Week-end prolongé: Père & fils
Le Week-End Prolongé (n) : Add an extra day (or two), breathing room to find riding space somewhere special. Or simply somewhere simple. Get up, kit on, ride out kind of trips. Cycling for the soul.
Paul-Louis Clermont, 72, is busy changing the set-up on his borrowed bike in the Café's atélier. He's trying to get back into road mode after adding a Scott e-MTB to his substantial bike collection which runs from old steel roadies, fully rigid MTBs, special edition carbon superbikes and custom gravel bikes. He’s helped by his son, and our co-founder, Rémi, who knows the set-up is as important to his father as the post-ride Strava analysis will be.
Michel Icard, 61, arrives with his ever-present smile and twinkle in the eye and puts down his bag in front of the Café bar. Said bag still proudly wears the sticker bearing his race number from last year’s Gran Fondo World Championships, where, as a climber on a sprinter’s course, he was disappointed to finish only 14th.
Florent, his son, arrives at the same time having just spent the morning helping skiers snap into their bindings up in Auron. Previously an up-and-coming future superstar, Flo now splits his time between the winter season in the snow and the summer season on the pedals. It’s his first real foray on the road in 2018, and he’s worried the old men will beat him up.
This Week-End Prolongé had been staring everybody in the face for months. Literally. Resting on the Port every morning and evening are the ferries that bridge the channel between Nice and Corsica. It's an obvious thing to do from the Café - a roll-on, roll-off affair with no airport security and bike box lugging to pollute the experience.
Corsica is important to the Icards. Michel, or Mich Mich as everyone in the niçois cycling world affectionately calls him, is married to a Corsican and him and Flo return to visit the family house buried in the southern mountains at least once a year.
Flo tells us that during his years as an elite amateur with his sights on a professional contract, he didn’t train anywhere that hurt his legs like the Corsican roads did. ‘Jamais plat’ ('never flat') he says, verifying the island’s nickname of ‘The Mountain In The Sea’.
Cap Corse is the obvious first pick from the ride base in Bastia. Ride the 100km lap of the peninsula anti-clockwise - catch the early sun rays on the east and ride into the sunset on the west.
Paul-Louis questions the plan immediately, 'if we ride anti-clockwise that means we finish with the Col de Teghime?” He’s from Alsace in northern France but displays a knowledge of roads and mountains that suggests there is a Michelin map of every region imprinted on his brain. Paul-Louis has never competed in a race, never been in a club and he’ll join the Ventoux night ride before he’ll do a sportive. But he’s ridden all his life. For pleasure. For himself. And with his son. Rémi comes from the same mould. It has helped him see cycling in a different light, forming his own breakaway from the peloton.
Cap Corse plunges you almost immediately into the remoteness that the island delivers. Endless sea views to the right, snow-capped mountains to your left, it is not a stereotypical flat branch out into the sea. Erbalunga is the first hint of picture postcard fishing village life that sustains a quiet part of a tranquil region. The Genoise Towers decorate the coast like army badges, worn by an island that has been fought over for centuries.
Top tip – never ride the Cap de Corse off season without previously making a lunch reservation. Stunning tranquillity is one thing, hunger with 50kms remaining on the route card is another.
Mich Mich expresses how one of the best experiences of ultra-endurance riding (one of the many many disciplines he partakes in) is to arrive in town, pass through a cloud of sumptuous cooking aromas and follow your nose to the plate. Despite his ‘sec’ appearance, Mich can eat as well as he climbs. He knows how to fuel the engine: little and often. Or maybe just often. Flo and Rémi could learn a lesson from him as they recount tales of bonking and being towed back home by their dads in the early days.
After eventually finding the best charcuterie in the world in Centuri, the four-ball rolls on one of the most spectacular coastal roads known to cyclists. At points the road is a singletrack masquerading as a standard route nationale, the white line in the middle needing assistance from passing places to allow two-way traffic, if there was any. It clings to the edge of the sharp cliffs which dive into the ocean and disappears round rocky outcrops leaving nothing but dramatic sea and sky vistas behind. The group rides tight, enjoying the billiard table surface and the panorama and not much is said because not much needs to be said.
