2005 - MTB in Cevennes

Cévennes,

Jim, Mike and Jacques

September 4-11, 2005

Jim and I have a tradition of going for a mountain bike ride once or twice a year in Europe. Last one was in central Italy in late November when we got thoroughly soaked, so it was time to think of our next adventure. Back in June, Jim, while enjoying a cool and rainy New-Zealand winter, sent me an e-mail inquiring about possible bike trip and suggesting we visit one of his co-nationals, Mike, living in Avignon, France. It sounded like an excellent idea but if we were to find Mike a more precise address was going to be useful since Avignon is a rather large city. It turned out it was not Avignon but  a tiny village 100 kms from Avignon! After various e-mail exchanges we were glad to have Mike accept to join us on the adventure. Main purpose of the trip was an oeno-gastro-cultural (roughly translated as: wine-food-culture oriented) bike trip!

The participants:

Jacques, Jim and Mike

• Jim, a New-Zealander, who has already participated in similar trips, accustomed to rainy conditions, expert at tricky rocky downhill single tracks and willing to take a chance on itinerary and hotels, as long as Mars bars are available in abundance.

• Mike, another New-Zealander spending his New-Zealand winters in the Cévennes, willing to join two crazies in one of their annual bike ride; he provided all the detailed maps from IGN at 1/25,000 as well as useful suggestions after having done some reconnaissance on possible tracks, and recommended memorable “shortcuts” to the trip (yeah, right!).

• Jacques, who tried to maintain some "frenchness" among this Kiwi mafia, and author of these notes,

• The camisard(e)s: a group of calvinistes, so named because they were wearing shirts (camisole in old French) fighting Louis the XIVth’s army and administration after the revocation of the Edit de Nantes (1685) which had provided until then freedom of religion in France. They made the Cévennes their last stronghold. Definitely an endangered species, if not extinct.

The Cévennes

A mountainous area in southern France. The name Cévennes could possibly be attributed to Julius Caesar, during his conquest of Gaul. While crossing the mountainous area, he noticed it was the origin of seven rivers: l'Allier, le Lot, le Tarn, le Gardon, l'Hérault, la Céze et l'Ardèche, and decided to name the region " Au sept veines" (seven rivers), which evolved into “Cévennes” over time. The region is also known for the causses, high plateaus (about 1000 m.) separated by deep canyons (400-500m.) eroded by such rivers as Tarn, Vis and Jonte over millenniums. September was thought to be a good time of the year, not too hot and not yet cold and rainy (sic!), with reasonably long days. The area chosen was eastern Cévennes, starting from St Ambroix and going thru Mont Lozére, Causse Sauveterre, Causse Méjean, Mont Aigoual, St Jean-du-Gard and back to St Ambroix, thus allowing climbing the highest peaks of the area and crossing some causses.

Profile of the trip

The trip

Sunday September 04 – Marseille to Avejan (by car)

After picking Jim at Marseilles-Marignane airport, we stopped at Pont-du-Gard, may-be the best preserved Roman aqueduct in the world though it is not on the river Gard but on the Gardon, and in Uzés a beautiful city of the XI-XVIth centuries famous for its chateau des ducs. After checking up the bikes, packing and re-packing, we had dinner with various friends of Linda and Mike, all New-Zealander, making this tiny village the French place with the highest-ever ratio of Kiwis to French and a good preparation for me on what to expect on the trip. The wines were French, numerous and excellent, a proper start for an oeno-gastro-cultural week! Some lightning confirmed the less than perfect weather forecast with Southwest France on red alert with very heavy rains for the next few days!

Monday September 05 – St  Ambroix to Villefort 
distance covered: 68 kms; elevation gain:1129m; gravel roads: 15%.

Cloudy threatening skies but no rain for our start, though after 3 km the rain started and kept us company until St Ambroix that we reached by taking small asphalt roads with no traffic.

From St Ambroix we started going up the valleys on D130 and D430 through Gagnières, where we bought picnic ingredients plus fuel in the form of Mars bars for Jim, and Chavagnac. D430 was a small road without traffic and made for a gentle beginning to climbing the Cévennes. We crossed the Ganiére river at Pont-de-Martinet and reached Abeau a large structure probably used for summer camp for children. The big black dog barking at our approach was glad to have his back scratched and was quite harmless. A dirt road through a pine forest brought us to D216 which we followed to Murjas and Brahic (elev. 539 m). Great views of mountains with pine and chestnut forests, all under covered skies but without rain, perfect conditions for our first solid climb. In Brahic the bar-pizzeria “Le Grillon” was closed but we used their chairs and tables for our picnic, and could even find some fruits and replenish our water supply. Route D251 was great, very narrow, no traffic whatsoever and following contour lines just below Serre de Barre, going through le Frontal, and reaching Malons et Eze (alt. 837).

