Cycling the Pyrenees – Part Five
August 4, 2024 § 2 Comments
I had joined two friends for an epic ride across the French Pyrenees in October 2022, and 3 days into the ride I tested positive for the Covid 19 virus. I convalesced for a few days, and then rode to Bordeaux and then caught a train back to Paris where I then rode West to Plaisir to join a family friend on a business trip to Caen. This should be the final installment in this series as I recall what went down, and how I remember it.
At the end of the last post I had gotten cleaned up after my ride, and then Yann and I drove, actually Yann drove, I was just a passenger, West all the way to Caen (Pronounced Kah) on the main highway that takes Parisians into the heart of Normandy. I believe Brittany is still further West. As I also said in the last post, I hadn’t seen Yann since the early 70’s when he and his wife, Beatrice were in the US while attained an MBA from NYU. While my mother and Yann maintained correspondence, there was a lot of catch up on. Yann traveled with a lot of snacks to munch along the way. I am not sure if he brought those just for me, or if that is how he keeps himself awake for long road trips (I took a page out of his book and stocked up on the same kinds of snacks when I drove 1600 miles to Texas two weeks later). We chatted the whole way, stopping every so often to pay the toll (No EZ Pass in France), and once to fill up on Petrol. At the time the refinery workers were on strike, and it was near impossible to buy gas without an hour wait in urban Paris, but way out on the road to Caen, Yann was able to fill up easily.
We met Yann’s brother at our hotel, dropped off our stuff, and then drove into downtown Caen along the waterfront to a restaurant that Yann and his brother knew of. I believe his brother drove in from Brittany. It was mainly a meat oriented place, so I pushed my vegan diet aside and ordered fish, and we had a couple bottles of red wine. The place was lively, and there a number of larger parties present so it seemed like the place was popular. We had dessert, and then returned to the hotel where we bid each other goodnight with a see ya in the morning.
I found Yann in the breakfast area the next morning, his brother also joining, and we ingested the standard continental fare, checked out and drove once again into Caen proper where Yann found a parking garage where his convention was located (an old castle in Caen), and he was in a hurry, so he left the trunk lid open for me, and we made an agreement to meet back there around 3.
First thing I did was to get dressed to ride, yes, there in the parking garage, and put my bike together again. The weather wasn’t great, but it was what it was, and I wasn’t going to sit in a bar all day. First on the list was a monument to the British Forces that helped liberate Caen during the D-Day invasion in the 1944. Just in case it isn’t clear to all the Americans who might be reading this, The American Forces were part of an Allied invasion on D-Day. The beaches of Normandy that the Americans landed on were the Western beaches, and the British had the Eastern beaches, and Caen was the first city nearest the Eastern beaches. So, it’s a memorial/monument to the British forces. I found it easily, and rode around checking it out, however the first downpour occurred, and I tried to hide inside, but was politely asked to leave and I found a covered area where I hung out for a little while until the rain ebbed. That gave me time to plan the next part of the ride. I saw that if I rode down the river/canal there was a bike path that went all the way to the Channel at Ouistrehan. The path was wet, and protected, though occasionally I had to cross streets at grade level, but the going was fine, and the sky just kept getting darker the closer to the Channel I got. There is actually a ferry port there in Ouistrehan that goes to England, as I would guess that the ferry is still an economic option favorable to the locals here rather than driving all the way to the Chunnel and booking a train. I was hungry, and found a nice place where I could sit inside and get some sustenance.
Afterwards, I looked at where I was, and how far the American beaches were, and I figured if I rode a decent pace, I could probably get to the Eastern most American beach before having to turn towards Caen and return, so I set off. In hind sight, it probably would have been best to stay in the street, but I was drawn to the path closest to the Channel for the main reason that it was the most scenic. It was also the most sandy, and as it had rained, it was wet sand. The tires along the wet sandy path kicked up a lot of that wet sand where it landed in on the rotors of my disc brakes giving them an awful sound whenever I braked. Not only could I feel it in the levers, but I could hear that there was more wear and tear per mile than those rotors had ever had before, and at some point I just couldn’t take it any longer and abandoned the path. While the paths were very sandy the streets weren’t without sand, and so the first road I came to that headed back to Caen I took it and said goodbye to the British Invasion Beaches.
