Collognes-la-Rouge

The delights and difficulties of the Dordogne and Correze awaited us today.

May 1 is Labour day in France. We call it May Day and it turned out to be a prophetic name. Everything (almost) is closed. The sun was shining after its own holiday. The wind pushed us along towards one of the highlights of the trip. At the town of Veyrac the route was blocked for major reconstruction of the highway.

It was then I discovered that I was wrong.

During the 1 km altitude drop a month ago I destroyed my brakes but thought I had not damaged the rim. But today the rim finally split and the brakes on the rear became useless.

Que Faire?

We thought about it for a while and realised that there was nothing we could do in the middle of nowhere. So we disabled the rear brakes and pushed on not knowing how the wheel would stand up. We dropped the pressure in the tyre to reduce the damage to the rim. And off we went.

Slowly.

Very slowly.

We found a detour that took us up over a big hill and down to the next town.. I descended at 6 kmph as we did not know if the wheel was about to collapse. After an hour I developed a bit more faith in the rim so speed up to 15 kmph for the rest of the day. Every 1/2 hour we would stop and check the rim for further damage but it was holding up.

The ascent into Collonges-la-Rouge is paved in red bitumen to keep in context with the town. The village itself is off to the side of the main road.
We walked our bikes down into the village just stunned that the whole village was built in red sandstone which glowed like hot coals when the sun smiled on us. Collonges la Rouge is a village popular with artists and actors who have made it their home over the years. And close behind them came their followers and fans. It is staggering beautiful and for the umpteenth time we were lost for words to

describe it.

Being May Day it was chocker block full of tourists and we were a little disappointed we never got to see the village in its full glory. But of course we are part of the curse of tourism, and the locals must hate being on show all the time. We very carefully took our photos with few or no tourists in view and Sally pressed the GOPRO into use.

A kind gentleman told us of a small road for later in the day which avoided a big drop and re-climb. We were so thankful. When we got to the intersection we thought he had got it wrong as the road he suggested climbed straight up a hill. But 50 m later there it was. The old road that hugged the ridge line rather than dropping to the village below. Whoever you were – Merci Beaucoup.

Eventually we started the descent in Brive–la–Gaillarde. Thank

goodness it was only 5 % and we had the wind on the nose. For the first time ever it was a bonus. I got out my rain coat, did up the bottom inch of the zip and then it acted like a big spinnaker, providing extra braking for the downhill leg. I even had to pedal downhill occasionally which normally leads to vast quantities of cursing and swearing but today I was happy.

In Brive we hunted down the tourist office but it was closed . So at 6 pm we treated ourselves to a Kebab at a cafe with free WIFI and sent a message to our accommodation for the night letting them know we would be late arriving. The road out of Brive was very poorly marked and we had to guess several times where to go. By now it was getting dark. At the top of huge climb a car coming along the road stopped and chatted to us.

Where were we staying for the night?

La Ferme de Masloup.

That is our place. You must be the 2 cyclists who have booked.

So they turned around and led us to the farm for the night. A beer and a fruit juice sent us off to bed absolutely shattered after an awesome but very difficult day.

They were delighted the next day when we booked for a second night as they did not need to change the sheets etc. We asked about bike shops and the only one he knew was in the town of Terrasson 15 kms away. Even though it was downhill we struggled to get there only to find the bike shop was closed on Mondays! Dang. So we went back to the Office de Tourisme where she kindly let us leave our bikes inside while we visited the town, ( check the video when we finally can

upload it.) We also stumbled across a display on the Normandy landings.

The town is busy repairing the 11th century bridge and to effect the repairs they have built a coffer dam around the supports in the middle of the river so they can get down to bedrock to repair any scouring from 1000 years of use. They are also removing the grime of centuries of weathering and have fitted some new gargoyles to ensure that water run-off drops into the river and does not just run down the side of the bridge which would cause damage over a few hundred years. Talk about forward planning! The bells of the church put on a beautiful performance just for us!

The return trip was a lot quicker even though it was uphill ( what a difference 10 kms of wind makes).

We got chatting to the owner to discover his son had spent a year in New Zealand and loved the place. It is funny how living in paradise for so long makes you a bit blasé . We cooked our own dinner on a gas stove in a communal kitchen and took ourselves off to bed early.