Rain of terror?

One rainy day last week when I came back from my morning bread run, our building's concierge (in French, "keeper" or "caretaker"-- he doesn't make dinner reservations for us, or anything) was polishing the elevator door handle in the lobby and commented first on the rain and then, C'est hiver: it's winter. It's been rainy, dreary, and dark here lately. And judging from the concierge's comment, there's little reason to expect a change in the near future.

Since there's no specific event or season to train for, the wet weather has put a damper on our riding. We'd planned to ride this morning, but it was wet and about 40 degrees when we got up, and well, there just seemed to be many more reasons not to go (for instance, having to take showers with our bikes on returning) than to go. And while it's painful to watch the tiny little bit of fitness I had leave me, not riding does enable other activities.

Like leisurely cups of coffee together and extra-special breakfasts on weekend mornings. A few weeks ago I ordered 2 coffees from Square Mile Coffee Roasters in London, a relatively new roaster that has already gained a reputation for good coffees. I bought the La Vega & Cipresal from Guatemala and the Kagumoini from Kenya, two very different but excellent coffees. The La Vega & Cipresal is toasty and roundly sweet/nutty whereas the Kagumoini is full of black/red fruits and autumn spices. Because I don't drink caffeine every day, I'll not manage to get through both bags while still fresh, but having 2 coffees to compare is a lot more fun than just 1. I'll definitely order from them again. The only problem with having one's good coffee at home is that you can't have while eating a good bakery breakfast out. We devoured an exceptional baguette and some treats under awning in the rain at Blé Sucré in the 12e, and maybe the only way it could have been better would have been to have a good coffee alongside.

Two terrific autumn coffees.

The tarte tatin, a play on the classic french dessert-- poached apple filled with some kind of crumble-like filling, sitting on a cookie-like base, and of course, covered in delicious perfect caramel. We don't go to Blé Sucré that often, since it's out of the way for us, but when we do go, it's torture to decide what treat to get. This choice easy since it was among the few remaining options by the time we got there. That this was left either speaks badly of the tastes of the patrons who passed it up or of the quality of the shop's entire offerings.

Last Sunday was the first Sunday of the month, which is a day when the national museums in Paris charge no admission for entry. The goal is to draw the locals in to their own museums. Some of the museums participate year-round, others only in the winter months. Last weekend we visited 2 of the latter. We visited the Conciergerie and Sainte Chapelle on Ile de Cite. Both museums had their high points but were crowded. There were plenty of Francophones, so it seems the free first Sunday approach is working, but even this late in the year it's hard to escape tourists, and there are always knuckleheads like the American in line ahead of us at Ste Chapelle who had such an unnatural fondness for his umbrella that he couldn't bear to put it through the security X-ray machine. The lengthy the exchange with the security guard came to its climax when the American pointed to his umbrella and, evidently not knowing the french word from umbrella, pronounced umbrella with a (poor) French accent. Oh yeah, now the guard will understand. In any event, we were glad to see both museums for free, no matter the company.

The Conciergerie is one of Paris' oldest buildings, located on the Ile de Cite. The oldest portions of the palace were in place before the 10^th century, but it was extended/renovated/fortified through the 13^th (Louis IX, later St. Louis) and 14^th (Philip IV) centuries before being dumped for bigger and blingier digs, the royals eventually winding up on the right bank in the Louvre. The palace eventually became a prison whose greatest notoriety derives from the Revolution, where it was the seat of the Revolutionary Tribunal during the Reign of Terror. Prisoners brought in for their trails could expect 1 of just 2 fates: release or guillotine. Highlighted spots in the building include Marie Antoinette's cell and chapel, and the so-called grooming room, where prisoners on the way to the guillotine, some 2500 of them in the last 18 months of the RoT, were removed of the last of their personal belongings and got a nape shearing to make the guillotiner's job easier-- after all, he might well have been the hardest working man in the history of France. But all wasn't terror and grimness for the condemned. According to the placards in the museum, they were given a last “feast.” Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a table for a feast in Paris?

The Conciergerie

St. Louis built Sainte-Chapelle to house his Holy Relics (no, not his rock band, real relics, including the crown of thorns), which he bought used but not cheap in a bid to increase the power and prestige of France. There are 2 floors of chapels. The lower one was for the help and received a colorful updating/restoration (it's not clear from any of the text I've seen whether it's faithful to the original) in the 19^th century. The upper one is what all of the fuss is about, primarily the stained glass windows, which are currently undergoing cleaning (yet somehow the place isn't lousy with the scent of Windex) and repair. It was a dreary rainy day, so we didn't see the windows at their best, but even on a crummy day they sparkled. Not that the rest of the interior was built to fade into the background. Let's just say that the French kings left no lilly unguilded.

Ste Chapelle against the gray sky

The lower chapel-- not too shabby for the B-chapel

One of the restored stained glass panels.

