Contributing Writers
Gerry Patterson, when not sitting on his butt updating this website, can be seen sitting on his butt riding his bike all over Languedoc!
He has been riding for years and, thanks to his itchy feet, has had the opportunity to do long trips in North America, Asia, Australia and now Europe. His very first multi-day ride was a 30-day solo adventure through the middle of Australia. That was in 1996. Since then, he has been good and truly hooked.
Gerry lives in Nîmes, France with his budding-artist wife Shoko and is out on his bike whenever the sun is shining…so lots! Apart from this site he also runs a blog on riding in Languedoc and around the world, and has articles in The Languedoc Page, Freewheeling France, The Languedoc Sun and the health advocacy blog, There is No Finish Line. He thinks that traveling by bike is the best way to see just about anywhere, but especially Europe, and hopes that you can use this site to help find your way around Languedoc on two wheels.
Gerry offers guided day-rides and supported/self-guided tours all over southern France. Anything to get himself on the bike!
Bonne Route!
Rosemary George, author of Cycling Languedoc’s wine page, was lured into the wine trade by a glass of the Wine Society’s champagne at a job interview and subsequently became one of the first women to become a Master of Wine, back in 1979.
She has been a freelance wine writer since 1981 and is the author of eleven books. Both her first and last books were both about Chablis. Chablis and the Grand Auxerrois, published in 2007, charts the changes in the region since her first book 25 years earlier. Others include The Wines of the South of France; The Wines of New Zealand, and two books on Tuscany, the most recent being Treading Grapes; Walking through the Vineyards of Tuscany.
She also contributes to various magazines such as Decanter, India Sommelier and the Quarterly Review of Wines and writes a blog on the Languedoc:
www.tastelanguedoc.blogspot.com
She is a past Chairman and now a Vice-President of the Circle of Wine Writers.
You can buy her book on the wines of south France (including Languedoc) here (for Europeans) or here (for North Americans). Click on ‘Wine’ at the left.
Susan Minnich. As a child, shortly after getting her first two-wheeler, Susan Minnich started dreaming of going to France, nobody knew why. She rode the bike to school, she took French; the two were not related. Life intervened: driver’s license, higher education, work. In the 1970s she took up cycling again; in the 1980s, she and her husband built a solar electric house.
In 2008 a new bike led to a solo ride around Vermont’s Lake Champlain. In 2009, her 60th birthday, it was time to stop dreaming or to go. She and her husband rode through Provence and Languedoc, ending in Toulouse. He had a good time, she was wild about it. In 2010 she returned solo, with her tent, and rode from Montpellier through the Languedoc into the Cévennes and down the Tarn to Albi. 2011 brought a solo Atlantic to Mediterranean trip, through the Pyrenees and Corbières. In 2012 Susan once again came to France and climbed a bunch of beautiful cols in the western and central Pyrenees. She mostly bikes near home in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts, but is probably on her way to France again in 2013…
To read all of Susan’s cycling adventures, check out her blog: Suzecycling.
Susan contributed the following routes:
Aniane – Cirque de Navacelles route
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