The Winding Road Past Vaudagne

Inspired to go a bit further today, what with the tunes blasting my ears forming the content of the new A D V E N T U R E CD I'd made for March's round of Magical Mixtape Mashup, it was only so, that I should pay the fairly over excited combination of tracks justice.

A slighter longer coffee stop at The Marmottes Cafe in Les Houches than I'd planned, but I blame the beautiful sunshine + gripping section of my novel for that, and out I went away from the valley. Dan and me rode in that direction all those months ago when we were endlessly broken down in October but we thought the only way to do it was to pedal down the duel carriage way. So discovering that there is another way, I was eager to check it out.

Being away from the continuous loops and mayhem that attach themselves to all the ski areas and beyond, it felt like the most peaceful and thrilling experience imaginable to be suddenly swerving along near-like gravel paths surrounded by enormous pulsating dark green trees, dirt paths and waterfalls.

I hope I don't get a puncture, I hope I don't get a puncture,

my gasping mind sporadically thought to itself as I delved further and further away from Chamonix civilisation as I knew it.

If the light hadn't started dying on me and I had more to eat than the crisp surrounding leaves that sat upon the humbling forest floors then I'd like to think I could a carried on pedalling for many more hours that would have inevitably come.

But it wasn't so bad panting back to the house of boys + eating delicious curry + slumping down in front of Deathproof to mark the end of a brilliant day.