Having obtained our small dose of culture, we set off to the falafel stands of the Marais for lunch, huddling in a doorway to avoid letting the rain dampen the crispy goodness. Then an hour or so half-hearted shopping, followed by some whole-hearted hot chocolate drinking. What Paris lacks in coffee (which is a lot) it makes up for in hot chocolate. These particular emporter cups came from Angelina's on rue Rivoli, and we wandered under the protection of the arcade while enjoying the winter warmer. A bit sweet for my tastes, but still very thoroughly chocolatey. Looking forward to searching for a favorite, which might just be enough to sustain us through the damp, dark, winter to come.

There's a lot going on on this lamp post base on the Pont Au Change, on the way over to the Marais.

Rain or no, the Marais was hopping...

... but we were standing firmly on 2 feet to make sure not to spill any of the falafel

Goldilocks in Paris

Now that it's winter in Paris (winter defined as dark, cold and rainy= pretty much every day now), all of the women are wearing boots. I have had boot envy. So I decided I must go shopping.

I have been shopping for weeks. I had in my mind the ultimate pair of boots, and of course nothing matches the ideal. I kept looking. Too short, too tall, heels too high, heels too low, too shiny, too lizardy, too pointy, too round, too suede-y, too much cuff, too tassely (pom poms hanging from your boots are big here), too everything. I tried several pairs on, and besides not being right, most of them were also too uncomfortable. Yuck. I quickly learned that I needed boots with a zipper, because the ones that pull on are much too baggy at the ankles. I do not have fat ankles, and do not want boots that make me look like I have fat ankels.

Rolf and I were out wandering around today in the 4e and the 11e, and I was ready to give up. Rolf wouldn't let me quit. Just a few more shops... and there they were. We found a shop that had Italian shoes and boots (always a good thing), and they had really nice boots. I tried the black ones on, and really liked them. Zip up (slender ankles), heel just right, a small strap/buckle on the back for interest, but not fru fru, classic with style. Yes. Rolf convinced me that they looked even better in brown. The leather had a really nice color. And brown with black clothing is all the rage.


Just right.

Game on

Gratuitous picture of the Chevreuse valley filled with mist on a cold morning in Oct.

It's definitely fall here, and so it's hunting season. When we were riding in Italy, hunters of both animals and porcini abounded, the sound of popping guns echoing through the hills and groups of hunters eating and taking coffees at the country roadside eateries and caffes. Hunting is also popular in France, but aside from the fashionistas chasing down the latest styles, hunters don't much prowl the streets of Paris. So imagine my surprise as I rolled down the sidewalk just outside the apartment on a recent Sunday when I crossed paths with a 50-ish year old, tall, stout fellow dressed all in tweed-- knickers, sherlock-holmes hat, and cape (yes, cape)-- with high wool socks and carrying a basket and a long, vaguely triangular bag I recognized from my Italy rides as a hunting rifle. Trés aristocratic, and quite the rare sighting in the 16e.

And I felt a game craving coming on. Deer. Boar. Hare. Game birds. Unlike the US where hunted game can't be sold at butchers, hunted game is fair game in many countries in Europe. I've not yet figured out where one buys big game here; I've not seen deer hanging on hooks like at D'Angelo Bros in Philly. But I realized that I've not even cooked a rabbit since moving to France, and that seemed a shame. I like to cook rabbit at home-- it's more interesting than chicken and still inexpensive. I especially like to serve bunny on Easter. And whereas I'll admit that's a little perverse, especially when there are little kids at the table, it's darned good whenever one chooses to serve it. I've eaten rabbit out many times in Paris, as paté, saddle stuffed with house-made prunes (the dried French plums are exquisite and nothing like grandma's industrial medicinal varieties), or fricasseed with raisins and pistachios. But despite the fact that they're available in all of the butcher shops and at most of the markets, I'd never bought one.

I missed the Sunday markets while on my ride, but thankfully we have one local butcher who opens Monday mornings. The fellow behind the counter, by now accustomed my asking for weird stuff (chicken feet, veal joints, crépine), pulled out a whole rabbit, head attached, and teased me a bit by starting to wrap it up without dressing it. I take that as a good sign. I also take it as a good sign that he didn't throw out anything he cut off until checking with me. Very little wound up in the waste bin.

And good thing, too. My 3 lb rabbit cost me 20 eurobucks, which thanks to the crappy exchange rate is $30. I pay $12 for them at home, but I guess the rabbits in France dine on foie gras and chocolates before their dates with the butcher.

So, OK-- I had my expensive rabbit. What to do with it? I'd been thinking a fricassee with olives and fennel, but the high cost called for something more economical: a ragu. I love rabbit sauce for pasta. Our first experience with the bunny genre was at a country hotel in Italy on a bike trip, where Karen's serving of pasta with hare sauce came complete with lead shot-- the husband had hunted it the morning before. Rabbit produces a milder version, but it's still possible to make an extremely flavorful ragu by braising the meat in wine and stock without actually putting (any or much, depending on your preference) of the meat itself in the finished sauce; I like to include the minced liver at the end, which enhances the flavor and texture. Ragus like this are traditionally served with wide noodles (pappardelle or tagliatelle) or specialty pastas like pici. I also love making lasagne with them. To me they scream "autumn," and they're so flavorful that you don't need much on the pasta to make a delicious meal.

