From St Vallier to Nyons

by Daniel Heesch

The birthplace of the Rhône lies high up in the Swiss alps, in the Saint-Gotthard massif at 1,753 meters. Although not the longest river in France, it is the most powerful with a water capacity that puts it 48 in a world-wide comparison. At St Vallier the river Rhône is already of remarkable size. A stately stream indeed that is gradually gravitating south towards Marseille. As soon as you reach St Vallier, the N7 crosses the Rhône via a bridge so low that it seems to touch the water. The journey along the Rhône begins on the left bank. Both sides of the river are quite hilly but by staying close to the river at all times, the N7 is for most parts very flat and makes for a great ride. After the first twenty odd kilometers past St Vallier, the scenery widens and the road no longer runs right next to the river. Not before long and you cross the wild Isère river, gushling down from Grenoble. After 38 kilometers you reach Valence, the first bigger city since Saint-Etienne.

There are two things that left a deep impression whilst I was making my way to Valence. At last, the mistral! It was strong, not turbulent at all and blowing in exactly the right direction. With the wind from behind, I was able to sustain an average speed of nearly 40 kilometers an hour all the way to Valence and well into the second leg towards Montelimar. What is amazing about a tail-wind is not only the speed you attain but also the silence! In particular when going fast you normally hear the air gustling past your ear. When the tail-wind has just the right speed, the noise ceases altogether and makes you feel more like flying than cycling. It was largely, I believe, this reassurance of making good progress that for the first time since traversing the outskirts of Paris, I felt again capable of completing the ride. In fact, the climb to the Col de la Republique, the sleepless first night with the unpleasant drizzle and the nearly 600 kilometers that I had by then cycled, already it all seemed to belong to another world. The mistral was truly magical.

The second memorable experience were the French Alps rising sharply to great heights along the eastern horizon. Even after the sun had set in the Rhône valley, one could see their snowcapped, orange coloured peaks glimmering softly from afar - an unforgettable sight.

Only just before arriving at Valence, in Pont d'Isere we cross the 45th degree lattitude. We are now halfway between the north pole and the equator. The French thought that this warrants formal recognition and erected a little monument on the side of the N7. On the back it reads "Ici commence le midi" and it feels, if only for a moment, like crossing a point of some significance.

Valence, 38 kilometer after hitting the Rhône, is a fairly big city whose greater parts line and climb up the east bank of the river. If you want to get into the centre, a quick climb will get you out of the narrow Rhône valley (which is scarcely wide enough to accommodate both road and river). I felt that Valence could well be the last place where I could get caffeine for the second night and where to fill my bags with something nutritious, so I decided to take a break. The Mistral had become incredibly strong, storm-like, and was howling along the broad avenues that extended into the eastern parts of the town. There is a colourful central place called "Place central" which features lots of restaurants and bars. Being a Saturday evening, it was extremely busy and you might need to wait a bit longer for your double espresso.

It is said that at Valence the weather changes: we are now in the Midi with its hot summers and little precipitation. Because there is a motorway running in parallel to the Rhône and another even smaller road, the N86, there is hardly any traffic on the N7. This part was among the most pleasant passages of the entire tour. The air was warm and soft, the view extended far down the Rhône and to the east towards the Alps, the route was straightforward and I was, after more than 600 kilometers, still without physical pain, in fact, I felt stronger than ever before. Although I had planned to be a lot closer to Nice at that time, I felt I would be physically capable of staying up a bit longer than the initially envisaged, and by now totally illusionary, 48 hours.

Around 30 kilometers before Montelimar on the N7, I found a peculiar mixture between an open air shop and a public market that was run by a group of Tunesian locals selling products from the region including nougat from Montelimar, the nougat capital of France, but also fruits and drinks and whatever makes a cyclist's heart jump. So I was told, because at 10pm with the onset of darkness, everything had already been stored away for the next day. Everything except for a little piece of nougat, which was graciously offered to me and not refused.

