Its always darkest before the dawn… (and other cliches that it turns out are true).

Isola — well its very old (charming) and very, very small (limited options). Our hotel was dilapidated, and didn’t smell very nice. But on close inspection, the sheets looked clean. The toilet flushed with a motor that sounded like heavy farm machinery. The restaurant next door– don’t ask. On the surreal side, that night a Gospel choir was passing through and performing right outside our window as we were going to bed. I don’t go to church but I do love the sound of Gospel music. I drifted off to sleep to amazing voices belting it to the heavens.

We left early the next day (couldn’t wait to get out of there), expecting a long, but not difficult ride. We expected wrong. The first few hours were flat and downhill through canyons. Cool air and a beautiful sunrise breaking through and making everything sparkle. Signs for Nice said 20km (nothing!) we could have gone straight there, a day early. But no, that felt like cheating. We wanted to stick to the course. We hit the hard part. The sun was up and on full blast by then. We had expected 2 km of 10% climb. That’s difficult, but that’s short. I don’t know the stats of what the climb actually was but I can tell you it was endless and it was hell. Gabriel was ahead of me, after a while he was way out of eye or earshot. The terrain was forest-y, but the road was wide enough that there was no shade. Not a car, not a cyclist passed. Hot, exhausting, endless, alone. Sisyphean. There was no mercy from the sun. My water was the temperature of tea. My stomach was cramping from whatever I had eaten the night before. What follows is the thought process / experience of a woman exhausted and possibly suffering the beginning of heat exhaustion. Now mind you, I had given myself permission from the beginning of this trip: if I need to get off the bike and walk it, I can. That’s allowed.

I cried. (Not like with tears, but more like a whine). Literally a cry in the wilderness, if you will. My arms throbbed. Forget the wrists. I cursed. I told myself: just ride to that patch of shade, then you can get off. Then the next one: just ride to that tree, then you can get off. I stood up out of the saddle and counted backwards from 100, puffing, pumping. I recited Shakespeare monologues that are still in my head from college. “Oh for a muse of fire…” I practiced counting in French. I repeated mantras. I cursed myself, Gabriel, and anyone who has ever ridden a bike. I howled. It was so HOT. I’ve now cut holes in my biking tights where my knee wounds are, and I bandage them LOOSELY (for reasons you won’t want to hear about). The problem is, there is not enough medical tape in the world to hold these bandages on my knees, which are constantly bending, straightening, bending, straightening… and are continuously slicked and re-slicked with sweat. So my bandages keep unsticking, and flappity-flapping as I ride. And I keep trying to slap them back on. “FUCK YOU, BANDAGES!” I scream out into the forest at one point. But there are these butterflies everywhere. All types and colors. And lots of yellow ones. Someone told me once that yellow butterflies are good luck. So a yellow butterfly (my animal for the day) would flutter in front of me and I would just follow it. I can’t get off the bike because the butterfly wants me to keep going. Follow the butterfly. Then it would disappear and another would replace it, leading me forward.

The bandage on my left knee eventually flew off (FUCK YOU, FUCKER!!) and after some minutes of riding I thought, okay, I have to stop and re-bandage. I can’t have this new, healing, raw skin get broiled in the sun like a toasted cheese sandwich (sorry). So finally I found a patch of shade and I dropped in it. My chest was heaving, I was breathing so hard. I re-wrapped, and found one last wrinkled up pack of energy goo. “Espresso Love” flavor. Yes. And some tea-water. I thought hard about walking the rest of the way. No, I’ll just try to get back on the bike. More climb. I suddenly thought of this movie from the ’80’s where Madeline Stowe is being tortured by Alan Rickman. She says (I think? Somehow I remember this) “You can break my body but you can’t break my mind.” I yell it out to the sky, its a mantra. YOU CAN BREAK MY BODY BUT YOU CAN’T BREAK MY MIND! Clearly I’m a madwoman. I’m still on the bike. Then that stops working and its “All You Need is Love” by the Beatles. “All You Need is Love…ba ba da da…” I’m singing that now. The yellow butterflies keep appearing. I will not get off this bike. Finally, somehow its end. Gabriel is there in a little cafe, waving, waiting. I fall off my bike and lay down on the sidewalk under a tree. The leaves are twinkling like stars. Gabriel leans over me: “Do you want a Coke?” “Water.” We agreed that was the hardest ride we’d ever done, period. If I had known how hard it was going to be, I would have made us choose a different route. If I had been with someone who had quit, I probably would have quit too. But I’m with a man who doesn’t quit and that’s my inspiration.

We wanted to finish our ride right away, screw the plan, stay in the next closest town. But there were no hotels in existence there, so we rode on, slowly, ever so carefully. Aware that we were both compromised in every possible way. It was another couple of hours. We got to Levens. We stopped to check the GPS for our hotel (the heat still blazing) and I said: “I think I tore my ass.” (Turned out just to be chaffed). 8 hours on a bike will do things to you. But seriously. You know the party’s over when you’ve literally torn your ass. Our hotel was a cute house with blue shutters. Too late for lunch, we fell into bed, dozed, napped, counted the minutes until 7:30 when we could eat.

Today, July 23rd, 2013 we have arrived in Nice–easy from Levans, truly easy. The hotel clerk took a picture of us in the lobby. We hugged, we laughed, we danced naked in our hotel room. (By the way, my legs and butt look like a map of the world. No pictures, please). Our ride is technically over, although we still have to cycle a few kilometers to the airport on the 25th.

One more post coming tomorrow. A few more details to share, and then… FIN.