As for the meat, I pulled it off the bone and ran it through the food processor until it was finely ground. I combined about half of it with some russet potatoes I'd cooked and pushed through a strainer to “rice”, an egg yolk, and a tablespoon or so of the fat from the ragu and stuffed agnolotti with it. Most of the other half went into another batch of agnolotti with a base of polenta and risotto, which I'd been looking for an excuse to try out. The last bit went into a pasta sauce with winter squash. Served as first course before a light second course of veal scaloppini, it offered a varied week of dinners, with several nights of agnolotti leftover. Yea.

Here's how the meals evolved:

Mon night: Rabbit-and-potato agnolotti in rabbit ragu. One word: Bunnylicious.

Tues pasta: Chestnut pappardelle with rabbit ragu. The chestnut flour makes the pasta sweeter, and though an interesting combination, I didn't think it worked as well here as it might have with hare or other gamier ragus.

Tues main: Veal with porcini-creme fraiche sauce and sauteed spinach with garlic. Mushrooms and greens love each other, so it was hard to miss on this. I used the freshly dried porcini we bought at Mucci on our way home from Italy, and they're very good.

Wed pasta: Rabbit agnolotti with sauteed long-leaf radicchio and chestnut milk. The long-leaf radicchio, maybe the best I've ever had and wonderfully bitter, went really nicely with the savory rabbit filling, and I used the milk I'd simmered my roasted chestnuts in (with a bay leaf, the chestnuts going into agnolotti) to temper the radicchio.

Wed main: Veal with lemon and olive oil, sauteed swiss chard. Simple, but better suited for grilled meats.

Thurs pasta: Chocolate fazzoletti (handkerchiefs, or about 2" square pieces of pasta) with rabbit ragu. Though I eased way back on the cocoa compared to here, it was still too much for the rabbit. Would have been perfect with venison, oxtail, or beef short ribs, though.

Thurs main: Veal with a radicchio cream and a timbale of chestnut, celery root, and apple. Both of these worked really well. The radicchio was sauteed with whole garlic cloves, then pureed without the garlic and used to infuse a cream-milk mixture, strained, and reduced. The bitterness of the radicchio balances the sweetness of the dairy. The timbale was just a touch cakey, but the flavors of chestnut and celery root are made for each other, and the apple added a nice fruity note. I'll definitely work further on both of those methods.

Fri pasta: Tagliatelle with a sauce of rabbit, winter squash, guanciale, swiss chard, and sage. Very nice. Very autumn.

Fri main: Veal with red wine and veal stock reduction (it's kind of cheating, since it's so easy, but it's so good...), sauteed radicchio, and a timbale of lentils, which though not the prettiest of colors, had the texture of a lentil mousse and a lovely earthiness.

Sat first: Polenta with the last of the rabbit ragu. Good, hearty fare.

Sat main: Pan-seared sea bream on a winter squash timbale and watercress puree. It's not often I cook fish, as even here it's hard to find really fresh fish at the markets. But when I do find something especially good, it's hard to resist the opportunity to work with it. I'd have preferred to pair it with something earthier-- fresh cepes or girolle mushrooms, but Karen's digging the squash right now, so we went that direction, instead.

Sat desert: Gateaux from Gantier, our favorite boulangerie/patisserie. Monsieur Gantier bakes some mean breads, but his primary training was as a patissier, and the opera (dark chocolate, almond, and coffee) is to die for. The other gateau was also very good, a vanilla mousse on top of a chocolate mouse, with a caramelized genoise-like cake layer above and below. Check this out: a listing of all of the boulangeries and patisseries in Paris.

A bunnyless meal, but one of Karen's favorites: warm lentil salad with good baguette for a weekend lunch.

Though the rabbit was kind of a game substitute, I discovered that one of my butchers on rue Poncelet does have a display case with game birds and wild hare. So this weekend I bought a wild pheasant for the relative bargain of 10.50 euro-bucks. Never having cooked pheasant before, I pan-roasted the breast meat for a nice dinner with sauteed porcini mushrooms, oven-dried fresh figs, and the lovely creamy red rice from Camargue, all beautifully complemented by a soft merlot-heavy bordeaux, a rare splurge out of our usual under-5-euro-buck wine collection. Perhaps the most memorable thing about this meal was that since we'd spent a delightful evening of drinks at Karen's father's cousin's apartment in the early part of the evening, we didn't get home until after 10.00 PM, and so we didn't eat dinner until midnight. Ie, we're finally eating on Paris time!

The useless legs (pheasants are running birds, so the legs are sinewy and tough) and all of the bones went into a rich stock that formed the base of the sauce (along with chicken and veal stocks) and a second weaker stock that I used with the thigh meat for a ragu for later in the week. Whereas the breast meat was milder and tamer than I'd expected (and, frankly, hoped) from a wild bird, the thighs gave off a strongly gamey aroma as soon as they hit the oil, and the resulting ragu was wonderfully flavorful.

Chestnut agnolotti in a celery root cream...

... followed by the pheasant breast with figs and porcini/cepes and pheasant reduction.

And of course, pheasant ragu with tagliatelle. Pasta rules in our house.

