Swallowed By A Whale

July 11th, 2016 ~ Stage 16 of 21: Moirans-en-Montagne to Berne. 
“It feels like we’ve been swallowed by Moby Dick!” I screamed through the ear-splitting din of the ferocious Swiss tunnel. 

I have trouble even writing about this stage much less wanting to remember it in any great detail. But the frightening part is that I can, every miserable mile of it. Maybe I haven’t had sufficient time to recover from both the physical and mental trauma. I wish I were kidding. This is the one ride I would never, ever repeat for all the money or cheese in the world. We should have gone around. I wouldn’t give a pigeon fart if this was the official route to salvation. I’d go, but not through that godforsaken tunnel or any others like it. Forget about pushing a rock up a mountain for all eternity, hell would be an endless loop of riding through Swiss tunnels on a bicycle. The noise alone is enough to render you senseless, from the reverberating baffle of industrial fans churning up the petrol-thick air to engines of all taxonomic ranks and the cacophony of a hundred sets of tires barreling across granulated tarmac. Plus the closeness of it all, cars passing relentlessly fast and near and without even a hint of knowledge that you, in all your vulnerability, exist in a space only inches away. From the interior of one of those vehicles, the tunnel must seem like a temporary womb, dark and quiet and fascinating. When viewed through the eyes of an overtaxed and nearly exhausted cyclist, it really is as bad as being swallowed alive and not knowing if you’ll make it through, slowly digested by any number of hungry machines. Here’s how the nightmare began:

“131.5 miles to tackle today. We’re 16 stages into riding the entire route of the Tour de France and while we’ve somehow made it over the Pyrenees, we still have the Alps ahead of us. Nevertheless, the day started out just fine. My legs felt surprisingly fresh and my mind clear from a strong cup of coffee and light breakfast. Last night’s dinner was delicious (despite the cruel rumors of horsemeat in the stew) and the pastoral view from the cramped hotel was quite soothing to these road worn eyes. I enjoyed a dreamless sleep with cool alpine air creeping in through an open window.” 

“The sheer length of today's stage forced us to ride in small, efficient pacelines. We fell in with a good group of men save one, whose wheel had grown weary and unsteady over the last few challenging stages. He was shunned like a scourge, left to pedal alone with only grazing cows for company. The morning roads were gentle and winding and luckily for us all, the first few climbs weren’t too taxing. The lush, golden pastureland flush with wheat and barley, straw bales sitting fine in the fields under a gentle morning sun. Yet these were the calm moments before the proverbial storm.” 

“We were warned that the weather would foul towards evening but as soon as the noon bells chimed in the church steeple, the drops began to fall, just as we hit the foot of the first serious climb. Fine as I felt now, I was totally and unforgivably ill prepared for the changing conditions at the summit. No rain jacket stuffed responsibly in my center pocket and nary a thought spent towards how I’d keep warm. A simple jersey and thin windbreaker seemed to suffice when I departed this morning, and why not, when the expected high was in the 80’s. I’ve never been one for divining the weather, sometimes even denying the possibility of a storm while watching the sky turn a menacing bruise-blue. So it was with great confidence I set out in my best summer kit for a nice ride in the mountains.”

Then it began to rain and something deliriously unpleasant occurred. I got December-cold in late July, which went ignored and ignored until hypothermia set in. And that is the pits. Especially when you don’t know it’s happening. It’s like pulling a prank on yourself. There’s cold. Then there’s this kind of cold. And it can frustratingly happen when the temperatures might be considered “pleasant” to a person warm and dry and wearing appropriate clothing and not participating in the uniquely strenuous activity of climbing the Swiss Alps. Pedaling for hours through the driving rain, in the mountains, temperatures in the low-50’s with only a croissant in my belly made me fairly easy prey for this intangible predator. First came a slight chill and a rash of bumps like the naked skin of a domesticated waterfowl. That was my brain hinting to its exposed pale shell that things were feeling frigid in the control room. By the bye, I began to shiver in unannounced waves. Unabated, the spasms caused my jaw to clench and my teeth to crash helplessly into each other until finally my body started to lurch like a possessed sock puppet. My core temperature began to drop below the copacetic gradient required for error-free functionality. Some biological back-up generator, in a Hail Mary play for survival, sent a dwindling supply of heated blood to my heart though not limbs, which started to tingle and go numb. That made it particularly tricky to hold on to the levers:

“It turns out that hypothermia can strike even when the temps are mild...any time your core temperature falls...you are done for. Teeth chattering, limbs numb and useless. Brain ceased to think lucid thoughts, operating in safe-mode only. Very, very unpleasant. Though that didn’t seem to stop it from sending the signal to my poor body that it was experiencing a terrifying, and potentially life-threatening event and it should start to panic. And after the summit, we descended the icicle mountain and the nightmare really began. Ahead was the tunnel. Its huge, hungry mouth was gaping wide and we were all but helpless to avoid being swallowed by this concrete whale. Oh it’s nothing, just a never-ending shaft to hell, I morbidly joked with my subconscious self. A huge cavern bored into the granite, pitched endlessly downward, deafening noise radiating from every direction. The fans churned stale air and exhaust fumes right into our faces. Not a speck of light anywhere, except the failing red glow from our tiny tail lights and the bioluminescent fear from the whites of my eyes . It was as much sensory depriving as overwhelming and was the last place on earth I’d ever want to find myself on a bicycle. Trucks and cars were speeding past, just as startled at our presence as we were to be present. I suddenly realized I couldn’t feel my fingers. Was I holding the brakes or just my breath?” 