One of the participants expressed the opinion that may-be that was far enough (a mere 54 km so far!) and that sleeping in Malons was appropriate. It took little efforts to convince him to reach Villefort, a large (relatively!) city down the hill. GR44 (a sentier de Grande Randonnée) followed a dirt road and was shorter than the D901 and certainly more pleasant; being the first biker I even saw some wild boars! When we reached again D901 we chanced to meet … not an old man! but 2 Brits (Jeff and Tony) on bicycles going towards Villefort. I decided to follow again GR44 while Mike and Jim took the D901. In Villefort (elev. 591m) the Logis de France hotel was closed and two other Brits (Mike and Estelle) on a tandem told us about Hotel du Lac nearby. Nearby meant in fact 4 km and a pretty decent uphill. We got individual rooms and a covered area for bikes. While enjoying our beers we watched the rain downpour without too much worry. We were soon joined by all the British bikers we had encountered to-day for a noisy and jovial dinner. Total for the day 68 km and 1129 m altitude gain.

Tuesday September 06 – Villefort to Mas de la Barque
distance covered: 19 kms; elevation gain: 886; gravel roads: 0%

It took some convincing to get the two kiwis that it was really raining this morning, they pretended it was just a drizzle!

New-Zealand perfect weather!

In any case out came rain gear and off we went. The only interruptions to the steady rain were violent downpours once in a while! Back to Villefort to take D66 to Mas de la Barque (alt 1420), that we reached quite soaked but happy to find a dry place in Chalet du Commandeur (tel. 04 6646 9722).

Wet Cyclists on the way to Mas de la Barque

Showers, change of clothes, Jim and me barefoot since we did not take any spare shoes, and a satisfying lunch followed by a nap. Fog came up and had the advantage of hiding the rain! We planned to-morrow itinerary and then had beers and dinner. The owner was nice enough to accept to put our wet gear in his clothes dryer. Food was homemade and very satisfying. We heard that there was flooding in Nîmes and that the weather was not going to improve for the next few days. We went to bed with the accompanying noise of rain drops on the window sills (Chalet du Commandeur au Mas de la Barque 04 6646 9722). A short day: 19 km and altitude gain of 886 m.

Wednesday September 07 – Mas de la Barque (km 89) to Ispagnac (km 151); distance covered: 62 kms; elevation gain: 689; gravel roads: 90%.

Surprise, surprise, the hard rain stopped and there was even an inkling of light-grey sky, but no visible sunshine. While loading bags on the bikes, the sun made a very brief appearance which provided a good omen for our departure.

On the causses we followed GR 72 and a dirt road passing through Bellecoste and l’Hopital, small “hameaux” with very authentic houses of solid stones construction and great door arches, many old houses were still in ruins though. The sun was definitively shining and our spirits improved noticeably.

Causse Sauveterre, near Mas de la Barque

We encountered plenty of sheeps for Jim and Mike to feel comfortable, an old water-activated flour mill along the road, not in use but still functioning, and a group of VTTistes who did not even stop to say hello. The female components of that group were the first glimpse of “Camisardes” for Jim, even if it was only a fleeting glance! Landscapes were great with gently rolling hills, brownish colors, Mont Lozère in the background, all looking a lot like Scotland on the tourism brochures (the reality being that the landscape there is often seen through a wall of water!). After Le Cros we went straight north to join D20 to Col de Finiels. While waiting on D20 for Jim and Mike to catch up I saw a flash of color with 2 persons on a tandem, sure enough they were the two Brits (Estelle and Mike) we had had dinner with in Villefort. Jim and Mike commented on the series of fortunate circumstances which brought us all at this precise spot at the same time. A few words, exchange of coordinates and we continued to Col de Finiels (altitude 1541). I decided to bike to Sommet de Finiels (altitude 1699, the highest peak in the park des Cévennes) while the others were going straight for beer and lunch at the restaurant in Chalet du Mont Lozère (tel. 04 6648 6284). There was such dense fog I did not see anything at the summit except for two lost girls (camisardes?) searching for the GR, which I could indicate to them. The ride down was a bit iffy at the beginning because of fog, but once on GR70, well marked with high stone markers, I had an enjoyable ride down to meet the Kiwi components of the team for a good lunch of “confits de poulets” copiously accompanied with wine. A good way to celebrate the “conquest” of the highest peak of Mont Lozère! Many thanks to Mike who had previously done a reconnaissance on this section.