I'm looking forward to more game as the autumn and winter seasons progress.

Mwah!!

This entry somehow didn't get posted when written, back in early Sept. No question it was user error. So think back to when summer was just winding down...

Summer's officially over in Paris.

It's not so much that the weather has changed, though this morning it was 46 degrees and we had a couple of days last week that didn't get out of the 60s.

It's that everybody's finally back from their vacances.

The elevator in our building no longer remains on our floor overnight, the hundreds of windows in the courtyard behind us, all white with their closed metal shutters in August, are now open, and the last of our food vendors are vending again.

And there's tons of kissing. Cheek kissing, that is. Two passes per person as friends or co-workers see each other for the first time in a couple of months. We were out to dinner recently when a table of 6 showed up, and the kissing must have taken 15 minutes, and a flow chart to work out. Kissing, kissing, kissing.

The French get, and actually take, a lot of vacation. Five weeks is mandated. If you work in an office, you probably get to pick when you take it. If you work in a shop that closes in the summer, you have to take your 4 weeks during the closure, leaving you with that 1 remaining week to get you through the other 11 months.

Which may explain why people seemed to be at their grumpiest at the end of June, several months after they've burned that last saved day, and at their nicest right now, after 4 consecutive weeks of being away. I've never found that a week of vacation from work was restorative. Two weeks was better, but returning to work was still usually a downer. Between the press of "Hey, before you go, can you take care of..." stuff leading into it, and the digging out on returning, sometimes it seemed it was hardly worth it.

But 4 weeks has done wonders for some of the grouches in my life, here. I've gone to the same boulangerie for a baguette or two and 4 pastries (our weekend breakfast) twice a weekend, and more recently for a baguette several times during the week, since about the middle of March. That's roughly 50 visits to the same shop. I'm not a difficult person to remember-- I'm abnormally tall for France, have abnormally goat-like facial hair for France, and speak abnormally poor French for France. And on weekdays, I go in early in my bike kit on the way back from a ride: pretty sure there aren't many Guy's Bicycles team members rolling through the shop. I always smile (hard not to, knowing that I'll soon be eating as close to heaven as can be achieved on earth), give correct change (change is hoarded here, but that's a topic for another day), and make an effort to be especially nice. Still, the shop matron never so much as grinned in her interactions with me. It's not that she was rude, she just wasn't personable. She was personable with others, sometimes. But even if I came in as she chatted with a customer about this or that, I'd get the stoney face when it was my turn.

Our heavenly boulangerie was to close on Aug 4, until Sept 3. I was terrified-- would we survive? Even though I'd been in there 50+ times, our bread and pastry consumption is such that I've had plenty of experience with the alternatives. And though I can get some reasonable stand-ins for the baguettes closer to the apartment, the substitute croissants, chaussons aux pommes, and other pastries just leave us sad. I don't even want to contemplate the emptiness we'll feel weekend mornings after we've left Paris.

We left for Japan Aug 1, and so I went in that morning for our Last Breakfast in over a month. I purchased my goods from Mme Stoney and at the end of the game of one-upmanship that is any exit from a shop in Paris, I added "... et bonnes vacances!"

And she smiled.

As I picked up the baguette and pastries I'd dropped on the floor in shock, she said that they'd be open for a few more days. But you could tell that she was looking forward to les vacances.

Since then, it's been a whole different vibe in that shop. My first visit was their first Fri open, on my way back to the apt after a short but hard ride in a cold, soaking early morning rain. Drenched and covered with road grime, I was worried about messing up the jewel-like shop, losing whatever meager rung I'd gained on the favor ladder in August. But she smiled at me when I came in, and as she got my baguette commented on how dedicated I was to be riding on a miserable day like that. Since then, it's been all smiles and (a little) chat, helping me with names of unlabeled items, helping me when I tell her I shouldn't buy a kouign amann again today by saying, "mais vous êtes sportif!" I like her.

Now that I know the secret to getting in good with my vendors, it's only another 10 months of grouchy service before I can work on the others.

Blois-ah-ah

Before last week, I'd never been to the Loire valley. What I knew of it-- lots of over-the-top chateaux, along with the Poitou-Charentes region to the Southwest a major source of French goat cheese, and an abundance of crisp wines-- didn't sound half bad. Seemed ripe for a pre-Halloween bike trip.

The opportunity to venture down came last week, when Karen had a particularly ridiculous business trip: 40 h of traveling for a 2-h work meeting. Since she didn't know she was going until the last minute, my plans were similarly hasty. I found Monday evening a bike-friendly hotel and 1-star restaurant in the town of Blois, made reservations (hurray for the low tourist season), and spent an hour or two on Google maps working out a rough sketch of a route to get down there. Planning a second route for the return trip would have to be done in Blois using paper maps. Tues AM I packed my bag with a change of clothes for dinner, my maps, and my cookies, and set off.

I'd like to say that the ride down was breathtakingly beautiful. But the landscape between Paris and Blois is mostly just flat, very flat, farmland. Nice enough as far as endless miles of flat farmland go, and it was a beautiful autumn day, so it could have been a lot worse. I had a cross-head wind for company all the way down, and judging by the plethora of windmills on my route, I'm guessing that wasn't unusual. But that, too, could have been a lot worse. With nowhere to hide, a blustery in-your-face full-on headwind could have made for a very long day.

