I had a really great ride today, which unfortunately can’t be seen in the mono-scenery photos I took, but maybe that’s the proof that is was such an excellent ‘ballade’ – too busy riding to snap shots. Anyway, it doesn’t help you much, I admit. I left Montpellier on the D5 bike path and almost immediately picked up a ‘tail’. I heard this ‘swoosh, swoosh’ noise behind me as soon as I got on the path and realized I had a rollerblader drafting me. I’d had this happen a few times in the past with cyclists, and never really enjoyed it all that much. Knowing someone is riding your wheel makes you (well, me at least) feel that you aren’t going fast enough or something. Anyhow, after a few km we got into a rhythm and I resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn’t lose this guy till the bike lane ended. Which it did, after 15 km or so, and as I kept on going down the road, he called to me with a jolly ‘bonne journee, bonne route!’ I oddly felt like I had done a good deed for the day. 

One nice result to this was that I was 20 km out of the city in only 40 minutes or so, with plenty of sunlight and an agreeable wind (finally). So I decided to just keep going west and maybe stop at the unpronounceable Agde, a nice, ancient town along the Canal du Midi, and thankfully on the train line back home. 

I’ve actually got no idea what this picture is of.

This one is from a little pass through the hills east of Pezenas. 

Here is a shot of some vines, getting closer to Agde. 

And this last one, again of what I’m not entirely clear.