Peach trees in bloom

Geoff and I met David, a scottish architect and longtime friend of Geoff's, at the rondpoint in St. Jean Pla de Corts this morning. Just in time for our weekly climb up from Vives to the Col de Llauro. The morning was sunny and brisk, temperatures in the low 50's and we could see the snows on the Pic de Canigou were receding with the recent warm weather. The wind was stiff again coming down the valley to the sea and the almond trees were losing their flowers, dropping them in a snow shower of white petals in the wind.

Geoff had received an email the night before from Caroline: Mark, Steve and herself would not be coming out today. Caroline will be in El Salvador next week for the Vuelta Ciclista Femenina a el Salvador, a women't pro event and I don't think I'll see her again before we leave at the end of the month. She needed to do some interval work today and this brought out a 'hmmph' from Geoff, not a believer in such work, when there were miles to be had on a day as brilliant as this one.

We crested the Vives climb and descended into the valley, I moved from back to front of our trio, my 20kgs of extra mass giving me an advantage on the downhill run to Fourques. For the rest of the ride, we'd shuffle the trio; two breaking the wind and one riding shotgun. Following our normal route to the outskirts of Thuir to meet our erstwhile riding partners, we pass Terrats, it's large cave and spaceship-like fermenation vats marking the turn to St Colombe and then the downhill run to Thuir and the turn to go up to Castelnou, one of my favorite roads.


Past the quarry, and onto the long drag of a climb for six kilometers, until the watch tower and church swing into view and then the ancient town and towering castle. I'm not working that hard on the climb, and when Geoff accelerates away, I jump, too. 'What did you do wrong?', he queries as we reach the flat. I think, the only thing I did do was accelerate. 'Accelerate?' 'That's right. What you do is slide over and grab that wheel. Get in behind.' I ponder the difference as we begin our descent towards the peach orchards north of Castelnou.

Coffee in Millas at the Cafe du Midi on a busy street corner; three cafe cremes for the three anciens courers. I always feel better after a bit of caffeine, jam sandwich and leg rubbing. We talk about the recent UCI/ASO squabble (that threatened to tear apart pro cycling until UCI completely caved in and allowed the race owners to ban two Pro Tour teams). The war in Iraq and Afganistan, the right way to repair the top tube of a carbon Giant frame (or whether it's possible to repair one at all), the house around the corner from the cafe that Geoff and his wife almost bought, topics surface, submerge, resurface and merge into others in a millieu of ideas. Just before the cafe as we left Illes sur Tet, Geoff and I debated whether badminton and cycling were major sports, or mightn't we be living in a bubble. Snooker was more popular in Scotland by at least 1000 to 1, Geoff said, but I noted that a doctor would never tell his patient to take up snooker as a way to combat heart disease and hypertension.

These are the things that enliven cycling. We earn a spot at the table of ideas by training hard enough to stick and then, once we do, we have a voice to use as we wish. There's still a pecking order, a status earned with racing and riding prowess, but these two group rides each week rid the training week of the sameness of riding with one's own thoughts mile after mile, hour after hour.

From Millas, we head towards the sea, crossing the A9 and the D900 and the wind is shifted now from the west to directly out of the south. A strange wind that I can't seem to get out of when I'm following Geoff's wheel, swirling and coming round him. My heart rate is moving out of the easy aerobic zone more often as tackle a false flat or a 'heavy' road with rough tarmac. When we hit both, just north of Brouilla and the one-two of the wind and another false flat, I'm very close to anaerobic. Geoff shoots past. I spend a hard effort chasing up to him, take a breather and pull in front. We're holding 21/22mph into the wind now and I know we're just a few miles from my turn past St. Genis and I'm not going to leave anything on the road. A little farther and the bridge just before St. Genis, the normal sprinting point. My brain knows this, but there is nothing left in my legs at all.

Geoff sprints by again. I stand up and go through the motions, but I'm empty. 'Bastard,' I say to no one in particular, but I'm laughing. 'Not fair, that,' Geoff says when we catch on again. 'You were pulling for awhile. Kind of like passing someone on a hill when you've been following them all the way up.'

We soft pedal through the village and reach my turn. My watch says 12:45. I suppose I could add on Montesquieu's climb and come back through the cork groves on the mountainside; afterall, I told Janet I wouldn't be home until 1pm.

4:35, 76.3, 3200ft