As it was, I was going pretty good. I passed a huge pile of what in the early morning sun appeared to be rocks, and I figured that a farmer had been clearing a new field. Didn't really make sense, though, since this area has been farmed for centuries. And then I saw another rock pile, then another, and another. I finally stopped to check one out, and they were... parsnips? Maybe. Definitely some root vegetable, vaguely in the white-to-brown color range, smelling (I picked one up) of parsnip, or parsley root, maybe. But they were huge. So then I started wondering, is there really enough demand for giant parsnips/parsely root/celeriac to merit half-kilometer piles of them all over central France? The varieties of celery and parsley grown for their roots are not the same as those grown for their leaves, so they probably weren't by-products of another crop. Maybe they're used for animal feed. Or for some non-culinary use, like weapons production or computer chips. In searching for any other use online, I saw a reference to the use of parsley root tea as an enema. Ummm, well, the French are hypochondriacs. So who knows? Color me baffled.

Big pile of parsnips (maybe) with windmills in the background. There were dozens of these huge piles along the roads, and there was a ton of spider-web-like stuff floating in the air in these areas. I suspect it must be some kind of grub webbing liberated in the unearthing of these crops. I was covered in it all day, both days. Spoooooky. Apparently a similar event occurred in the US in 2002. Oh yeah, UFOs and government conspiracies sure make a lot more sense than spiders or other insects...

Chateau Cambry, outside of Germignonville, a sort of practice chateau for the trip. Originally built in the 15th century, most of the central part visible today dates from 1650 - 1700. Privately owned, I think.

Perhaps the biggest challenge of cycling in France is difficulty in obtaining food. With France's reputation as a culinary wonderland, and the density of boulangeries and cafes in Paris, this may be counter-intuitive. But one can ride for hours, through towns at 3-to-5-mile intervals the entire way, without seeing a single restaurant, cafe, boulangerie, grocery store, even bar/tabac. Some of the small towns here get regular visits from a boulanger or butcher. Rather like ice cream trucks, these delivery vans pull into town and honk to alert the residents that they're available for sales. And Lord help you if you roll into a town that actually has one of these things, and it's even a minute past 13.00-- no food for you! This is probably the biggest difference between France and Italy, along with the presence of water fountains. In Italy, even the smallest town on the most remote hilltop has a bar where you can get a sandwich, and almost every town has a public fountain with potable water. When we rode last year up Monte Amiata in southern Tuscany for the sole purpose of eating at the restaurant (owned by a friend of a friend, who had called ahead to make sure it would be open) near the top, and it was closed when we got there (not that surprising, because we were in Italy), there was only one other building up there, a little bar/caffe across the street, and though closing, the owners fed us sandwiches and hot chocolate before the cold, rainy descent. Not in France.

So when planning a long ride, where I prefer to ride the smaller roads, it's imperative to scout out the most probable food-and-water-containing towns and make sure you pass through at times where something is open. On the Blois trip, I miscalculated. There were a bunch of towns on my route that looked big enough to have at least a little grocery store. But as it got to be 12.30, not one of them panned out. Tired after hours of riding and having eaten most of my cookies and finished most of my water, I started to worry a bit. Once 13.00 rolled past, it would be several hours before anything would open again. There were 2 towns I might be able to make in the half-hour I had left, and I gambled on Ouzouer-le-Marché, arriving into town as the church bell rang 1. Uh-oh. I found the boulangerie almost immediately, but its window shades were already pulled down. The door was still open just a hair, though, and I startled the woman when I pushed in and asked to buy food. Bless her soul, she sold me a sandwich, 2 big bottles of water, and a couple of viennoiseries (only in France would you feel grateful that somebody in a shop deigned to actually sell you something), but she closed the door firmly and quickly behind me. Even if it was a jambon beurre (as much as I love the butter here in France, I've not yet gleaned the appeal of butter with ham, and especially on the bike, it just doesn't work so well for me), it was a pretty good lunch.

So refueled and re-watered, with just an hour and a half or so left to Blois, I made the rather unfortunate decision to take a detour. Figuring there was a good chance I wouldn't get down there again before we left, it seemed silly to ride straight to Blois, which might not be all that interesting, when there were other sites, cheateaux the Loire itself, probably worth seeing. So I rode instead to Meung-sur-Loire to see the chateau there. A few miles in, now into a direct and brisk headwind, my knees started to hurt. And whereas the cheateaux at Meung-sur-Loire and Beaugency after that were nice enough, the long now-painful grind along a busy highway, with essentially no view of the Loire itself (and really not that much to see, anyway) made for a can't-wait-for-it-to-end finish to the day.

Chateau at Meung-sur-Loire, home to the bishops of Orleans back in the day. Started in the 11th and 12th centuries, added onto and modified since. Apparently still has dungeons-- more Halloween-appropriate stuff.

