The Bicycle Adventure Club - Come Ride With Us!

Wild Drome Provencale, Baronnies and Ardeche

May 23rd to June 7th

Ride Director: Smith Doss
Ride Co-Director: Claude Monnier
Report by: Christopher James

Outside of one very celebrated mountain, this trip featured quiet roads, with amazing scenery, and in an area not typically explored by non-French cyclists. The celebrated mountain of course is Mont Ventoux, which we were fortunate to experience on the most perfect day imaginable: temperatures in the mid-50s F with little to no wind. Our group enjoyed excellent weather throughout the two weeks, starting cool and breezy, ending back in Arles to warm weather.

Our two-week loop tour began in Arles, the city where Van Gogh created his most celebrated paintings. The trip stayed for 2-4 nights each in Bedoin, Buis Les Baronnies, Crest, and Vallon Pont D’Arc. All four hotels had swimming pools. The Buis hotel was the most notable, situated in an arcade, and dating from the 1600s.

Our sportive group appreciated Smith’s incredibly detailed route planning, which always included cues such as: an old Roman aqueduct, a 5000 year-old dolman reached by a 5-minute walk off the road, or a cheese vending machine, and places to get water. Claude’s deep knowledge of local history, told with a dry sense of humor, made for fun and educational dialogues during each day’s happy hour. Her story of the Col de Homme Mort (“Dead Man’s Pass) was especially entertaining.

Southern France is known for its many gorges, deep defiles through which French engineers somehow built roads through 100 or more years ago. We took advantage of many of these, with the Gorges de la Nesques and Gorge D’Ardeche being especially notable. Even though Mont Ventoux was an optional climb, the majority of our group completed it, and were rewarded with views stretching from the Alps to the Mediterranean, and a 30 km descent on mostly 2-4% grades all the way to Sault. Other trip highlights included:  the Pont De Gard (the longest intact Roman aqueduct), the Bedoin market (where many purchased Ventoux jerseys and t-shirts), the Grotte Chauvet (dating 16,000 years earlier than the famous Lascaux caves in the Dordogne), and L’Isle Sur La Sorgue (“Venice” type of town with many canals and great restaurants).

Since this was a semi-fixed trip, each of the “non-required” riding days offered different riding options, with our group almost always choosing the more challenging ones. While a day might have 4,000 or more feet of climbing, none of the climbs were over 7% (except Ventoux), and descents were  flow-y and fun.

Each day featured the usual BAC happy hour, where we got together before dinner. Smith and Claude went over the next day’s route(s) and local history, respectively. Our group became very cohesive after a few days, with people switching dinner and breakfast “partners”, and riding with different people each day. The enclosed picture sums this up as our group is pulled in a stiff headwind back into Arles by Smith and Claude’s tandem, and we’re all riding together the last several kilometers of the trip.

The Drome and Ardeche are wild areas with many parks, and some towns are quite separated, with few services (think of the western US in this regard). On two days where there were no bakeries or places to get food, Smith and Claude went to the grocery store to buy supplies so that we could make sandwiches in the morning to take on the day’s ride.

I highly recommend the “Wild Drome” trip!