Route de Arnouville

Two things to know about Terminal 2E's boarding gate area at Charles de Gaulle aeroport: the baguette avec thon is pretty good and the café au lait is really bad.

Other notes to self: do not take Air France again unless they drop their ridiculous bike fee (150.00 from the US and free back--due to a flim flam of a new check-in person. I figure it was a karmic break even). As far as I know, British Airways still flys bikes for free, as a piece of baggage, but I won't take that for granted anymore.

Eight hours on the flight back is plenty of time to think about the fabulous ride to Thoiry and Mantes I had yesterday. Seems like a week ago already, must be the effect of all of that couscous, wine and rugby last night.

And where are those stewardesses now? Plotting some new form of subtle torture for all of us strapped into our tiny seats? Sure, fill us with saumon and truffle and yoghurt and baguette and a couple of tiny bottles of vin rouge and then make sure there's no toilet paper in the toilet with the impossibly small door. (Oops, I was just trying to wipe; I didn't mean to call for help).

Lots of folks on the roads after Chavenay, but none that were friendly or going my speed, so it was a pass and a wave and a 'Salut' or 'Bonjour' depending on the mood. The temps had dropped a few more degrees into the wear-long-sleeves range and I got to try out my new, black Campagnolo Retro Next jersey. The man in black! Not Johnny Cash (or Johnny Holiday, the ubiquitous hybrid of Cash and fat Elvis looking so french and so stylish in those new glasses from Optique, 2 pairs for 79 euros), no not those guys in black, but maybe Vinoukorov in black... Would anyone confuse me with that dude?

Not if they saw me climbing out of the Seine valley at Mantes. Just to the top of this hill and then... the road continues upwards. Just around this town square and up this 22 percent climb on cobble stones and... this is just ridiculous. The wind climbs with me, now out of the northeast and the combination of elevation gain and wind drop me down to a robust, buy thigh-burning 13mph. Vinoukorov I'm not.

L'Ille de Noirmoutier

A morning good-bye to my friends at ICES and I'm off in the rent-a-car to the coast and a jaunt to the Ille de Noumoutier. Four years of visiting and I have not been to one of the more popular tourist destinations in the Vendee. Fog is thick as I approach the coast, and the landscape flattens until the the road flatlines into a misty horizon line.

About noon, I reach the bridge to the island. Some pave, literally paving stones, bread and a small block of cheese make a nice lunch. I'll save the the bottel of Pouilly fume for apres ride when I'm back in L'Etang la Ville.

Pines line the route on both sides and I park in the rest area. There is not a single car there; this is definitely the off-season. Unpack the bike, change into bibs and jersey ,like Superman, in the bushes, unlike Superman. An older couple pulls in and the old gens regards me suspiciously as I emerge from the forest in my lycra getup.

Warming up by climbing a tall bridge isn't recommended, but I do ala Dr. Conconi's advice, and spin slowly, standing up to stretch out the flexors stiff from sitting in a Peugeot 207 the past couple of hours. And I'm on my way up.

The view of the tidal zone between the island and the 'continent' is beautiful. Terns and seagulls, small boats and sand, take turns capturing my attention. My map is limited, a simple tourist map of the Vendee. The main road is a busy, four-lane highway running 16k to the ville of Noumoutier.

I try the sentiers or piste cyclable on the right. It's paved for about 500 meters and then turns to packed limestone and then, after another kilometer or so, to just plain gravel. I'm not into experiencing a gravel ride right now, not on my tubulars and not miles from my car, so I take the double track on the left and soon I'm back in the fast lane on D355. Not where I want to be. There are bicycle signs, but they have a yellow caution square, not a red line, but the next worst thing.

I try another side road and soon I'm at a dead-end on a farmer's road with no choice but the 355. At the next rondpoint, a bicycle lane appears and guides me to the west side of the island where it encourages me to ride my road bike through the sand dunes. I'm on my own; I can't depend on these silly bike routes and choose the Route de Pins which takes me a few k's until I'm again on the four lane highway.

Soon, a sign for the Chateau de Noirmoutier and I find the center of town. The chateau has scaffolding on its walls where workers are removing the concrete plaster over the natural stonework: the 17th century making way for the 12th. The only thing the ride is missing is a grande café. "Nice bike." The waitress either knows bikes or says this to every cyclist that stops. When she brings me my order I learn that a grande café in Noirmoutier means a 'duble' shot of espresso. In Perpignan it meant a large café au lait.

Oyster beds, sailing boats on their keels, the smell of salty air and the sound of the wind, I roll back to the continent, caffeine pumping through my veins, legs refreshed and hungry for more miles. I intend to take the Gois, the alternate road to the mainland that is only traversable during low tide, but an altercation with a guy on a moped makes me miss my turn.

