Anyway, in November 2021 I went back to Lourmarin, in Provence, where I had lived for
thirty years, and naturally I wanted to ride a bike. The baker in the village was kind enough
to lend me his 20 year-old Harley Heritage softail, which I picked up on a dark, cold, rainy
night from his house and rode back, in less than optimal conditions, to where I was staying.
It was lovely of him to trust me with his sweetie, it would have helped if the tires hadn’t
been flat, and if I hadn’t had to turn hard up a narrow street with broken pavement and gravel
then even harder onto a rutted gravel driveway. I made it, but only just, and the next day,
even with air in the tires and dry roads, I found that I wasn’t living the dream as I had dreamt it.
It was great to be on a bike on roads I know so well, but it wasn’t the bike I wanted to be on.
Fred and his bikes
So when I returned this summer for my daughter’s wedding I did my research and booked
myself a long weekend on a Moto Guzzi V7iii, rented from Fred at the very excellent Moto
Trip Provence in Avignon. My friend Sharon kindly drove me the 70 kilometres
from Lourmarin to Moto Trip, where I met the owner, who was endlessly helpful and friendly.
He kitted me out with a helmet, a jacket, and gloves, and a splendid 2017 V7iii in Blu Zaffiro,
which matches my eyes. It was not Fred’s fault that I rode out of there at 1:30 in the afternoon
on one of the hottest days of the year; the thermometer showed 39°C. It wasn’t Fred’s fault that
there are dozens of sets of traffic lights and roundabouts between his shop next to the medieval
walls of the old city and the rest of the world, nor that every traffic light was red and that I
was wearing all black, and it wasn’t Fred’s fault that I chose the more interesting scenic route
back to my apartment in Lourmarin which I knew would take me across a dry and dusty plain
and up the twisties to the hilltop village of Bonnieux before coming down the other side to and
through the pass through the Luberon hills called the Combe de Lourmarin.
As I crossed the dry and dusty plain and cursed myself for having left my water bottle in Sharon’s
car, I saw a welcome if unexpected sign saying ‘épicerie.’ It wasn’t obvious why there should
be a grocery store in the midst of drought-stricken wheat fields and apple orchards, and it was
even less obvious that, 455 kilometers from the border with Spain, the grocery store should be
Spanish. The only people in it were two Spanish men standing in front of a splendid series of
suspended Spanish hams, but it sold water - Spanish water - and if I had needed them, Spanish
shampoo, Spanish Kleenex, Spanish tea, Spanish cookies, Spanish dog food. I promised one
of the Spanish men that I would be careful not to drink the water too quickly in order to avoid
whatever can happen when you drink very cold water and you are visibly very hot, drank the
water very quickly when I was sure he couldn’t see me, sat gingerly on the black seat in my
black riding pants, and took off with the blessed wind in my hair across the country roads I knew so well.
The climb from the dusty plain through vineyards and cherry orchards up to the medieval hilltop
village - village perché - of Bonnieux was exactly as I had imagined it would be. It was beautiful,
thrilling and challenging, particularly the hairpin turn uphill from a stop sign onto the narrow and
busy main street at the third level of the village. The Guzzi did not disappoint, and I was very happy
to be riding a bike which while not exactly the same as my V7ii, was definitely a close relative. I
sailed up then down, the ancient stone houses on either side providing some welcome shade, and
out into the rocky Luberon hills, where lavender, thyme and rosemary grow and the cicadas sing.
I would recommend this road to anybody who likes to flick their bike around the curves all the while
breathing the heady perfumes of summer in Provence. A lot of French bikers like to do precisely that,
and flick faster than I do, but that’s fine with me. Personally, having driven these roads more times
than I count, I know that there is only one place where you can, if you’re lucky, overtake without saying
a Hail Mary first, but my riding style is such that if I’m stuck behind a tractor carrying grapes to the wine
cooperative, I will stay stuck, or maybe pull over in the shade of the rustling dry oaks and pick me
some herbs. As the billboard at the entrance to the pass says “Motard prudent, motard vivant” which
translates as “Careful motorcyclist, living motorcyclist.”
La Combe de Lourmarin
The route that I took is about fifteen kilometres of the twisty stuff, then a straight
shot out of the pass - la Combe - towards Lourmarin. The Airbnb I had rented was in an ancient
hamlet on the outskirts of this village, the village I had lived in, raised my children in and run a
business in for twenty-five years. The hamlet, and the apartment, were picturesque in the extreme,
and so was the lane running to it. This lane was a motorcyclist's nightmare. I had already noticed that my rental
car, which beeped whenever there was an obstacle, considered the whole hamlet to be an obstacle,
so that it wailed like a banshee from beginning to end. It was far, far worse on a bike. First there
was a hard 45° turn off the main road onto broken tarmac and gravel, with an initial pothole as
wide as the lane, followed by a couple of hundred yards of gravel, chunks of paving and dry grass
in a W shape. You know the W shape; that’s how my driveway in Western Massachusetts has ended
up. It’s always exciting to know if you and the bike will choose the left hand side, the right hand side
or to wobble precariously down the middle. The lane then had a right-angled turn to the left, another
few hundred yards of W-shaped gravel, then a deceptive stretch of unbroken tarmac before it curved
down and over a terrifying patch between high stone walls where the surface was slippery with
polished, loose, round stones. They were probably medieval cobbles, and they had long since parted
company with the road bed. Out through the hamlet onto more rutted dirt, then a sharp
right-hand turn upwards onto the gravel driveway, which of course had spilled out onto the dirt, and
through the olive grove to my apartment. I parked the bike where I could see it, under an olive tree
and next to a lavender bush.
