Today I needed a flatter route to recover from yesterday’s mountain stage. I choose a loop over to the village of Sommieres. This is a village I have been to many times before and is one of my friends’ (Rich and Pam) favorite towns in all of Europe. Check out a couple previous blog posts of the village itself here, here and here. You should particularly read the post from Stage 21 post in April of 2018. It was my first ride though Lauret…..
I stoped here in the village of Vacquieres where the Virgin Mary and I’m assuming Jesus are blessing this barrel of wine. I figured, as long as they are at it, I might as well get my French steed a blessing!
Of course I ran into a road closed sign, it seems every little route in this area is getting work done. What I have found now is that the French construction workers actually like cyclist and are quite friendly when I blow by their work site. I always thank them for their hard work. One nice thing about riding on closed roads is that I never see a car!
As you can see, much flatter open roads than yesterday.
After tagging Sommieres, I headed back home and it wasn’t long before I could see Pic St. Loup in the distance.
Something about the power poles in this image that I like….
Soon I was on the D21 which offers a super quiet little climb back over to my part of the world in Lauret.
A quick note about cars…. You don’t see many in my blog posts and while it is true I just don’t take pictures of cars, there really just aren’t many cars on most of these roads. On this one, the D21, I rode for a goodly amount of time and saw no cars and one bike. The cars that I do encounter are very courtious. The vast majority of cyclist I see in this area are from Montpellier. It is well within their reach during daily training rides. Im guessing that Montpellier would be a wonderful place to live as a serious road cyclist.
As I rolled through Sauteyrargues, I had spotted this vending machine on several previous rides. Up until now, I had wanted to stop and shot it for y’all but it always had a line….. I have seen these vending machines many times before in France but I think recently they are becoming much more popular.
I can see now why nobody was standing in line….. its almost empty! By the way, did you notice the name on the machine is “The Plan B”? 24/7. Kinda funny… One Baguette 1.20 euros and three for 3.60 euros? Hell yeah!
Finally, a few twists and turns later, I am back in the vineyards of Lauret!
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