I feel like I must have taken the right decision.
Thank you all for stopping by it is a pleasure to have you around! Have a lovely day!
All photos and words are mine taken and written while cycling from one mountain chain into the next one.