7 juin - Rode for 3 Hours

En route to Provence. What follows is a description of our most efficient car packing job ever:

Strapped Chris’s bike box to the top of the interior of the van and mine to the left interior wall. Beer and other assorted gear is wedged between the wall and the bike box. My clothes are in my red duffle bag, all bike clothes are in a green stuff sack, and all of my cycling gear is in the carry-on. Note to self - bring more bungees and rope.

Arrived in Apt - and hated it instantly and simultaneously - some weirdo carnival made the town a zoo. We resorted to Plan B and headed to a campsite called the Luberon near Saignon. After a few ordeals, we had a campsite and then headed out for our first real ride of the vacation. Some kind group have marked a network of obscure roads through out Provence. It’s called the ‘Luberon a velo’ - and very easy to follow - with very little traffic. Today we rode from Saignon, and then followed the route as far as Cereste - and then returned. The ride took us about 3 hours. The latter half of the ride went about as well as another infamous three hour trip. A simple flat turned out to be a sharp flint in my tire. The tire had to booted with a cereal bar wrapper. I then had a devil of a time trying to get air into the tube (not enough of the stem was exposed to get a good connection with my pump). After a white-knuckle ride back to Saignon, we set up camp and headed via car for a pizzeria at the base of the climb up to Saignon. Too bad their oven was broken, I had a salade chevre and we returned to a pretty low-key campsite.