This post recounts the eigth day of my English Channel to the Mediterranean cycle tour in France with Peak Tours in June 2025. Read Day 7: Le Mont-Dore to Saint-Flour.

Today had been billed as a recovery day: just 50 miles. That sounded good after two challenging but enjoyable stages. But it led us into underestimating today’s cycling. Those 50 miles included 4,500 feet of climbing, with the steepest sections appearing in the heat of the afternoon.

Breakfast at the monastery wasn’t as good as dinner last night, with long queues for the coffee machine. (It’s curious how the French have embraced these automatic machines, which dispense various types of coffee. Once they’d have been appalled by the idea.)

But it was a leisurely start to the day: we didn’t set off until 9.30am. I wasted some of that bonus time as it took ages to transfer the day’s route (the GPX file) onto my Garmin. In the past, I’d have loaded every day’s route onto my device before the start of the tour. I must remember to do that in future.

The ride began with a freewheeling descent to Saint-Flour’s lower town. We cycled alongside the A75 motorway before peeling off for the first, easy climb of the day. The highlight of the day was cycling past the Viaduc de Garabit, Gustave Eiffel’s magnificent railway bridge over the Truyère river valley. Its parabolic arch, 165 metres wide, was the longest in the world when it opened in 1885, until Porto’s famous Dom Luis I bridge over the Douro surpassed it the following year. Eiffel also designed a railway bridge in Porto that’s very similar to Garabit, but his greatest monument is, naturally, the tower named after him in Paris.

I sailed under the Garabit viaduct on a boat trip on a 1993 holiday in the Auvergne, after a very long drive from Ouistreham. Today I took pride at having cycled all the way from the Channel. Soon after taking photos and video of the viaduct, I noticed an even nicer, sylvan view, which Tim also spotted.

Now came the first proper climb of the day, away from the Truyère valley, which ended in the village of Faverolles, where we had the morning brew stop. The location was beside a modern church, and we were told that a wedding was taking place imminently. We decided the wedding party would be very unimpressed by a large group of sweating cyclists outside, so felt we needed to move on.

I enjoyed the next stage of the ride. The route passed through pleasant countryside, with the sound of the cows’ bells as they moved in the fields.

There was, however, a section of road with loose gravel, which led to a dramatic accident. Even on my gravel bike I was uneasy about the surface, especially when moving out of the way of larger vehicles coming the other way. As I rounded a corner, I heard a cry and a crash behind me. I was alarmed to see Steve and Maureen on the ground alongside their bikes. Steve’s wheel had jammed when gravel got stuck in his rim brakes, and he fell, landing on top of Maureen. Steve had some nasty gravel cuts, but Maureen was unhurt.

I cycled with New Zealander Chris for most of the ride to lunch, passing through the town of Saint Chely-d’Apcher, which is twinned with Tadcaster in Yorkshire. (This was the only time I remember seeing a British twin town named on our route.) We then had another long, steep climb away from the town, before cycling alongside the A75 motorway again. It was fun seeing well known south of France towns named on the motorway signs – it showed how far we’d travelled.

After passing through the village of Aumont-Aubrac, we had an enjoyable descent to the picnic lunch in woodland overlooking a river. Once again, a dog joined us for lunch – it’s as if the French canine community were tracking our movements! We also admired a red kite soaring over the valley. It reminded me of home – of Wales and Buckinghamshire.

The afternoon session was brutal. I’ve already explained why we had been complacent about the day’s challenge. A line from the route notes made things worse: ‘After lunch there is a long descent to Mende’. What those notes didn’t say was we had a succession of long, hard climbs before that descent, in the heat of the afternoon.

At one point, I took a breather by a church and enjoyed watching other riders climbing the hill. This was just a brief respite as we progressed towards a water stop, which was much needed on such a hot and thirsty afternoon’s ride.

Finally, I watched my Garmin’s counter of feet still to be climbed display the magical ‘0’, and prepared for the joy of freewheeling towards Mende, seen in the images below.

We’d been warned about the rough and bumpy road surface, but it was actually better than most of my local roads. (It may be very different in wet weather.)

We had a fine view of Mende as we approached. The town is beautifully placed in the lower Lot valley, and the cathedral towers provided a splendid sight in the distance. We were staying at the modern Hôtel du Pont Roupt, alongside an old bridge on the road into town. My room didn’t have air conditioning, but I took that as an opportunity to wash my cycling clothes, confident that it would dry quickly. (Oddly, I had my best night’s sleep so far in that hot room: my body is finally getting used to the idea of being on tour!)

There was an excellent bike shop, Mondovelo Mende close to the hotel, so I bought some electrolyte tablets to replace my spare ones that have mysteriously gone missing. They are important in this heat. I also enjoyed the sight of the dogs playing in the river by the hotel, seen above.

Later, I walked into Mende to join Steve, Maureen, Alison and Willie for a drink at a bar in front of the cathedral. (They have been very kind welcoming me into their party on free evenings.) We then walked into the heart of the old town looking for a restaurant. It soon became clear that deciding on a preferred venue was pointless: it was a question of where would have a table free on a busy Saturday night. (I hadn’t realised it was Saturday – it’s easy to lose track of days of the week on a tour…)

We ended up back at the original bar, where John joined us for dinner. It was an enjoyable end to an unexpectedly hard day.

Read Day 9: Mende to Grospierres.

The day’s stats

51.12 miles, 4,488 feet climbing, 4 hrs 21 mins cycling, average speed 11.7 mph.e speed 11.5 mph.

The day’s highlights video