Somehow I managed to maintain my composure and keep pedaling. I convinced myself I was just being delicate. At least in the tunnel it wasn’t raining. No one else seemed phased in the least by the cold or screeching metal. “I mean look at them, they’re not complaining, just mindlessly advancing like two-wheeled ants into this four-lane shaft to the netherworld.” And just like that, a heavy fog settled upon the folds of my brain and I began having the most irrational thoughts of long-ago sunburns. I had surely reached the bottom of my despair because despite the lack of feeling in fingers or toes or arms or legs, I just wanted to lay down right there and take a nap. But some faint but rational part of me also knew that was perhaps a singularly stupid thought because my partner was staring at me like I’d lost my mind and at once began cooing softly to me like he would a fragile, frightened bird. And in a fraction of a short-lived second, a static-filled synapse in my faltering mind sent a panicked S.O.S. before everything turned a blurry grey: You better fix this and fast, you sopping wet idiot. 

“I’m still not sure how no one was obliterated into a thousand pieces by a speeding box van. My partner had the gumption to usher us both onto the tiny pedestrian platform when it suddenly appeared like a savoir island in a deadly sea; a sliver of an elevated sidewalk barely out of harm’s way. When a lorry passed in the right lane, we both had to lean hard against the tunnel wall to stay away from its pile driving side mirror. By that point I was a frozen bag of limbs and was now panicked and agitated. I thought the terror of that underground turnpike would never end. With the roaring noise and putrid wetness, I had a sense of what poor plankton must experience as they slipped down the gullet of the ocean’s great mammals  (if they are capable of such dire thoughts).” 

“As soon as I saw the light at the end of the quite tangible tunnel, my partner tapped his hip in a well-known signal, “follow me and don’t ask any questions”. I couldn’t move my lips if I tried. We began a lengthy descent into a faraway village, a huge right-hand canyon visible through the rain and the trees. I was in real trouble, suspended in the throes of almost total corporeal failure due to the elements and my ineptitude. Fortunately, there was a steady wheel at my helm and I had enough experience in the saddle to keep upright and pedaling. A few miles up the road, the rain came down in a wave and my partner was forced to stop. He bought me some espressos from a gas station.” 

Unfortunately, we didn’t have the option to go on, such was the deluge careening from the heavens. Safe havens were slim along this stretch of soggy road. We deviated from the route and took shelter beneath a diminutive overhang attached to a sparsely stocked petrol station. At least they had a Nespresso machine and we put that overworked contraption through her paces with two café crèmes and two espressos. Each. I think that even managed to impress the listless, nose-pierced barista. She lifted half an eyebrow from behind her cigarette-stocked counter. God you Americans drink a lot of coffee. At least I imagined that’s what she might have said. What I didn’t know then that I’ve now been told (though still only half-heartedly believe) is that this may have worsened the effects of exposure. Perhaps, but those tiny porcelain vessels of the devil’s bitter invention were my only tether to the here and now. I drank them as if my life depended on each drop, slowly and deliberately. My heart began to beat a normal rhythm. We sat at a folding table intended for employee smoke breaks, beneath a dripping awning on the right side of the building. We had the good manners to stay outdoors, instead of leaving a wide wet puddle on their spotless tile floor. The air-conditioned interior was too painful to endure. 

Spirits lifted, if only temporarily and falsely by the injection of caffeine, it was time to hit the road. The storm lessened ever so slightly but we weren’t getting any warmer or drier lingering there. We remounted and began to pedal, if not more stiffly than before. The first few miles were misery. I braced myself as best I could for the cold pelt of rain and the spray of road grime and pouted my most determined pout, as if the universe would somehow grant my selfish silent wish for sunshine. Perhaps it was not my wish but the power of a million wishes that caused the rain to end and the sun to finally break through the heavy layers of sooty Swiss sky. And just in the nick of time too before I drifted away again towards hysteria. 

“Despite today’s ills, I can safely say I no longer fear distance or climbing. I only fear the weather and my own stupidity. Next time it rains dummy, better pack a jacket.” 

Nicole Marie Davison is a Texas expat living abroad. She attended an outdoorsy college in Colorado but spent more time snowboarding than studying. After showing jumping horses and riding Italian motorbikes left her penniless, she took to racing bicycles. She’s also tackled the entire Tour de France, for charity, twice. One day she found herself on a cargo plane bound for France with her husband, two suitcases, two horses and four bicycles. Now, she organizes outdoor adventures for a living and likes to read vintage travel books in her dwindling spare time. Occasionally she writes about cycling and cheese.