Guys on mopeds are obnoxious, weaving in and out of traffic and moving between lanes of traffic, so when the tiny white moped flipped me off as he passed too close, I returned the favor. My blood really started to roil when he stopped at the next rondpoint on the highway with his eyes in his mirror. OK, let's go buddy.

I'll say this right now to you, Moped Dude, 'Je suis tres desole.' You didn't need to stop and you certainly weren't angry that I flipped you off and when you realized I was an American butcher of the French language, you didn't drive away. You smiled and tried to explain that the road was too busy for bikes and that I should take the bike route instead. You smiled at my attempt at being angry in French, pointed to the bike path and drove away.

That's how I missed the amazing Gois, as seen in the 1999 Tour de France. I had big plans for pictures of the Gois, but instead have some of the bridge from the reverse direction and some interesting flowering plants. And that will just have to do.

La Vallee Verde

Two days of traveling and meeting students and administrators and a completely screwed up sleep schedule, one day 12 hours the next zero, has left me with a burning need to get on the bike after lunch today. The normally cold and wet Vendee weather is just cool today, with clouds and sun taking turns. Lunch is a wonderful fruits de mer pizza with shrimp, clam, oyster and other indeterminate seafoody things baked in the mozzarella and camembert. A small flask of vin rouge and a lunch companion from ICES and the table is set.

Later, on the bike and wandering the road through the Vallee Verde, our conversation comes in and out of mental focus, like the light squeezing in between the clouds and canopy overhanging the road. Andrew is an avid cyclist himself and much of our conversation touched on his cycling routine over the summer, old tours I've taken in the states and, of course the current issue with doping in cycling. This is the third or fourth time the issue has come up, and although many cyclists take the same line, 'I'm just concerned with my own riding now and really am not interested in the pros,' deep down we're all vested in all of the levels of the sport.

The road climbs and drops on the road to St Martinet. Beaulieu sous la Roche is gorgeous. I stop on the bridge crossing the river Yon and by chance catch sight of a chateau through the branches. Quelle suprise! Then the road climbs for good out of the Yon valley and I'm twisting on the D42 onward to St. Martinet and Les Chapelles.

I defend Floyd. Not because I think he's innocent exactly, but because I think that professionals today have to sell their soul to a system that at once gives them an amazing lifestyle while exposing them to the possibility of total ruin. There is no union to allow cyclists to assert their rights and now they even have to sign over a year's wages if there is a positive test. What other sport does that? Are the tests fair? Is the process just? If the USADA is now 36 and 0 in its cases against athletes is this telling us how perfect their system is or how weighted against the athlete things have become?

At La Chapelle, I turn briefly north, change my mind about going all the way to Apresmont, and take the Commune road, barely one lane wide, to Aizenay and the Sentiers cyclable, the railes to trails route to La Roche sur Yon. Today and tomorrow will be shorter rides; I'm planning a longer one on Saturday.

It's about six in the evening when I hit the trail at Aizenay and find the evening couples out for a stroll, groups of elderly hikers out for a club stroll and many single parents, riding without helmets, paired with tiny french cyclists wearing helmets and astride tiny bikes. The future peloton.

Vers Enfer

Rallye Voltaire

Sunday morning darkness. Not yet seven, I air up the tires, give the brake levers a squeeze and ease out of L'Etang la Ville on quiet streets. The night before Les Bleus, the national rugby team, had upset the New Zealand All Blacks in an exciting quarterfinal game of the World Cup. An American equivalent might be... I really can't think of one. All of France had been celebrating into the night and now they were sleeping.

Climbing up to the Place Royale in St. Germain en Laye, the air is warmer and completely clear. Light shimmers on the newly washed streets and the rondpoint itself, its cobbles a tad slippery as I bounce through and take the first exit and descend to the Seine. The lights of Paris sparkle through the trees lining the road on my right and a monolithic stone wall rises to my left. With no cars, I let loose and feel the bike lean into the hairpin turns until the road runs out into a straight to the bridge.

The Pont Georges Pompidou is one of the gates into the city of Paris. Two large women recline in granite splendor on each side and a confusing array of traffic furniture and concrete islands sort the traffic as it enters the bridge. Just a bicycle on the bridge and the fog coming off the cool river water. Across the bridge, the city begins, a succession of shops one after the other, lights or feus (fires) as French call them. I take the first hard left onto Avenue Jean Jaures and continue through the melee to Sartrouville to meet my friend and his club from Houilles.

The rallye is hosted the local cycle club in Sartrouville, Ass Cyclo, and begins at the RER train station. I arrive early and knots of riders have assembled around the entrance. A registration table is set up and a some older gentleman wearing ASS CYCLO jerseys and jeans are busy registering riders. The start is from 7 until 9, and the Houilles club is ready to go at eight. Jean Manuel greets me and introduces me to his club members. The only rider not in a yellow and blue kit, I'm a bit of an ugly duckling, but I count in their club's attendance numbers and they pay my inscription.