The start was a bit slow after lunch, but the crest road (called “chemin des chomeurs” built in 1936 and restored in 1998) to la Croix de Maitre Vidal was gently rolling and the landscapes were as good as in the morning, the fog staying in the upper elevation of Mont Lozère. A stray cow provided a bit of fun on the road, especially when she found herself surrounded by another group of VTTistes coming in the other direction. Jim was happy having replenished his panniers with …… Mars bars!

Mont Lozère, below Sommet de Finiels

The track to Etang de Barrandon was the most technical (read rocky!) we had taken so far, but we all reached the Etang in one piece. To minimize riding on trafficky roads we decided to follow GR43 to La Fage. That was definitely not the easiest way down: narrow track, rocks and erosion gulleys everywhere caused by the heavy rains, dense brush. Jim loved it as he had been practicing on this type of terrain in New-Zealand for a long time; he even completed the descent by fording the river at the bottom without getting his feet wet: an achievement recorded on film for the generations to follow!

Jim fording a (small!) river

At les Bonbons (funny name!) we saw a field of menhirs positioned in a circular pattern, great shapes against the empty skies and barren landscape. After Col de Montmirat, we rode briefly on causse Sauveterre before a very rapid descent (450 m in 7 km) brought us to Ispagnac, where we stayed at Hotel Saury (tel. 04 6644 2114) adequate but no more. Total for the day 63 km, altitude gain 689 m.

Thursday September 08 – Ispagnac to Ste Enimie
distance covered: 19 kms; elevation loss: 48 m; gravel roads: 100%.

This morning rain was back again, clouds everywhere so we decided to go only as far as Ste Enimie following a VTT track along the Tarn river, an easy ride.

We started by crossing the pretty bridge of Quezac and the track took us up and down along the Tarn river, sometimes with narrow passages uncomfortable for Jim, sometimes in the forest, appreciated since it provided some shelter from the rain!.

Hanging rock at Castelbouc along the Tarn river

We crossed the village of Montbrun where we discussed the possibility of climbing to causse Méjean but the “Kiwi mafia” vetoed my proposal and we continued through Castelbouc: a tiny “hameau” built in the crags of the rocks, with one full-time resident and a bread oven.

Shortly thereafter we found ourselves in front of the Tarn river with the not too attractive prospect of fording it; a few minutes of hesitation and we realized we had made a wrong turn earlier on. Relief! Under the continuing rain we reached Ste Enimie, a medieval town, where we checked in Hotel Bleu Nuit (tel. 04 6648 5001). I tried not very successfully to fix Mike’s gear change when I saw a truck with advertisement for Kona bicycles. I asked the driver for a bike shop and he himself was an expert on bike repairs so could fix the bike in no time. He is the owner of a company (Camino: info@caminoVTT.org) which organizes the type of trip we were doing. For his clients he recommends not taking panniers but rather a medium-size backpack (say 35 liters capacity, a good brand is Loewe Alpine) and taking along the bare essentials: spare underwear, high-tech non-absorbing shirt, high-tech artificial fiber warm sweater polar-tech for example, spare shoes, spare quick-drying pants, rain and biking gear which should all fit in the backpack. We had showers, lunch, nap, visited the town, and a clean-up session with the bikes brought us to dinner at Restaurant des 2 Sources where the food was OK, the house wine terrible as well as the service! Rain was really pouring down and in the course of the dinner we could see the level of the Tarn river rising. To-day’s total 19 km with an altitude loss of 48 m.

Friday September 09 – Ste Enimie to l’Esperou
distance covered: 54 kms; elevation gain: 1419 m; gravel roads: 60%.

Sunshine and blue skies! Quick walk to the Tarn which was overflowing the parking lot by the river’s edge; fortunately no cars were left parked overnight! I finally managed to get a phone connection to learn that Betsy was not coming to Toulouse because of flooding problems in Nîmes and of the autoroute being closed. We exchanged a few words with the owner of a funny looking sports car, a green convertible Panther Kallista, and away for the long climb to causse Méjean and Mont Aigoual.