When I was about to set off for the final 20 kilometers to Montelimar, one of the Tunesians pointed out that the light which I had fixed to the back of my rucksack, was not very well visible. I must have been leaning forward too much so that it threw its cone into the sky. I thanked him kindly and with his help adjusted the light's position. Gladly, I continued for another fifteen kilometers. I was not far from Montelimar, perhaps four kilometers, and one could somehow sense that there was a city ahead.

Then the lights went out. Since I never cared about lights as much as I should have done, I cared even less about additional batteries. Soon every fifth driver would take the opportunity and honk, not infrequently precisely at the point of overtaking, which regularly sent me half-way off the road. It was clear to me that I could under no circumstances stay on the N7. Not only was the late-evening traffic gathering intensity but there were also many lorries carrying their heavy freight towards Marseille. Doubts crept in and I began to deliberate about alternatives. Should I not rather leave the N7 in favour of some quiet departmental road? But this would mean leaving the Rhône valley and venturing into the mountains, for the only other road with direction Marseille was the highway. The mountains were unchartered territory, however, and not the terrain I felt prepared to explore, least of all at night. I remembered the comments of a man I had met in St-Etienne. He said that the route via Dax was quite feasible and would also lead me to Nice via the Napoleonic route. I also remembered from the map that the route would cross parts of the French Alps but perhaps it was not altogether more difficult than the more southernly route along the N7, equally unknown to me.

I finally reached Montelimar at 11pm and much like in Valence three hours earlier people were out on the streets, returning to their homes from restaurants and bars, concluding another beautiful summer day. I remember the feeling of relief for having escaped from the darkness, and how much I dreaded the thought of soon having to return to it.

By now I was at KM 720 and much like the day before was longing for something more substantial than chocolate croissants. Heading into the pedestrianised city centre, I was lucky to run into a group of Maghrebian teenagers who were hanging out in front of a Kebab shop. I don't remember what prompted me and started a conversation with them, but my tales and aims convinced them that I deserved a free Kebab - thanks to their special relationship with the owner, my later dinner was quickly prepared and verociously devoured. I was so gladdened by the warm and friendly welcome that I happily let one of the guys take a ride on my bike. Off he went and disappeared around the next corner. My trip could at this moment have come to an unexpected end, but it was clear to me that he would return, and in great excitement he did.

I knew I had to leave soon and so I brought up the delicate topic of where to go next. As one might have expected, there was some disagreement. "Taking the N7 would be much quicker if you want to go towards Marseille". "Ah, you don't have a light?". "The route via Dieulevit is not too steep and will get you back onto the N7 east of Aix-En-Provence. This way you avoid carving out the L of the N7 via Orange and Avignon.". I decided for the mountain route.

The mirth of Montelimar was in stark contrast to the anxiety that had continuously grown on my last few kilometers on the N7. It was in even starker contrast to what was still to come. With the full moon shining from a cloudless firmament, I left Montelimar on the D540, a quiet road indeed, at right angle to the N7, heading east right into the mountains, into the all-engulfing darkness, just past midnight. How mountainous it would be I had not the slightest idea and had I known, I would have taken not only one spare battery but a handful to avoid leaving the N7. The small road leading me east out of Montelimar seems at first unassuming. It leads to the rim of the Rhône valley through a rather flat area of what seemed like grassland. Soon, however, the road would steepen, for many kilometers gradually rising above the valley. It was strangely impossible to see any lights of Montelimar whenever turned around, just darkness everywhere.

An hour more and on my right I began to see the relief of the first mountain. The moon had disappeared behind its ridge and cast a long, dark-black shadow over the grassland. I kept climbing for another hour hoping that I would eventually reach the small village Die. There is little point in describing the many detours I made, the many dead ends I followed, the circles and climbs and fast descents. A few hours would pass without that I got any closer to Nice. The temperature had dropped, and I had seriously lost all sense of where I was. There seemed to be many more roads than my map had suggested back in Montelimar and with every junction my uncertainty increased.

At one point after Dieu-le-fit, around 3am, I arrived at a small group of houses in some small village, too small to be on my map. The ground floor of one was still lit and through the glass door of the living room one could see a lively scene of a dozen or so people in their twenties having a party. I knocked to ask where the heck I was and was courteously invited not only to join the party but, once they had learnt where I was coming from, to stay over and rest. Sadly, the map I was carrying didn't quite have enough detail for them to pin-point where I was, and I had to leave in the same state of confusion, and doubled despair.

