our first ride

Les Costes

Yesterday was our first ride in 3 weeks. We couldn't wait to get back on our bikes. We left our house and and the end of our driveway had to choose left or right...both ways are up and not easy. We chose right and decided to go to a neighboring village called Najac. We had visited Najac last year, it's a lovely village with a castle that dates back to the 1600's. I wanted to go there because Anke, a woman I met last year was now living there and we were hoping to find her. All I can say is that I will become such a strong biker here as there is no "flat" in the Aveyron, only up and down. It took us about 20 minutes to reach the top of our first hill, I was in my easiest gear and it was so hard. Then we road up and down (easy hills) until we went down and down and down into Najac. The down was cold too. Not sure if I mentioned it but there was frost on the meadow and on the car window yesterday and today. Burrr. Although the down part was easy I knew that meant we would have to climb out of Najac.

nice house!

on the way up out of Najac

up into Najac

When we arrived we went to the cafe, I had a decafé au lait and Bruce his usual café grand noir. We asked the woman at the bar if she happened to know Anke. Ah, oui...and in french asked if we were looking for her. We told her the story and that we were back for a year and that we'd love to see her. She pulls out her cell phone and gives us her mobile number and then tells us where she is living. How crazy is that. We finished our café and road the bikes down to her house and there she was! She wasn't expecting us and we haven't spoken to her since last year, she was so surprised. We spent 2 hours with her catching up. She is a cyclist too and so we can't wait to do some riding together and to have her to the house for dinner.

We then headed "up" towards home. A different route, but still up. We road 20 miles today (still trying to figure out km), so about 2 hours...2 hours of riding and 2 hours of visiting, I like it. We have decided any day that it is sunny we will ride, it doesn't have to be warm (because we brought many layers of warm biking clothes) but it must be sunny. If it's cold and gray, no deal.

some of our neighbors

heading home