Day 5. St-Geniez d’Olt to Bagnoles-les-Bains

Un café sans café.

Above St-Geniez the river Lot flows through a deep gorge, which the road avoids with a 250 m climb through the woods. It was a pleasant enough ride, but almost all of the height was lost as we descended back to cross the river at St. Laurent.  Time for a coffee, and right by the bridge there was a rather shabby café that claimed to be ouvert. Except that it didn’t have any café. ‘Je suis désolé. La machine est en panne.’ We made do with Orangina.

When planning this trip I had often used Google Maps to estimate distances for each day's ride. However, the France en Vélo route on this stage takes a long diversion to go over a 1020 m col near Goudard, whereas Mr Google quite sensibly opts for the shorter and much less hilly route on the main road through the Lot valley, so I had seriously underestimated the distance for today.  Even with the shorter route, this was going to be a long stage so it was an easy decision to follow the N88 to Mende, especially as it was a Saturday so there would be very few trucks on the road. And in any case, French drivers are much more willing to follow the advice of signs like this to 'share the road' and avoid close passes.

Halfway to Mende the traffic was held up by a couple of gendarmes. Apparently it was for a bike race but the wait would only be un petit quart d’heure. Five minutes later the peloton raced by at great speed in the opposite direction and we all resumed our journey. We stopped for lunch in a café outside the cathedral in Mende, carried on the N88 for a while to climb up to the Col de la Tourette at 839 m and then turned off onto the D901, a wonderful road for cycling that we would follow all the way to Villefort, up the Lot Valley for a steady but fairly gentle climb up to Bagnoles.  

As I entered the village and crossed the Lot yet again, there were lots of locals and a few gendarmes standing around, obviously waiting for something to happen. The bike race was passing through and expected in a few minutes. This was a stage of the Tour Cycliste Féminin International de l'Ardèche, 137 km and finishing at 1500 m on Mont Lozere. We waited for the riders to come through before carrying on to our B&B at the far end of the village.

The B&B was run by a couple who combined it with a studio making glassware. The deal included a simple but excellent dinner, taken with all the other guests. It goes without saying that I was asked about Brexit, hard enough to explain in English let alone in a foreign language, so I simply suggested that I thought it was une grande folie.

Distance today 88 km. Total distance 367 km.