I felt good this morning after breakfast, so I made up a route on Ride With GPS (Strava put this function behind a paywall this weekend) and drove 30 minutes to the southern edge of the Cévennes for what I was hoping would be a 90 km loop with 2000 meters of climbing. It wasn’t, but it was still good.

My route started on a large National Road that had hardly any cars on it this Saturday Covid morning and when I turned right after 20 km to climb to the Col de la Begude I didn’t see a soul on two wheels for the rest of my ride.

At some point after this climb (that kept on climbing for 500 vertical meters) I crossed into the department of Lozère, the most sparsely populated place in France and the least touched by the virus. One death and a handful of cases. It’s also my favorite place to ride in France, which is handy right now.

It’s too bad you can’t see much in this photo because it was a stunning view of the last part of my 2nd climb (really, the same climb). My road sweeps up from right to left under the ridge. There are also a couple of hidden hamlets down there in the valley that are so typical of the Cevennes. You really need to be here.

Above was my turnaround point, but I just turned around and scurried back the way I came. The legs are not ready for such a big day out yet, it seems. I still managed to arrive alive after 90 km and 1350 m of climbing, though, but boy it seemed harder than it used to.

You really have to get yourself over here and ride in the Cévennes. Despite the miserable look I probably had on the whole first half of the ride, I was sporting a huge inner smile. There’s really nothing like it.