What's left of the chateau at Beaugency. Beaugency otherwise is a peaceful and pretty little town today, but as the only bridge across the Loire between the larger towns of Orleans and Blois, it was frequently attacked and occupied during the Hundred Years' War, so probably not so pretty or peaceful then.

One of the medieval gates in Beaugency.

The Loire, at Beaugency. The medieval 26-arch bridge that was the subject of so much fighting is just to the right of this shot, now part of highway D25.

Oh what the heck-- what's one more picture? Here's the bridge.

A shower, some NSAIDs, and a stroll around Blois mostly took care of that. Blois, one of the exceptions that proves the rule that most words in French have nice sounds, was a surprisingly charming place. Bigger than I'd expected, with a spectacular chateau, lots of pedestrian shopping streets, 2 jazz clubs, and narrow winding streets up the hills that reminded more of an Italian hilltop town than the French cities I've been in. I recognized most of the clothing store names, but the clothes displayed on the window mannequins were notably more practical than their counterparts in department 75. I was similarly disoriented when a driver waved me across a pedestrian crossing, even though she had the right of way. Oh right-- I'm not in Paris. I quite enjoyed my few hours there.

In any event, I had a great evening wandering around and a tasty dinner at Le Medicis, despite the name in no way an Italian restaurant. The meal consisted of an amuse of thinly shaved cured ham in a girolles mousse, roasted squab breast on a slaw/caesar salad hybrid, wonderfully tender and creamy veal sweetbreads with a barley pilaf, a real cheeseboard (increasingly a rarity in France, supplanted these days by the kitchen's choice of 3 cheeses) from which I chose a young goat cheese, an aged goat cheese, a reblochon, a camembert, and a hard sheep cheese from the Pyrenees, all of them good, but not surprisingly the goat cheeses standing out as truly exceptional, and finally chestnut-filled eclair with a mandarine sorbet. The meats were cooked perfectly, and the sauces were very good. It bothered me that the kitchen used the same garnishes for both savory dishes, though-- the olive pieces, the toasted pine nuts, the sesame seeds, and even the sprig of chervil made their way onto both plates, which while not inappropriate flavor-wise per se, seemed a little lazy, especially when ordering off of prix-fixe menu, where there's a decent chance those dishes will follow one another. There were other flavors in those dishes to be emphasized and explored. Small quibble. For 44 euro-bucks, a very nice dinner, and the service was very good (especially important when dining alone).

One of the pedestrian shopping streets in the center of town. Lots of people out, a nice vibe.

The cathedral of St Louis, with its rather odd and overwhelming bell tower. Still, pretty spectacular at night.

The next morning I went out to find breakfast of quiche (my new favorite on-the-bike breakfast, whipped lighter here than is typical in the US) and pastries, wandered around town some more in the daylight, repacked my bag and set off for Paris, wishing I'd had more time in Blois to see more.

Chateau de Blois, the main street side, which is the back side of the Francis I wing. Several French kings lived here, Louis the XII having bought it in the late 14th century. Ees a very beeg place. And spectacular at night, since all of the window arches, painted inside with rich red or blue with gold gilding, are lit. Sadly, my little cell phone camera couldn't handle that.

Facade of the Louis XII wing.

Detail of the door of the Louis XII facade. You can see a little of the window arch detail here, as well.

View out to the Loire over Blois from the chateau. It's kind of a magical garden early in the morning.

One of the walls of the chateau.

A small hillside street.

There are a number of half-timbered houses like this one in Blois. The carvings have that middle ages whimsy about them.

In a lot of ways, Blois is like a much smaller Paris. For example, I'd bet that both Parisians and Bloisians would take exception to that characterization...

The chateau at Talcy, built in the 16th century by an Italian (well, Florentine) banker. Compared to its contemporaries elsewhere in the valley and in Italy, it's surprisingly Gothic feeling. Not much else to Talcy, but I guess a cool chateau is enough.

Not a very noteworthy trip back except for its shortness. The knee pain from the day before picked up early but waned a bit over the first couple of hours. After another ham-and-butter sandwich lunch pause, the pain in my left knee was excruciating on starting back up. I decided to ride it a ways further to see if it would ease out again, and it got me another 25 km to Toury, which though about 25 miles short of where I'd hoped to get (Etampes), had a train station with service to Paris. Unfortunately, the next train that stopped there wouldn't come for 3.5 hours. I debated pushing on (I could ride to Paris in that time), but decided the responsible thing was to suck it up and wait. Good thing, too, because when I got back on the bike to ride the several blocks to the town center, I couldn't pedal with either leg and had to walk it. I changed clothes, wandered around town, which even with a couple of nice sites didn't take as long as I'd hoped, and then sat down on a bench in a park and studied my maps for the next trip to the Loire, hopefully next time with Karen.

The portico at the old church in Toury.

The town hall in Toury.

The non-stop 44-minute/13-euro-buck sag-wagon back to Paris.

Allez-y!