The further I got away from the beaches, the more the water on the road rinsed my rotors, and by the time I got back to Caen the bike was operating smoothly once again. I still had some time to kill so I wandered around Caen until it started to rain again and I ditched into a covered outdoor pub space and ordered something that someone else was drinking because it looked like a beer. Ha! It was cider. My brain was tuned to expect beer, but the fruity apple taste of the cider was a shocker at first. I finished it and then rode back to the car. It didn’t make sense to get there too early because I didn’t have the key to get in. Fortunately I didn’t have to wait too long before Yann appeared. Actually I think his brother might have brought the key out to let me in as I think about it. There was enough privacy to change again, and when Yann was finished, we drove back to Plaisir.
It has occurred to me that I haven’t said anything again about Augie and Tom. The morning I left Bordeaux I heard that they had finished the ride, and were actually headed for Bordeaux at that moment. I told them I was on my way to Paris, and then Caen, and the next text I got back from them was that sounded like a good plan for them as well. So while I was in Caen, they were on a train from Bordeaux to Paris, where they caught another train to Caen though I was headed back to Plaisir by the time they got to Caen.
The drive back to Plaisir was uneventful, and when we arrived Beatrice was there and we got to meet again after 50 years. Beatrice’s English wasn’t as good a Yann’s and Yann had to translate for us. Beatrice had prepared a nice roast with roasted vegetables, and there was no way I was going to mention anything about my Vegan diet when presented with this hospitality, and I sat down to a delicious meal in a French Country house. I don’t quite remember the history, Yann and Beatrice bought the house back in the 70’s not too long after returning to France and they raised their family in this house. Thick outside walls, I think they were almost 2 feet thick, a two story home with a couple of stairwells, and lots of old wide wooden plank floors with arched doorways. Certainly one of those homes that was adapted to indoor plumbing later in its life as well as a heating system. The dining area was a large open room with a huge fireplace and enough room for a large table at one end, and another large sitting area at the other. We ate, we drank some wine, had some dessert, a little more conversation and then we retired after putting everything away and cleaning up.
I had one of their children’s rooms. A soft mattress, a tall cast iron radiator, and a single window with thick drapes. I pulled back the drapes to see the view, which was a nice view of the street they lived on, when I looked up and there was a giant, almost 3 inches leg end to leg end, spider in the window well. I figured this was where it had set up it’s abode and looked to be well fed and so I left it alone and went to bed. Everyone I have told that to has said the same thing “How could you sleep with such a giant spider in your room?” I didn’t see how it could bother me, so I left it be. Even Yann, when I told him about it the next day when he drove me into Paris, his eyes popping out of his sockets a wee bit thought I should have done something about it.
I was prepared to ride back to Paris, but during breakfast Yann insisted that he drive me to my hotel. I could not resist :). I paid my adieu’s to Beatrice and Yann drove me to my hotel around noon. I think he managed to bundle this with another errand, and with that I thanked him again for his hospitality and the opportunity to reconnect after 50 years. Back in my hotel, they were able to take me in early again, and retrieved my things that they had been storing for me. That was very convenient and worth the cost of two nights stay at a Marriot Courtyard. My train to see Michelle was still a few hours away, so I used that time to disassemble and pack my bike for transport. Once again, I brought everything down to the ground level courtyard, and I meticulously broke everything down and wrapped everything in padding and placed it in my bike bag in the only way that it would all fit. I stuffed in all the extra stuff, helmet, shoes etc to take its weight right up to the 50 pound limit, and rolled it back to my room. Tom, Augie still had to get back to Paris, and we agreed to meet at some restaurant that Augie really wanted to eat at, later that evening. I walked to the nearest station and caught metros to Gare Nord where I caught the TGV to the North of France.
