Lesson Learned

I have no problems to admit how often, carried away by what remains of my juvenile spirit and unsuspected energies, I forget to respect even the simplest, reasonable and most evident rules.

I learned another lesson, this evening, if it ever was necessary to repeat the lesson: never attempt to climb a mountain in wintertime at dusk, when the sun is about to set. 

On the way up, panting like a steam-engine on a silent and desert road, sided by tall trees, you don't feel the temperature going down and down after each gained kilometre. Excited by the smell of the fresh and thin air, alone in the dimming light of the evening, you go higher and higher, with a pale and cold sun disappearing at your back, till you reach the top.

Only in that moment, when the road turns flat again on the saddle you've reached and prepare yourself for the descent, you realize it's getting quickly dark and terribly late. Forty kilometres and more of darkness are ahead of you, before you can finally put your bicycle back in the cellar. So, you pull up your neck, fasten your balaclavas, make some movement in the attempt to draw some blood back into your toes and let yourself gliding downhill.

Half scared and half excited, freezing in a mist that soon turns into a thick fog, you steer your gears at the light of your lamp, paying attention to every possible sign that can help you anticipate the bends or an obstacle on the charcoal. There's no much time to think, but your mind goes far anyway.

Passing by a cottage you cast your sight inside the kitchen, where someone is already about to sit for dinner. Some chimneys are blowing a wisp of smoke and you fancy about sitting in front of a hearth. Then your wishes come back on the street, as you hope not to meet a wild animal crossing the street. Hitting a chamois is the last of the experience you'd like to do, at forty, fifty kilometres per hour. 

At the end you get out of the fog and reach the first village down in the valley, from where a railroad runs along your cycling path. Worst case, whatever happens, there's always a station nearby, where to catch a train that takes you home. But you don't have time to think about a similar solution. You want to get home with your means. So, you switch your lamp by one level up and push stronger and stronger your legs on the pedals.