Ride Day 24—5 Oct 2005—34700 Lodève to 30270 St Jean-du-Gard

<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial;">After so many days of cold wet weather, today was gloriously sunny with beautiful blue skies and comfortable temperatures.<span> </span>After an initial climb from Lodève to St Pierre-de-la-Fage, we were on a plateau for some miles until we had an unexpected drop of several hundred meters down the side of the Gorges de la Vis.<span> </span>Beautiful and spectacular.<span> </span>From the bottom at Madières, we followed along the Vis River downstream to Ganges.<span> </span>Really pleasant riding.<span> </span>At Ganges, we took D999, which wasn’t bad riding but which did have too much traffic.<span> </span>Fortunately, it didn’t last too many miles.<span> </span>D907 for the few miles to St Jean-du-Gard also had too much traffic and would be good to avoid where possible.</span>

<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial;">Along D25 and D999, we skirted the departmental boundary between the Hérault and Gard Departments, going back and forth over the boundary several times, and of course ending up in Le Gard Department.</span>

<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial;">Overall, a very pleasant and satisfying ride, especially as we arrived in St Jean-du-Gard about an hour or more earlier than we’d expected to arrive.  That doesn't happen to us very often.</span>

Background:<br /><br /><br />My wife and I have been doing self-supported tours in Western Europe (a majority in France) since 1993.  This series of rides covers our 2005 2 month route through parts of France.  Our beginning and ending point is near Chaduri (south of Angoulême) where our friends have a farm with Gites and Chambres d'Hotes.<br /><br /><br />We rode our Dawes touring bicycles purchased in 1993 heavily loaded with 700Cx32 tires.  All of our riding was on paved roads, mostly with very little traffic.<br /><br /><br />If any questions, feel free to email me at jeffkadet@netdiving.com<br /><br /><br />Jeff