We left Bordeaux at dawn, scheming to outrun the heat. Cycling quietly so as not to wake the City, which was still hungover from yesterday’s Tour De France bicycle race. On the sparsely treed, grassy embankment by the right bank of the Garonne River, the last of yesterday’s revellers were bedded down among the homeless, united in seeking refuge from the unrelenting heatwave. Meanwhile, the regular early morning cafe espresso and cigarette men, watch from their knitted plastic wicker chairs with practised disdain as present day morning traffic whizzes past, those impassive commuters on electric scooters, standing motionless like human sculptures cut adrift from their plinth. 

Chatting excitedly, our heavily loaded touring bikes groan under weight, rolling across the Pont de Pierre bridge to meet the enchanting Roger Lapébie rail trail, named in honour of the local 1937 winner of La Tour de France. Suddenly finding ourselves transplanted back in time to a landscape fringed with steamy primordial forest of ancient French Oak and Chestnut trees, crawling with twisted vines, ferns, and blackberries. Periodically, crumbling farmhouses appear beside rows of dopey sunflowers, slouched alongside stout lines of waving corn. Along the hedgerows, I find the air is thick with the fecund sweet aroma of ripe wild fruits. Stopping to gorge on sweet blackberries, banana passionfruit, and apples, I startled a hedgehog, saw a lizard and was kissed by butterflies. 

Passing a ramshackle rural home near St Brice, a hearty “Bonjour” ensures a lighthearted conversation in a mixture of French and English. Kathy and Jean-Philippe host us in their organic garden, replete with a solar shower and composting toilet. We camp the night beneath a mature walnut tree after sharing a vegetable moussaka, homemade walnut wine served over ice with lashings of laughter, before a slow walk through a nearby nature reserve. We enjoyed a delicious unscripted sumptuous slice of French life.

Cycling Southwest along the Scandiberique route, into the Pyrenees, the trail is mostly unrealised. We find ourselves alone, now deep in a forest, riding on rough gravel logging trails. A wild deer bounds out from the woods, almost knocking Therese off her bicycle. While there is an element of risk in any adventure, there’s nowhere better to be right now than right here cycling in rural France, where every small village has a story that is steeped in history and mystery.