On the way to (and at) Col de Coperlac (elev. 907 m)

Route D986 climbed on a regular slope to Col de Coperlac (elev. 907 m) providing good views of the Tarn river, and with quite moderate traffic on the road. It took me 50 minutes to reach the top and a few minutes later Mike appeared quickly followed by Jim, who celebrated the climb with one of his ….Mars bar! Well deserved too. From then on we were on the causse and the ride would be much easier with small climbs and gently rolling profile for the rest of the day, or rather for most of the day since we were still planning to climb Mont Aigoual at 1565 m.! We followed a small hard-top road through Mas St Chély, le Buffre, then GR60 (a good dirt track) to Bégude Blanche an old abandoned farm house now being restored and finally to Col de Perjuret (elev. 1028) where we had a second lunch before the ride to Mont Aigoual.

Causse Méjan

Mike and I started on GR60 to avoid the road as much as possible while Jim took road D18 with a meeting point at Cabrillac; the beginning of the GR was too steep for riding and we hoofed it for a good 20 minutes, thereafter a pleasant ride until Cabrillac where we found water while waiting for Jim’s arrival. We then all took the road and sometime later heard noisy honking, and whom do we see coming down the road but the Panther Kallista driver we had met in the hotel in Ste Enimie, waiving happily at us! The weather was most cooperative and we reached the summit easily where we enjoyed the views nearly as much as the beers. Aigoual is known for its terrible weather: I have been there three times, twice with good weather; Mike has been there twice, only this time did he have good weather; while Jim scores the best with 100 % good weather; morality: one should only go once to Mont Aigoual!!!! We were planning to sleep in the gite d’étape at Mont Aigoual (04 6782 6278; open 1 mai- 15 oct) but they only operate on advance booking, one should call 04 6782 6278 to reserve. We elected to sleep at l’Espérou, about 7 km down from Aigoual where hotels and gites are numerous and ended in Hotel du Parc (04 6782 6005) a decent place which provided a pleasant and tasty dinner with a very drinkable selection of wines. The American daughter-in-law of the owner is a champion cyclist and our bikes were in good company! Total for the day 54 km and 1419 m altitude gain.

Saturday September 10 – l’Esperou to St Jean-du-Gard
distance covered: 70 kms; elevation loss: 998m; gravel roads: 70%.

Weather was back to normal, i.e. grey cloudy skies and threat of rain. We ordered take out picnic from the hotel since we were not planning to cross many villages to-day. Went back to Aigoual and abandoned the asphalt road at Font de Trépalou (elev. 1502m). The GR66 is a good forestry road: all downhill through beech forests, with good views of Cévennes under clouds but without rain and it brought us to Aire de Côte (elev. 1085 m). We continued on GR44, another nice forestry road in a pine forest until Col de l’Espinasse (elev. 848 m) where we met road D10.

Towards Col du Pas

A few flat kilometers later and after being surrounded by free ranging sheep we reached Col du Pas where we had lunch under a memorial monument to the Maquis des Cévennes. Still cloudy but no rain yet! So far a very good day all downhill on good forestry roads. Mike had done the reconnaissance for this part of the trip and warned us that the next section would be more difficult and we would have to carry the bikes for some sections of the GR6-67. Indeed we had to do some carrying! It was a narrow, stony and brushy trail made all the more difficult and treacherous by the rain which had waited until then to start; even Jim could not ride this section! We passed through Le Tour, Col du Terme and Bonperrier before reaching Col de l’Homme Mort. That was a reasonably good road but there were some steep hills which would have been nicer to climb without the rain. Mike informed us that we could follow the GR6-67 until Col de l’Asclié with some more bike carrying required or take a shorter track and join an asphalt road, but he had not tried that. The unanimous decision was for the shorter track! It was a practicable if narrow single track trail that we could ride some of the time until a ridge where it stopped. Mike and I investigated and finally saw the road (D20) a few hundred meters below us; the only problem was that those few meters were quite steep, say 30 to 40% down slope! After a few slides on the slippery soil, a few scratches from brambles and quite wet we reached the road. We had a bite in a covered barn and followed the road to Col del de l’Asclié (elev. 905 m).

Technical trails!

I had a quick look at the GR6-67 which we could have followed and it was not much better than what we went through, so no regrets on our decision to take the shorter track. Nevertheless Jim and I teamed up to compliment Mike on his choice of itinerary!