I recently had a conversation here with a friend who noted that the French seem to have no real affinity for the concept of “team.” The context of the discussion was business, and he noted that he sees so many incidents of willful sabotage and back-stabbing in the workplace here that it significantly affects how, and whether, business gets done. Watching the way people treat each other in Paris, whether it's driving, standing in line (or more accurately, cutting line), or marital fidelity (there's a joke that women in France stay thin by worrying about who their husbands are cheating with), it's not so difficult to believe this could be true. And if so, if France had a national motto, it would almost certainly be “Except me,” (as in: the rules apply to everybody except me) or more simply, “Me First.”

Except on the bike. Where it's definitely, “You First.”

I've already commented that pro cycling in Paris is regarded as rather low-brow and even staged entertainment, but even if France hasn't produced a Grand Tour contender in nearly 2 decades, the local recreational riders emulate one aspect of the pro peleton with vigor and passion: wheelsucking.

For those unfamiliar, “wheelsucking” is a pejorative synonym for drafting. As speed increases, more and more of a rider's energy goes into overcoming air resistance, such that at professional race speeds, something like 80% of the energy a rider expends is simply pushing air out of the way. Riding closely behind another rider, or “drafting,” saves as much as 30% of the following-rider's energy. This drafting is a huge part of racing-- the goal is to stay out of the wind as much as possible and apply one's efforts against air resistance when they matter most strategically. Much of the job of so-called domestiques is specifically to be sacrificial lambs, breaking the air on the front of the peloton so that their team captains can rest in the bunch until it's go-time. Drafting is also useful in non-racing situations. In a recent 145-mile ride to the Normandy coast, Karen spent nearly the entire ride drafting behind me-- since the stronger rider expends more energy to go the same speed, it allows riders of different strengths to ride together at a pace that is suitable for both.

There are times when drafting becomes wheelsucking, however. These include races in which riders in a small group refuse to share in the workload on the front and save energy at the expense of the other riders. And, I'd argue, when riders one doesn't know attach themselves without asking.

Recreational riders in Paris spend so much time wheelsucking one wonders whether they are actually capable of movement under their own power. At Longchamp, our local 2.2-mile oval cycling circuit, most riders coast around the oval slowly, waiting for somebody to come by, then latch on like remoras. Not that it only happens at Longchamp. It's nearly impossible to ride in the Chevreuse Valley on the weekend without acquiring an entire school of wheelsuckers.

At first I found it amusing, and then bewildering, since the wheelsucking is no less prevalent when the pace is slow enough that there's no energetic advantage to riding behind another rider. I can understand taking wheels when on a fast training ride, learning to ride in the pack (and then taking pulls on the front) is all part of learning to race. But the mindset that leads one to so doggedly insist on riding behind somebody else in all circumstances, never riding one's own pace or by one's own will, escapes me. Are the French riders really such sheep? Are they protective of the skin on their faces, keeping it out of the wind? Maybe they get easily lost or, like the little dogs they're so fond of here, just have an obsession with others' rear ends.

The remoras never say anything-- hello, mind if I join you, thanks for the tow-- they just attach and then lurk silently. If you're lucky. As often as not, their bottom brackets click or their chains squeak incessantly and annoyingly, intruding on the silence that I prefer when I ride alone. Furthermore, drafting takes some skills, and despite their abundant practice, some remoras draft clumsily and intrusively. The most distasteful aspect of acquiring wheelsuckers in a ride is feeling responsible for other riders' safety or worrying about my own with inattentive knuckleheads on my wheel.

Here are some examples of wheelsucking in Paris, all observed in just 1 week of riding:

I did two days of intervals at Longchamp. On the first day, 20-min threshold intervals, I accumulated 12 - 15 riders in one 20-min effort. When I slowed to recover between efforts, the entire group slowed behind me, even though we were riding less than 15 mph. On the 2nd day when I was doing sprints, where the “on” period is only 15 seconds and the “off period” is extremely slow and several minutes long, a group of 3 crawled along behind, waiting for the next effort. The mindlessness of it is mystifying.

While heading out for a weekend group ride, I rolled lazily from the apartment just 3 blocks to Trocadero, where I was meeting my riding partners. As I made the turn to our meeting place, I was surprised to see 2 riders pull out of my draft, then having the nerve to kvetch at me for turning without signaling. Fellas, your front wheels are your responsibility.

While cooling down after my workout at the oval, a rider, probably 25 years old and fit-looking, was a little way ahead of me, pushing up the one little incline at a good clip. When he got near the top, though, he caught a group of guys in their 60s going maybe half his speed, and he sat up and latched onto the back of the group. I kept my gap to the group for an extra cool-down lap, just to see how long he'd ride there. Answer: longer than I was willing to stay out there.

My favorite regular at the oval is an older fellow who always rides alone that I call the Gentleman Rider. He must be 80 years old, and he rides a 3-speed 1960s bike while sporting tweed knickers and jacket, knee socks, a British style driving cap, and aviator sunglasses. He's a bit unsteady on the bike, in part because he's moving so slowly, but he's absolutely the bomb-- pure style and class. One morning I was out riding and found him riding on the back straight at his usual speed, about 10 mph, with a much younger guy in full pro team kit, aero helmet, and carbon racing bike riding his wheel.