Safely home
Provence is many wonderful things, but vehicle theft is not rare, and the Guzzi was a desirable object.
Outside the bank
Every morning we went out, me and the Sapphire Blue Guzzi, and every morning was a delight. Or
rather it became a delight once we had negotiated the lane. That remained a trial of nerves, and each
time I burst out off the gravel and bounced through the pothole onto the main road I heaved a sigh of
relief. I visited friends, and got lost, had an evening pizza by a lake where I mislaid my apartment keys,
saw sunflowers and vines and lavender and olive trees, did my grocery shopping, bought peaches and
nectarines and melons by the side of the road and olive oil and goats cheese from the farmers that made
the olive oil and the goats cheese, and pondered life itself in the shade of a mighty plane tree in front of a
small Romanesque church dating back to the 11th century. (If anybody has ever seen Jean de Florette
and Manon des Sources, it’s the church where - spoiler alert - Yves Montand learns that Gérard
Depardieu was in fact his son.) I enjoyed every minute of it more fully than I ever have in a car, as much
as I used to when I roamed the same fields and hills on my horse back when I took that particular risk.
On the day I took the bike back to Avignon, I stopped first to have coffee and croissants with my
friends Frank and Ute. I had been planning to return the way I had originally arrived, up and over
the curves, but Frank, who has experience in these things, persuaded me not to. “You’ve seen that
billboard, haven’t you?” “The one where it says ‘Motard prudent, motard vivant’ ? Yes, I have.”.
“Don’t do it. Not at this time of day. This is the time of day when everybody on that road is either
trying to get to work or to get their kids to school. They’re on their phones, the kids are fighting in
the back seat, and they’re running late. Go the flat way.” So I went the flat way, and I was glad I did.
Along that road I found parts of myself that I had forgotten. It’s not the way that the tourists go, but
as I rode past the stadium where my son’s team memorably won a soccer tournament, the store where
we bought the tiles to tile our house and the garden centre that supplied the plants we planted on our
terrace, I remembered the life I used to lead. This part of Provence is where people live and work and
catch up with each other in an unadorned bar with a zinc counter and some plastic tables. There’s
public housing, an architectural salvage yard with stone fountains to make you dream,
and a roundabout with a strange series of public sculptures celebrating Cavaillon, Melon Capital of
the World. I wouldn’t have seen all that, differently, if I’d taken the twisties.
Thoughts on riding a bike in France
I had some great advantages. I speak French fluently, I know how the French drive, and I knew
the roads and where I was going. There are a lot of motorcyclists in France, and French drivers,
although notoriously aggressive and impatient, are very aware of bikes and bikers. They may honk,
they may pass, but they will see you and give you space. Lane-splitting is a thing. Many people,
especially in the south, ride bikes to get to work, and they want to get there fast. There are many,
many two-wheeled vehicles and many, many people with two-wheeled experience, since at
fourteen you can pass a test and ride a 50cc scooter, and most kids (especially boys) do.
The roads tend to be narrower than in the States and very well maintained and graded, apart
from the ones that aren’t (see above). Most of the routes you take are going to be a pleasure in
terms of surface. There are roundabouts everywhere - big ones, small ones, decorative ones
with olive trees and fake medieval towers, boring mounds of grass or roundabouts so flat that
you don’t even see them. Many towns use road surfaces to warn motorists to slow down and
haven’t taken motorcyclists sufficiently into consideration, in my opinion. So all of a sudden
you’ll find yourself on smooth cobbles or a lot of paint instead of reassuring tarmac. It didn’t
rain while I was there, but I would have ridden very cautiously if the roads had been wet. The
speed bumps come in all shapes and sizes, mainly at the entrances to villages and towns, and
are just a pain. Sometimes they are partial, and you can ride between them, but often they are
across the road, of varying and unpredictable heights and lengths, and grooved by the undersides
of vehicles that haven’t taken them seriously. Also in the approach to some towns, roads will
very suddenly narrow, with high kerbs and sometimes high kerbs plus speed bumps. Except
in bigger towns traffic lights are rare. The French police use speed radar and are strict about
enforcing the limit. If you get a speeding ticket it will be sent to the rental company (car or bike)
who will forward it to you and you will be expected to pay it or face questions the next time
you come to France.
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