Amanda recalls a favourite, awful, meal.
Food is a very important part of riding bikes. Not only for the basic fact of us needing the fuel, but it often can be the motivator for a bike ride. Café rides are characterised by the destination being somewhere you can buy a butty or a slice of cake. Riders in my local Tuesday night group all require a post-ride pie, hence the ‘club’ name RideDrinkPie. Some of my friends have competitive games of snack Top Trumps, where you are heavily judged for turning up with a trailside snack that isn’t comically gourmet. My friends refer to all weekend rides as Sandwich Sessions. Asking ride buddies what their go-to trail snack or favourite post-ride meal is will elicit a passionate, detailed response. You get the point – food plays a huge role in getting us out the door, keeping us rolling, and providing a social base at the end of the ride. Because of all this, one of my favourite conversations to have on a long bike ride is ‘What’s your most memorable meal on a ride?’ I’ll start…
It’s the seventh day of a two-week bikepacking trip over the French and Italian Alps, and we wake up at the base of the Col Agnel, a beautiful alpine pass with a summit of 2,744m. Breakfast is the usual sugary granola with chocolate milk, washed down with a strong black coffee. We’ve got some snacks on board, but supplies are running low so as soon as we drop down the other side of this pass we plan to find a service station to replenish our stock of sweets and biscuits.
So far on this trip, the weather has been pleasant. Very hot at lower levels, but riding over every mountain in our path sees lower temperatures at high altitudes. We’re used to the balance, draining our three-litre water bladders on the way up then throwing jackets on at the top. Today, however, is threatening to be a tad more dramatic. There’s a storm brewing in the distance, and we naively trust it to hold off until we’re up and over.
Two hours pass
We’re 150 vertical metres from the summit with a brutal, ice-cold wind trying to push us back down. I feel like an opposing magnet, pushing hard to move forward but being forced to remain where I am. There’s a gravel track to the right with a huge chalet at the end, so we take a chance on it having some shelter for us to wait out the storm. It turns out to be a refuge, bursting at the seams with other cyclists, hikers and explorers caught out by the weather. There is no food left.
There’s a gap in the weather, so we see our opportunity to climb the final 150m and blast down the other side of the mountain and get food. Only, this final 150m takes just enough time for the weather to return. It’s now snowing at the summit, and descending the other side is a real struggle that results in numb hands and feet, frozen cheeks and a desperate need for a warm meal.
Three hours pass
We’ve managed to move forward enough to get blood circulating and we reach a small town showing no signs of life, thanks to the weather. The only restaurant in this town has stopped serving food. In a moment of desperation, we find somewhere to sit with a bit of shelter, set up the Jetboil and cook the remains of a depleted packet of pasta we’ve had for a few days. The only water we have is the electrolyte mix in our frame bags, and the only topping we have left is salt and pepper. As we sit, shivering and feeling sorry for ourselves, eating pasta in an alleyway in an unknown town, on a window ledge hoping nobody indoors opens their blinds, a group of finely dressed Italians emerge from the house. My usual social anxiety and self-consciousness have been temporarily frozen, so I give them an apologetic nod and a smile, and their response is a very animated celebration and applause. I’m sure if they knew we were eating dried electrolyte pasta with additional salt, they’d be less impressed. But, in that moment, the approval and admiration made the pasta taste better, the situation seem less dire, and I will forever have a fond memory of a suited and booted Italian who found us sitting on his window ledge and gave us a wholehearted and two-armed celebration.