To be an etranger (foreigner) in France, still learning the language, can be difficult, but JM and his club welcome me. And they wait for me as well. A few miles into the ride, my front tire goes soft and JM yells 'craivasson!' and the whole Houilles group pulls to the side of the road. I hope it's just an intermittent problem with the valve, and we reinflate the tire with a pump and continue. In a kilometer, one of the other members yells 'craivasson!' again, and this time I pull out my spare. The slower riders continue, we'll catch them up the road. Several people are handing me pumps and advice as I pull off the tubular. 'Boyeaux!' It seems I'm a constant source of fascination, as is my CO2 inflator. Five minutes and we're back on the road and I move towards the front to break some of the wind and pay back something for the comradery I've been shown.

There are three routes today: 50k, 75k and one ominously labled 100k+. Ominous as well in the first direction on this route, 'Continuer vers Enfer', 'Keep going towards Hell.' But we're not there yet, we're busy climbing out of the Seine Valley on a road that is pitching 15%. JM told me yesterday on a ride that there really wasn't a need for a compact crank here in the north of France; there were no hills. But as we labor at the front of the group, he admits that a compact might be nice.

I'm feeling good. Two days of spinning, a few hours of sleep (damn that jet lag), and the excitement of riding in a group, put me on the front with Jean Pierre and Gerry, two grimpers (climbers). Each might weigh 140lbs. Maybe. The air is still cool, just pushing into the 50's as the sun begins clearing the trees. The roads flatten after a few more rises out of the valley and we reach another climb at Boisemont.

Mont means mountain, but mountain is a relative term. In the Paris area, there are no mountains, but if one is used to flat riding, or if you're riding with two miniature hellions on carbon Giants, you might as well be in the Alps. The sound of quickly receding gasping told me that we were by ourselves half of the way up the climb. I followed with my front wheel just off of Jean Pierre's left shoulder, knowing that we had a long way left and that sometimes I couldn't trust the positive reports my brain sent me from the legs. After the crest, the club regroups. We've long since rejoined, and then dropped, the slower riders that continued after my flat, but all of come together again in time for the first Ravitaillement (refreshment stop) at Damply.

Paper cups with a foul tasting lime drink have been placed in rows, dense bread, square chunks of cake and pieces of chocolate have been placed on the tables. Again, there are more non-cycling volunteers, dressed in jeans and wearing the sponsoring club's long sleeved jerseys. Warm smiles and encouragement from the support people, joking and comments about the climbing amongst the riders and JM nudges me when he sees the 'fast guys' mount and depart. We follow toute suite.

The warmth of the sun removed my vest before we left and now I'm considering the arm warmers as well. There's not much room in the pockets; my three jam sandwiches still uneaten, so I resolve to eat one, make some room and then take off the warmers, a nice mental project as the road levels out and we are rolling through the french countryside towards Nucourt. The towns and villages come fast, one every six or seven kilometers it seems. Le Bellay, Bercagny, Moussy, Gouzangrez, Villeneuve St. Martin, Jambville. The village of Enfer isn't so terrible as it might seem and I make a note to check it out on wikipedia.fr when I get a chance. It's impossible to focus on much besides the movement of the body on the bicycle, the rear wheel or our fast friends, or eating a sandwich while travelling at 25mph.

At the second ravitaillment (RAVITO, on the map), I remove the warmers and tightly roll everything again and cram my pockets full. The remaining two sandwiches are perched in the middle pocket on top of a vest, cell phone and cleat covers. Do the French carry so much on their rides? The camera stays in its own pocket on the right and the arm warmers join the keys, money and hat in the left. JM has a waist pack on as well and now I understand why. I grab a cake and have a mouth of dry crumbs when we scramble again to catch on with the first group.

The group accelerates to climb and as I stand up, my sandwiches break free and tumble out of the rear pocket. A split second as I weigh retrieval of the sandwiches with chasing back on to this group, and the sandwiches lose. "Da rien," I shout, "It's nothing," and don't find out until later that JM didn't hear me. He was busy running over the sandwiches, stopping, putting them in his jersey and then unsuccessfully chasing our group for the next 20 kilometers. My attention is glued to the front riders who are taking turns trying to put the other seven or so riders under pressure. They are succeeding; as we are soon down to five or six.

I follow in the wheels, sometimes third, sometimes fifth or sixth. There isn't much draft behind the two tiny guys trying to inflict the pain, but a larger rider from the Houilles club is still in there, (he's been on my wheel most of the morning) and the his draft is like relaxing in a soft breeze.