After this exercise GR61 and the forestry road that took us to Maison Forestiére de Perjurade was quite relaxing, all downhill through beech and pine forests on a good wide track. We reached l’Estréchure (elev. 299 m) on the Gardon river very quickly and continued along the river until St Jean-du-Gard (elev. 190 m). A great downhill ride, we had dropped 850 meters over 18 km of good tracks; a real pleasure, we even forgave Mike for his earlier itinerary selection! Plenty of nice bridges over the Gardon, but without parapet so they would not be washed away during floods. St Jean-du-Gard a pleasant city where we chose hotel “les Bellugues” (tel. 04 6685 1533, www.hotel-bellugues.com), an old textile factory converted to hotel. Had what I consider the best dinner of the trip at La Chanterelle (04 6685 3850): assiette de charcuterie régionale, omelette aux champignons, daube de sanglier, cheeses and Coupe des Cévennes, with good white and red wines. A good physical day with a total of 70 km for an altitude gain of 757 m and a drop of 1755 m, i.e. a net loss of 998 m!

Sunday September 11 – St Jean-du-Gard  to St Ambroix
distance covered: 81 kms; elevation gain: 1176m; gravel roads: 15%.

After changing an air tube on Jim’s bike, we took route de Mialet and were impressed by the number of people watching us. In fact they did not want to see us at all but came to watch a bike race taking the same route! So much for our ego! The interesting thing, to me at least, was that we met a spectator who could give useful information on the use of Palm pilot in conjunction with GPS compatible maps. His recommendations: get a palm MIO 168 with GPS from www.pixmania.com (about 365 euros), use Tomtom (spelling?), not Michelin, digital maps, and download them from www.emule.com . This looks exactly like what I have been looking for and very similar to what Peter was using during our trip in Scotland.

We turned on D160 a gently climbing road through more beech and pine forests, passed Les Aigladines, a small village with fantastic views over the valley and beautiful houses and reached Col d’Uglas (elev. 539) On the way I saw a family of wild boars with their young cross the road in front of me, I gave them plenty of space to avoid separating parents from their young! After the Col, down to St Paul-la-Coste on a narrow road without traffic, then to Malataverne (elev. 159 m) and La Baume where hunters were butchering 5 boars they had killed this morning. We tried unsuccessfully to find a lunch place in La Tour this being Sunday, and had to go out of our itinerary to find a café-restaurant where we had a very French lunch of steak and French fries, cum wine obviously.

On the road to Col d’Uglas (after bike repairs)

Thus satiated we crossed the Gardon river under an approaching storm which broke as soon as we started climbing to Drulhes and continued to Le Mas-Dieu. We crossed an abandoned open-pit coal mine, where there were still huge lorries with 3-meter diameter tires; Mike had a fall fortunately without hurting himself. We climbed through Mercoirol to a col (elev. 510 m approx.) and down to St Florent-sur-Auzonnet fortunately with some sunshine. Mike had been riding in this area and recommended we take “sentier botanique” in Forêt Domaniale du Rouvergue which would be a short cut to St Ambroix. We were on a good forestry road until an intersection where Mike though started the sentier. After climbing a very steep path on which we had to push the bikes, we meandered in the forest for a while before we got Mike to admit that may-be he had made a mistake! So much for local knowledge and home turf advantage, Mike lost some prestige on that occasion! We backtracked and took a good forestry road to Larnac. Thereafter it was just a matter of following Mike who knows the area like the back of his hand, to finish our trip in St Ambroix. Linda was happy to see us back in spite of the injuries that Mike incurred during his famous shortcut on Friday. The longest ride of the trip with 81 km and an altitude gain of 1176 m.

Final Words

Overall a great trip and a good team, it was fun to be three so there could always be two of us ganging against the third one (mostly the one choosing the itinerary) in a friendly way! Great landscapes, abundant rain to prevent dehydration and heat stroke, with beautiful and un-crowded roads, we could not have done it without the maps at 1/25,000. Some shortcuts provided for interesting experiences and will be remembered for a while. The compensation to the bad September weather was that it was easy to find rooms for each of us in all places where we stayed. And we managed to climb the main summits of the Cévennes, with sunshine at Aigoual! Distances and climbs were just about right to make it challenging but not impossible. Weekly total 375 kilometers and an elevation gain of 6314 meters or 54 km and 900 meters climb daily average, which is comparable to our previous trips. We will have to figure an interesting trip to celebrate our cumulative 200th birthday! Suggestions welcome, Ventoux? Nepal? Andes? Alpes? or …….. New Zealand!!!!