I'm riding light for a week on the mountain roads of the Alps. No laptop, although I do have my SLR camera but photos will have to wait till I'm back in Marseille..

I left Marseille for a long ride north via the Col de la Croix Haute (1179 m.) to Saint-Gervais under Mont Blanc. A bit of rain towards the end of the day which cleaned the Provence dust off my white leathers and boots but didn't soak me through.

Read more here Alps Biker blog 2016

A lap of the historic road race route around and over Mt. Ventoux (1912 m.), it’s a challenging route of 55 km. As well as a number of hairpin bends and a lot of altitude loss/gain there are a number of truly scary straight runs which end in either a blind curve (or multiple curves) with either hard rock, a sheer drop or just forest to greet you if you get it wrong. Not really time to appreciate the views of all of Provence from the Alps to the Mediterranean. A few opportunities to feel the breeze down the inside of the back of the suit from the intake on the speed bump but generally, sharing the road with so many Lycra fetishists (ie cyclists, and there are thousands of them) makes it difficult to imagine how the route would feel as a bike road race, like the TT. Anyhow, the villages were bustling and atmospheric, especially Bédoin on the south side.

Read more: A lap of Ventoux

Stormy weather in June even in Provence. Plenty of green trees and grass on Mont Sainte-Baume, rising above the sub-tropical forest of cork. oak and parasol pine trees near Bras (Var). Great to be back on my own bike but this is a ride I would usually do in winter but even now in June the higher routes are still wet and cloudy.

Nine of us from GBMCC enjoyed a day out at North Weald Airfield in Essex; we started on quad bikes to get the basic actions and reflexes, then moved on to teaching bikes supplied by our fantastic teachers, Stunt Asylum. Some got the front wheel up much more smoothly and for longer than others, but we all did it. Several riders moved up to doing wheelies on their own bikes. Stunt Asylum put on a mind-wrenching show for us at the lunch break...