And much earlier than that week, in the first 50 meters of my very first ride at the oval in March or April, my first outdoor ride after breaking my ribs in Feb, a train of maybe 25 racer-looking riders, strung out single file and really flying, came by me. If I knew then what I know now, I would not have been so surprised that the guy on the front driving the train was in a Gotham Cycles (from NY) kit. The group came by me only once that day, so I can only assume that the Gotham guy pulled off and rode home, and the rest just followed him all the way there.

Probably to New York.

A day at the races

The original idea was that we'd come to Europe for Karen's job and then spend all autumn and winter racing cyclocross in Belgium, which even if not the birthplace of 'cross (which might have been France), is the sport's current stronghold. The Belgians are nuts for cyclocross.

With my slacker employment status, I figured I'd be training like an animal so that I could receive my racing butt-whipping in Belgium like a man, fighting to the end. However, the only animal I'm training like is a 3-toed sloth, and the further realities of apartment sizes in Paris and a year of recurring injuries mean that racing here won't happen, at least not this year.

But that doesn't mean we can't spectate, even if, since we don't speak Dutch, we can't expectorate on par with the locals. We'd considered driving up to Treviso while we were in Italy in order to watch the World Cup race there, but roughly 8 hours of driving in one day was more than we could stomach, even in the Batmobile.

A couple of Sundays ago, though, we rented a car and drove up to Oudenaarde, Belgium, to watch the Koppenbergcross race, a stop on the GVA Trofee series. There are high-level professional races in Belgium pretty much every weekend, and our decision to go to this one was based more on its location and the fact that it fit our schedules than any specific knowledge of the race. We did figure that the famed cobbled climb of the Tour of Flanders, the Koppenberg, should figure into the course and saw some footage from the slop of last year's race on youtube. Looked like a good show.

Driving up was a bit of an experience. European roads change names and numbers frequently, and keeping up with highway numbers can be tricky your first time in a region. Thankfully, you can usually get by following the signs to given places-- often it's pretty easy to tell whether you want the highway towards Paris or towards Lille, for example. However, when you're in a place a.) where you don't know very precisely the relative positions of the cities on the signs, and b.) that's small enough that even knowing where those cities are doesn't much distinguish between the route you want vs don't want, the missing/changing numbers take on new significance. Add in the fact that as soon as you cross from the French-speaking Walloonian region of Belgium into the Dutch-speaking Flanders region all of the city names change, and it can make for hours of fun. It doesn't take a super-genius to figure out that Bruxelles is Brussel or that Gent is Gand, but that Tournai is Doornik, Grammont is Geraardsbergen, Ronse is Renaix or Lille is Rijsel can take longer than you have to decide whether or not to take the turn. Entertaining, for sure. And some of the four-letter words we made up while taking wrong turns sounded impressively Dutch to my French-attuned ears. But we made it to Oudenaarde and were directly by friendly (whoa-- that was a shock, coming from Paris) volunteers to a parking lot.

In reading up on the course and the race's history, we found some information on Christine Vardaros' website, a pro American cyclist we'd seen at some of the local races in the mid-atlantic region some years ago, now plying her trade in Belgium. She had just written a story for cyclocross magazine on the history and behind-the-scenes work on Koppenbergcross. And sure enough, after parking and taking a shuttle bus to the drop point, we walked right past her on RV Alley as she warmed up on the trainer. We chatted a bit, sharing impressions of life in France (she had raced for a French team, previously), and she offered us her trading cards before we wished her good luck and went to find the course.

One of just 2 Americans racing on the day, Christine Vardaros warms up on her trainer during the U23 race. Husband Jonas tends to her other bike in the background, aside their van.

The line of fancier RVs stretches a long way into town. Prime real estate goes to the big-name racers with team vans and supporters' clubs (in full tail-gate mode) further out.

Pretty typical top-racer RV, this one the Czech national champion and consistent top-5 finisher Zdenek Stybar.

The more subdued RV of Jonathon Page, the only American male cyclocross pro to be based in Europe (the other US pros who race CX in Europe do so after the US season ends in mid-December). The door to the rear of these vans is for bikes and equipment, the door up front for the rider.

The most spectator-crowded RV was that of the reigning dominant cyclocross rider, former world champion and current Belgian champion, Sven Nys, who, as printed on the side of the van, prefers to be called Svenny. Svenny had won the previous 6 editions of Koppenbergcross, but came into this year's race a bit frustrated after a slow (for him) early season.

It was a long way from the parking lot to the race course. But just like the fish market at Tsukiji in Tokyo, all you had to do was follow the boots to the course...

... and since much of the race course is in cow pasture, the boots offer double protection when it's muddy.

Perhaps not Paris fashion, but there's room for personal expression even at a CX race.

CX fan in the making: ladybug mud boots and a big sandwich, which this kid was really going to town on.

CX is a big deal in Belgium. Even the handstamp has a CX scene.

The course itself surprised me. We've raced 'cross for 7 years, on courses ranging from tape strung up in bumpy cow pastures to pretty elegant courses fine-tuned over several years. From the videos and pictures I'd seen of courses in Belgium, I was expecting something really technical and diabolically tricked out. