06 January 2020

A Ride Inside

One of my most interesting—and gratifying—bike rides took me through a tunnel.

The day before, I’d pedaled up the Alpe d’Huez, with a few hundred other riders, before it was closed for the Tour de France peloton.  I was riding southeast, toward Italy, along a narrow Alpine road.  Ahead of me , I saw a sign:  Route Baree.  A gendarme directed traffic—which, at that moment, consisted of a Citroen and me—away.

I watched the Citroen turn   toward a wider road.  I looked at my Michelin map. (That’s what we used before GPS.). I could see a couple of  roads that trailed off in fields or forests.  So I followed the trail of the Citroen to a road that, according to the map, led to a mountain.  But it didn’t seem to go up or around the col.

After a few minutes of riding, I saw a bottleneck—at the mouth of the tunnel.  There was another sign: that Caution! Caution! Eclairage Interrupte.

The rockslides that blocked the other road caused power outages.  So that tunnel—about half a kilometer long—was very dark. I had a headlight, but it was more for being seen than to see.  

Oh—and the two lanes that passed through that tunnel looked about half as wide as a single American lane.  One of the lanes was closed.  And there was no shoulder.

Traffic stopped at the entrance.  So did I.  A man emerged from the first car.

“Allez,” He motioned to the other drivers. “Nous vous suivrons. Pouvez rouler sur le chemin de nos phares.”

I rode through that tunnel—in the wake of their headlights. None of those drivers honked, and all of them drove behind me all the way through that tunnel.

I thought of that ride  when I heard about the Round and Round the Underground Race. On 29 March, several hundred riders will thrust and twist their way through the Springfield Underground, a limestone mine in Missouri.

As far as I know, none of those riders will have to worry about lighting.



Somehow it seems less daunting than a ride through the subway tunnels of my home town!

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