Day One – July 27, 2003 – Le Cheylas, northern Alps

We pedalled our first miles Sunday from Cédric and Betty’s house high in the mountains of the picturesque northern French Alps. High in the mountains – well, this was a good thing because at least our first few miles were going down. Down to the small village of Le Cheylas in the valley below, where Stéphane spent his adolescent years. So, we were off to a good start. I was thankful we were going downhill and with only a handful of friends so that I would have the time to find my balance before we reached Le Cheylas, where therer was a send-off party organized by the Town Hall, which was helping to sponsor our trip. I talk about finding my balance on the bike because it’s not very easy at the beginning to balance a bicycle laden down with 75 lbs. of weight – my share of everything we would need for our voyage of two years. You wobble and criss-cross the road several times before you gain your equilibrium, all the while hoping that you won’t lose control of the bike (We had only one biking experience before, in April of 2002 in Spain, so we don’t have much experience behind us).

As we reached Le Cheylas, we were happy to see that a lot of Stéphane’s friends and family were there to greet us and to bid us a “bon voyage.” Over a dozen friends and family members (Pierre, Jérôme, Kévin, Jean-Claude, Marylise, Rachid, Philippe, Eric, Fleur, Caroline, Benoîte, Julien, and Belou) rode with us for the first day. We donned our official “Le Cheylas” T-shirts that the mayor had given us as parting gifts and waved our good-byes as friends and townspeople wished us well and reporters flashed photos to chronicle the start of our long planned-for voyage.

The sun was beating down on us for the first half of the day, and then in the afternoon, the skies burst open with a fury and the rain beat down mercilessly upon us. It was as if all of the rain that had been prayed for during the last several months of drought and suffocating heat had come in one afternoon. It was very welcome. Anything was better than the stifling heatwave we’d been suffering through. The day came to a close with a reunion at Aix-les-Bains (the largest lake in Europe). At the end of our first day of biking, we were wet but happy, surrounded by family and friends.