Something is always

After the longer stopover in Montgenèvre, it was time to tackle the next major stage. First, it should lead me through the Queyras Nature Park, then past Monte Viso into Piedmont and to the stage destination Barcelonnette in the Provençal Alps. That's 220 kilometers and over 8000 meters of altitude in sparsely populated area, and will take several days. I was excited.

The departure was initially irritating. It was Monday and almost all shops, including the bakery, were closed - the end of the summer holidays in France apparently also meant the rather abrupt end of the season for Montgenèvre. So it was definitely time to travel further. The ascent to the first pass was still quite relaxed with 500 meters of altitude, and after a final glance at the proud Mont Chaberton, it went on gentle flow trails into a lonely and elongated valley, which passed by a few farms and hamlets and into the hiking trail to Col du Mont Malrif. A longer and quite exhausting push section awaited me here with a very steep finale shortly before the pass summit at 2850 meters. I was spared any contact with snow like the day before, but it was still frosty cold with lively wind and some hailstones to endure. As so often in recent days, a deep blue mountain lake adorned the barren mountain landscape here as well and quickly made me forget the ascent hardships.

Initially quite rough, then increasingly smooth, the descent went downhill. First along the steep slope, then through a flock of sheep, past barking shepherd dogs and relaxed shepherds, into the Swiss pine forest and flowing further until Abriès eventually appeared. A small, picturesque commune and mainly a transit station for hikers who were hiking the GR 58, a long-distance hiking trail through the Queyras, which I also partly followed today. Accordingly, it was pleasant that many of my camping neighbors were also only traveling with muscle power, and the campsite was equipped for our needs - there was a small but fine communal kitchen for everyone to use. So nothing stood in the way of a self-prepared breakfast and dinner with ingredients from the village shop.

The night was bitterly cold. Although located only at 1500 meters, I rarely froze so much on my tour so far. In the sleeping bag, I had all the clothes on that provided warmth. That way, I just managed not to shiver. The fact that all of this was not just in my imagination was shown the next morning by the fact that the condensation water on the tent was frozen. The autumn was thus announcing itself, and I should probably make sure to quickly reach more Mediterranean regions.

However, before that, I wanted to do a day tour to the supposedly best trail in the region. To get to the starting point, it meant pedaling on asphalt up to Col Agnel in the parallel-running valley. The sun was shining and slowly warming up my stiff-frozen limbs. So, as I mused to myself that everything was actually going quite well, I suddenly noticed that something was wrong with my tooth. There was a sharp edge that wasn't there before. I remembered the delicious but also very crispy baguette from breakfast, and that cracking sound when chewing that I couldn't quite place. It was probably a piece of the tooth that had broken off. Well, great, something is always happening. And since the next dentist was further away than the next bike workshop, I decided to go with the same strategy as with the broken bottom bracket. Just keep riding and ignore the problem as long as possible. Fortunately, the distraction eventually came in the form of a trail. And it really fulfilled all the criteria to be the best in the region. At least it was a lot of fun, which only ended shortly before Abriès.