I was told by Michelle “You have to come to the North of France”, to which I replied, I think I was already in the North of France, and I was confused because I was pretty sure she was aware I had started in Paris. “I was in Paris already, so I’ve been in the North already right?”. Her eyes said it all “Ha! No, no, no, no Paris is not the North, Paris is Paris. No, Lille is the North of France along the Belgium border that is the North.” She lives outside of Lille, and took public transport into the city. We started out just walking around, and Lille, at least the part that we were in, was one giant square after another, with people everywhere. The old historic exchange building was hosting a craft exhibit which we went in to peruse. Not just crafts as I seem to recall an old map vendor as well. It was a partly cloudy day, so the squares were bustling with people, and the surrounding cafes were doing a lot of business. We walked around until we found a place to get a seat and ordered lunch. We sat and caught up. At this point in her life, John had passed away just at the start of the Pandemic, so she was just a little over two years a widow and was really beginning to carve out a new life for herself. She had discovered that there was a kind of cycle that actually did work for her. The motorcycle, and she had purchased one there in the North of France and spent a lot of time just riding around and enjoying the freedom you feel with the wind in your face and a motorized cycle beneath you. She was doing well and splitting her time between France and Long Island. Julian and Emily, her kids were both fine and doing their own things.
We walked around some more until it was time for me to catch my train back to Paris, and we bade each other fare thee well. It seemed I had just about enough time to make my meet up with Tom and Augie if the train got in on time, which of course it did. This wasn’t NJ Transit. The TGV out of Gare Noord to Lille was the same kind of train on the same kind of tracks, but not as much countryside, to hit high speed, so it takes a little longer to cover the distance than say the same distance covered to Bordeaux, but it was still faster than anything in the US of A. By the time I returned to Paris, the weather had turned and there was a drizzle. I found Tom in line, I think Augie had ditched out to take care of something. Yes, I said line. We were standing in line to get into a restaurant. What craziness is this you ask? There must be a 1000 restaurants in Paris, why the fuck were we standing in the rain in a line to get into this restaurant was beyond me, but Le Relais de l’Entrecôte is apparently one of those places in Paris, that is a “must do”, and Augie wanted to do it. As I later learned, the line moves fast because inside this isn’t a place you go to to enjoy a long quiet relaxing meal that spans hours, with bottles of wine consumed. No, this place wants to move people through the process, so you get in, you order, you get served, you eat, you pay, you leave. The line moves fast and soon we were in. I know what you are thinking. “How is it possible to move so many people so quickly?” Well when you only serve one thing, and you don’t cook it to order, then you can cut the whole hand out menus, study menus, take each individualized order, cook individualized order out of the process, because everyone gets the same thing.
Having only 2 nights before put my vegan diet on the back burner, there was no choice again here but to do that again, and sure I could have just had the salad and the fries, but this was our get-back-together meal, and so I joined in. Tom and Augie filled me in on the rest of their adventure. They took one zero day and did some laundry, and did a short ride without gear. When they got to the end, rather than take a hotel there, they jumped on the first train to get back to Bordeaux, and the rest has been covered, other than they did get to the American beaches in Normandy earlier that day. I think it was a nicer day for them, but that time of year, the weather changes hourly in that part of France, so maybe they did have some rain. All in all it was a successful adventure for everyone, I at least managing to make lemonade from my Covid lemons. I would have preferred to do the ride I went to France to do, but I’ll take what I got. I still had an experience for the ages, and as you can tell by reading this, I don’t hold any regrets. Yes, I do plan to go and give it a go again, however when I do, I am going to make sure I have the gearing for those long steep Pyrenees climbs. I might just take my gravel bike with smaller more road-worthy tires as that has a simple one by gearing that offers up a less than a 1 to 1 ratio that I should be able to push. Also the double entry cleats will make it easier to start on a steep incline should I have to put a foot down.
If you have hung in this long, thanks for reading. While you aren’t the audience I write for, if you enjoyed it, then that is a bonus. I write these for me. One reason is to sort out the events, and cement the story in my mind the way it went down, and the other reason is so that in my later years when I am lying near comatose in bed, the aides, or my daughters, or even my grand kids can read these back to me. We will have to wait to see how this plays out.
Big Bird's Adventures 
I enjoyed this so much. I am not a very confident traveller and I love how you rolled with the fates on this trip.
Christine, Midland Ontario
(I was one of Mike Barris’ early backpacking partners before he moved to the US. Maybe even the first)
Very good. Just saw Mike the other day and I think yesterday was his birthday.
I’ve done a lot of adventures so I think my comfort level is very high and that certainly helped a lot. Fortunately I wasn’t that hard hot by the virus and was able to bounce back.