Looking west the sun is the hourglass timer for the ride, its height above sea level used to determine the remaining saddle time.
Nonza bay was the target. Sunset on the beach, legs in the ocean to be refreshed for day two. Paul-Louis, at 72, feels the cold more than anybody and opts out. Flo, ever the joker, opts to throw stones and splash Remi and Mich Mich as they try and enjoy the view. With a gran fondo in the tank, endorphin release is set to maximum. The only thing required is more food.
In the restaurant the waiter is clearly trying to off-load the day’s delivery of côte de bœuf to the late clientele. It’s the best Corsican beef, “fait moi confiance” he repeats over and over, causing laughter and doubt in equal measure. Everyone orders pizza, but they do succumb to the sales pitch for the local wine.
One day on the best coastal road in the world is followed by a mountainous 80kms loop inland, starting with the Col de Santo Stefano.
The D62, like quite a few of the roads in Corsica, is marked on the Michelin map with the famous green line which denotes a scenic route. It starts in the olive groves on the lower slopes then breaks out into the gorge with a tunnel view right up towards the snowy peaks of Asco, where skiing still looks possible. But the trees are charred black from wildfires and further up the climb, peering over the cliff reveals a cemetery of unwanted cars that have been sent to their final resting place in dramatic Hollywood fashion. It’s a good excuse for a pause and a joke on the climb. It’s also a reminder that Corsica, for all its beauty, has an edge to it.
First day lunch panic is replaced by second day lunch picnic. Baguettes in the back pocket and eating al fresco on a rock in the middle of nowhere. The flowers are springing but they are still over-shadowed by the empty bright yellow shotgun cartridges that pepper the grass. Flo’s grandad is a chasseur and, according to Icard junior, so is 90% of the male population of the island. The charcuterie has to come from somewhere.
Through the perched villages of Pieve, Sorio and San Pietro-di-Tenda and a mis-en-scène of rural Corsican life. Down to Saint-Florent for coffee and front row seats for the post-lunch pétanque. A stout man arrives and immediately throws every boule with pin-point accuracy, much to Rémi's delight.
The bowl shaped valley behind Saint-Florent that rises up to the ridgeline between Oletta and Patrimonio is like a displaced taste of Tuscany. It is perfect wine country. Patrimonio is the recognised area and the Leccia domaine is an ideal final pit-stop before the Col de Teghime and the boat home.
Mich Mich takes a taste, even though you get the sense he’d rather keep riding. He understands this is a shared experience and part of this particular ride that adds to his encyclopedia of cycling experiences.
Flo repeatedly asks if there is any charcuterie whilst Rémi is torn between knowing that there is limited space to carry wine back to Nice and that, once on the mainland, it may be ‘stored’ in his house. Paul-Louis? Well he is in his element. He collects wine almost as fervently as bikes and buys two cases; “it’s good but, more importantly, every time I drink it, I’ll remember this ride”. Wisdom for the long road.
Flo tells a great story of a fall from glory. Having been riding in a day-long breakaway in the Tour de Savoie he had a grande defaillance on the final climb resulting in a loss of 15mins in the last 10kms. Like all racing engines, his is one of fine tolerances – it can be revved hard but if not oiled correctly it may explode.
He goes ‘hypo’ on the climb up the Col de Teghime and gets dropped by everyone. They wait for him, then he sprints the summit. You can take the racer out of the racing but not the racing out of Flo.
Dinner has no added ‘fait moi confiance’ as it’s a torn up chicken and baguette watching the ferry traffic on the port. Onto the boat for the return home and the father and sons split into their cabins that, on the slightly cheaper ferry, are bite size.
After a weekend together, that might be too close for some, but the Clermonts and the Icards have no issue – tired bodies and comfortable silence based on the closest bond of them all.