At times, the moon would appear from behind the mountains but its light was not quite sufficient for me to try and recalibrate my position on the map. Five hours after leaving Montelimar, at about five in the morning, and after a wild descent down a narrow road, I finally found myself utterly exhausted in what turned out to be the small city of Nyons. Physically and morally I had reached what seemed to me the absolute low-point. I looked for a quiet road off the main square, and there for some quiet corner to sleep, undisturbed by the street-lights from the main road. It was clear that I had to wait for the next day and try to find my way back to the N7. There was also the possibility of following the route through the mountains but they looked uninviting and I was prepared to ride extra kilometers if this brought me back onto the N7.

I had just fallen asleep when an infernal noise woke me up. Like in many other Mediterranean countries so in France, the cities are commonly cleaned at night, at a time when the streets are empty. And they came fully equipped, an army of cleaners with vans, bright lights, water. Sooner or later they would encroach upon me. I had to move, an inescapable and painful insight.

The desire to find a quiet place to rest, perhaps even to sleep, was so strong that it overcame all physical exhaustion so I moved in agony but without any hesitation. I got onto my bike and left Nyons, back into the darkness. At that point I started trembling so badly that I barely managed to hold my bike. To avoid worse, I had to stop right there. I found the departmental road towards Orange and a few hundred meters into the countryside I was surrounded by vineyards left and right, an ideal place to spend what was left of the night. A few meters off the road on a slightly inclined hillside, I found a quiet spot inmidst the vine, lied down a few steps from the road and in no time had fallen asleep.

I slept for two perhaps three hours and god knows what woke me up. Perhaps it was the sun that by nine o'clock had appeared from behind the mountain in front of me, perhaps the first car that took its way out of Nyons. Perhaps, I had simply slept enough. Indeed, and rather surprisingly, I felt infinitely refreshed despite the soil and dust that was all over me, fully reinstantiated if a little hungry: the last proper bite was the kebab in Montelimar and I was craving for a pain au chocolat, not to mention a coffee. Most of all, I felt grateful that the night had taken a positive turn. It promised to be a very warm day and now that it was light I saw with rupture that I was sitting in the middle of the most beautiful countryside.

In retrospect, I was surprised how much I must have climbed during the night and that I took these climbs with ease. This is another striking observation about night-riding. Climbs feel much easier than they would at daylight, the most likely reason being that you don't see just how much longer that climb is going to last.

I took the D94 from Nyons to Orange. Half-way there, a road, the D538 (later the D938), branches off on the left towards Carpentras via the small towns Vaison-La-Romaine and Malaucéne. By the time I had gotten onto the bike in Nyons, many groups of cyclists were already on their way, many towards the Mont Ventoux, which is only a few, albeit rather steep, windy and shadeless kilometers away from Malaucéne. I wasn't for a second considering going up there - i needed to reclaim all those hours that I had wasted during the night.

It was then that I first noticed the pain in my ankles. Perhaps it had already started at night but my mind had been preoccupied with so many other things that I was able to not notice it. Now, with the sun high above me, the warmth of the Mediterranean, the beautiful colours of the Provence all around me, and at last a road I could trust (and which was big enough to be on my "Carte de la France"), perhaps it is not surprising that I became more sensitive towards even the slightest deviation from what would otherwise have been a perfect morning. My ankles were clearly swollen. Only later did it occur to me that it wasn't just a result of the cycling. The vineyard in which I had slept had a little incline to it, and I had positioned myself with my feet down. A simple treatment (and prevention) could have been to put bandages around both heels but at the time I thought it was an inflammation of some sort and merely hoped it would not get any worse. The pain stayed with me for the rest of the journey and became a major source of inconvenience.

My advice is that you do not try to cycle via Nyons at night, and perhaps circumvent it altogether for even if you find your way there, the climbs are fairly demanding. It is best to stay on the N7 after Montelimar and either ride all the way to Orange or, a few kilometers south of Montelimar, turn left towards Carpentras.