The sun is warm now and we're heading back to Sartrouville along the Seine, dodging large concrete planters, old people, children, dogs and cyclists going less than twenty-five. I'm rested, and decide to inflict pain on the little climbers. JM has rejoined us, inadvertently taking a short cut and popping up suddenly. I apologize for his effort and he hands me my sandwiches, one sliced in half by his front wheel. He and I and the other Houilles rider who is larger, ride on the front, taking pulls and keeping the speed high, occasionally shouting, 'Attention, les enfants' or 'deucement, deucement' when a stoplight interfered with our pace. We dropped the grimpeurs a couple of times and at the end, one slapped me on the back, 'Vous roulez bien aujoudhui!'

Indeed, it was a good roll today.

4:54, 82.4 miles, 3300ft.

A Trip to Maule

Jean Manuel arrives just past two, "I'm always a little late, but just a few minutes." It's good to see him, and the first time we've ridden together in a year. We met one morning two years ago when I went to the forest outside of St Germain to meet a group of riders for an early morning ride. Some time passed and then a group came through and I decided to tag on the back, using friendliness and bad French to make friends.

That ride has led to others over the past two years and I now count Jean Manuel among my friends. Today we're heading out for a short jaunt retracing the first and last parts of my ride yesterday and adding a bit in the middle. We'll follow the route to Maule and then return via Les Alleuettes and St. Nom. Tomorrow we're meeting at 8:00 in Sartrouville for a longer club rallye, so today's goal is to loosen up the legs and put a few miles in.

Of course, my legs are so loose by the top of the climb out of L'Etang la Ville that I can hardly breathe. When I ask about Jean Manuel's family, it comes out as a croak. We back off and descend into the valley.

The trees are slowly dropping leaves now, bits of gold falling in the air. One of those things happening around us all of the time that we don't notice. Fascinating how riding a bike can sharpen the focus, my awareness of the beautiful mundane. Remember that crack in the road? That skunk carcass and it's smell? The little girl's smile as she rides her bike with ther dad? The steel, glass and speed of the automobile erase all of that, shrinking our world in the process to a list of places, appointments and itineraries. Our protection? The bicycle.

We crest the climb at Chavenay and avoid making the easy wrong turn at the Stad sign. Many cars are on the road today, yet only one seems to be upset that we are, beeping as it passes. Young kids. They still give us an entire lane. Vive la difference! In the US, they'd try to put us in the ditch.

The weather is cool, a high of 18 today. With the mild climate of northern France, the weather seems to intersect with Iowa's twice a year, in spring and fall.

We're climbing out of Maule to Bazemont and Les Alleuettes now. I feel good, the legs are fully back and as we climb I feel I could accelerate if I wanted to; a good feeling to know there is something in the tank. "I'm just getting my base fitness back again," I explain to Jean Manuel. The racing season took so much out of me that I actually felt out of shape a month ago. Riding longer at lower intensities seems to have helped. Now I feel the bike leap forward, as if it has some life of its own.

In Les Alleuettes we see markings for tomorrow's ride: S's in white with arrows pointing the way. Nevertheless, we are bound to refer to our maps and stop to ask an older couple for directions once we are on the road to St Nom. We descend a narrow road and suddenly we're in fields with views of the valley again. St Nom's church is in the distance and we return to yesterday's route in the forest.

1:51, 31 miles, 1260 ft

First Day Back

A rhythm has developed over the past four years of travelling with my velo to France. Of course there's the drive to Chicago, the black hole that is sitting in a 747 seat for seven hours when one is normally sleeping (just a step above sitting on a Greyhound on a cross-country trip).

The food is pretty good on the Euro airlines I take, mainly British Airways and Air France, and a couple of bottles of vin rouge can make things much better. Arrival at Charles de Gaulle can be an adventure, riding on a bus for 15 minutes after landing to get to a gate, waiting for the velo bag that doesn't come on its own, or trying to shake that over-friendly couple from Texas that befriended me while sitting across the aisle in 24A and 24B.

Inevitably, I land; I get my luggage and bike; I pickup the rental car and enter the Peripheric, the wild, unpeeling onion of lanes that make up the Autoroute encircling Paris. And then the drive to the western suburb of L'Etang la Ville to stay with my inlaws for a few days to get my euro legs.

So today is a bit of a fog, four hours of sleep in a 36 hour day, but the fog dissipates with a short one hour ride. A quick climb up into the Foret de St Germain, several rondpoints and a dip to Rennemoulin, Villepreux and Chavenay and then a climb up to Feuchrolles. The traffic is heavy with mothers picking up their kids from school, but not one angry horn, yell, or finger salute.

I'm just spinning today, no big effort needed right now, just enough work to flush the system. I take the 307 back towards St Nom de Bretech and take the forest road that dives past the train station back in L'Etang la Ville. As I roll under the turning trees, bright with orange and yellow leaves and feel the contradictory cool breeze and bright sun on my skin, it feels good to be back.