No Car? Ça Roule ! 🚲 | How to Have a Carbon-Neutral Weekend Adventure

note: The original title of this post was supposed to be "Lele and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Weekend Getaway" but that couldn't be farther than the truth. A bit of context ...

~flashback time~

It's June 2024, the sun is shining and I'm back in Toulouse after a week vacation en vadrouille in the Alps bopping around in the car visiting friends, eating good cheese and hiking & biking. Back to reality (and the mailbox!) to receive a letter from Citroën, our car manufacturer, that we received while OOO.

Big news, your airbags could explode at any given moment. Immediately stop driving your car. Full stop. Bisous, Citroën*.

*ok, maybe that's not exactly how the letter was written, but you get the gist.

The first few weeks and weekends are a-ok, I take my bike or the train to work, my copain takes the bus or his bike. We move things around (looks like our weekend randonnées will have to hold off for a bit!) and all is well.

Until we realize we have a weekend in the Montagne Noir already booked (non-refundable, non-changeable) very soon and no car to get to this remote cabin in the woods (actually in the trees!).

Retournons la situation

It was my boyfriend who initially had the idea to partir à l'aventure as we love to do and take our bikes to get to our weekend getaway. Seul bémol, the cabins were off-grid ... 120 km one-way from Toulouse, give or take.

So we got to thinking (and to planning), what if we loaded our bikes on the train, hopped off at Carcassonne, and then finished the trajet biking in the mountains to get to our cabin. Suddenly 35 km seems much more doable with our bags.

We booked the train tickets, packed our bags ... well, 1 bag # minimalist with toothbrushes and a change of clothes and set off on our adventure.

Part 1: Powered by cassoulet

Note to self: it's not the best idea to eat a cassoulet before biking (and climbing) in the mountains.

We headed out early on the train, direction Carcassonne, aka the fortified city about an hour from Toulouse. We had already been respectively with our families, so we just planned on stopping in the castle walls to eat lunch and maybe walk around a bit. We found a cute little bistro and shared a famous cassoulet (hearty duck, sausage and bean dish from the region) and a cut of meat. Then to attempt to speed up the heavy digestion, we took our bikes around the walls of the city for un petit tour.

And then we were off (like a herd of turtles as my mom would say)! Leaving the city and biking through the vineyards was lovely, and flat! The weather was holding up - no rain on the horizon - and we made our way, kilometer by kilometer to our destination.

Part 2: Never trust Garmin

If the first half of our trajet went smoothly, the second half couldn't have been more different! We started our ascension to our cabin when all of a sudden, we found ourselves in the middle of a VTT (mountain biking) race! (ok maybe not in the middle, but they definitely crossed in front of us once or twice).

Detour number one and at this point we had a little chuckle about our luck! Our Garmin GPS set us back on track and we pedaled away until detour number two ... the GPS wanted to send us down one of the race paths with riders whipping past us (and in full VTT gear). Maybe not the best idea, so we said ciao to Garmin and hello to Google Maps.

We were rerouted to another mountain pass and started our way up, up, up! The good vibes were petering off now, not gonna lie, but we kept on trekking. The road had less and less pavement (and more and more elevation) until riiiiight before the top of one of the climbs, my legs gave out and my vélo fell down (taking me with it)!

Oh yeah, right in front of one of the race photographers ...

Part 3: Just keep pedaling, just keep pedaling ...

I dusted off my shorts (and my pride) and assured the race photographer that I was more embarrassed than hurt before we kept on heading up (turns out the descent right after was super small, only to remonter). The steep inclines (15%!) and the gravel terrain had me and my bike sliding everywhere, so I finished by walking and pushing my bike to the tippy top. Not one of my proudest moments, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do to make it to your final destination.

A quick water break and another Google Maps check and we realized we had detoured pretty far and were going to have to kick it into high-gear if we were going to make it to the cabin not too late. So we kept on pedaling (and slip-sliding everywhere, thanks gravel!) with a little detour to a lookout tower for the views.

The road got gravel-ier (not a word!) and bumpier and steeper until we found ourselves on a long driveway into our cabin! On y est !

Part 4: Prendre de la hauteur

Our (rather surprised) cabin host thought we were some lost bikers before realizing that we were indeed her guests here to stay the night. We checked in (walked our bikes to our cabin) and set out exploring our home for the night and the property before dinner! The cabin was perched up in the trees with a terrasse and lounge chairs and a little bar made of table and chairs.

It was super cute and rustic, with no electricity or running water (who needs a shower after 4 hours on a bike?!), but that only added to the charm of our weekend adventure!

As the final rays of sun dipped below the horizon, from below our perched cabin rang a bell ... à table ! Dinner was served in a basket and we hoisted it up on a pulley to our level before having our well-earned apéro on the balcony before it got to chilly and we headed inside. The dinner was delish, with tartines, meat and cheese and even dessert all washed down with a bottle of red that hit the spot!

And one of the perks of no electricity means no late-night scrolling (and no lights) before bed so we were both out ... like a light.

Part 5: What comes up, must come down

A beautiful day (and a basket of breakfast) awaited us and we wasted no time digging into our bread and jams and thermoses of coffee and tea on the balcony as the birds greeted the day in the trees around us. If that's not the perfect wake-up call, I don't know what is!

Then we packed up (again just 1 small handlebar bag) and headed out on the bumpy driveway to start our descent (luckily on a different road!). As the saying goes, what comes up, must come down and we zoomed* down the mountain roads, stopping in the pittoresque villages along the way.

*ok, one of us zoomed ... one of us gripped her brakes so hard she got cramps in her hands. I'll let you decide who!

And before we knew it, we were back in Carcassonne, at the train station where we started!

Part 6: Après l'effort, le réconfort !

A quick stop at a store to pick up a phone charger (guess who was too minimalist!?) and a quick stop at a bar to charge our phones (and grab a beer bien mérité after all this biking) and we decided we had enough time and energy to pedal to a nearby lake.

A plouf in the lake, photosynthesizing in the sun, and of course and ice cream to top off a lovely afternoon in the summer sun was in order before heading back to the train station and our super-crowded TER train that would take us back to Toulouse.

72 kilometers, 1,115m elevation gain, 0 carbon emissions!

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What was supposed to be a relaxing weekend getaway turned into a full-blown zero-emission adventure, and lead me to realize two things:

1. A touch of improvisation and le sens de l'aventure can turn an ordinary trip into something special

   and

2. I think I want to keep on trying these vélo-ventures ... but more on that later!

   
   

Until then!

See you on my bike,

xx lele