Food in Provence (and elsewhere)

The area around Valréas is a lot more accommodating for cyclists than the Pays de Gex and Valréas is not so far from the Rhône. So the Via Rhona cycle route is an obvious attraction both for day trips and because it suggests one can cycle from Gex to Valréas. The obvious starting point for day trips is Châteauneuf-du-Rhône. J. and I are thwarted multiple times by floods in our southward journeys but do make it to Pont-Saint-Esprit and back one time—70km or so overall—and a multi-day trip from Gex doesn´t look so impossible. But it’s never a priority for holiday.

Until I’m retired and, relaxing after the Gastronomicom adventure, read Felicity Cloake‘s One More Croissant for the Road. Surely if she can have a 2,500km foodie Tour de France, I can make it from Gex to Valréas even if I have no wish to emulate her cycling prowess in the UK (Red Sauce, Brown Sauce) or the US (Peach Street to Lobster Lane).

That’s July. September/October time seems to be a good target. Not too hot but still enough light early in the day. I make a reconnaissance trip to Seyssel in late July. I use barely 30% of the e-bike battery capacity in the 60km/2.75hr trip and feel I could manage another 40km or so. A second reconnaissance trip to La Maison Michaud in August—63km in 2.5hr—is more tiring despite the 50% battery usage but I’ve been less active in the last few weeks and I still think up to 100km/day is achievable.

So I plan a route, especially as, after some heavy rains in late August and the very beginning of September, the weather looks good for the second two weeks of September. As J. and I have planned to use my retirement gift of a meal at Domaine de Châteauvieux on September 4th (we would have preferred Jeûne Genevois, but that’s a Valréas week for us), it seems I should start out for Valréas by bike on the 5th. J. will shadow by car, thinking to go by bike sometime in the future once I’ve scouted out the route.

The weather doesn’t look good after the lunch at Châteauvieux, though. Quite the opposite as the heavens open and rain is coming down so hard at one point we consider pulling over in the car but it eases off before we find a likely spot. It continues to rain all afternoon but the forecast for tomorrow is OK, albeit with some chance of light rain around Gex in the morning.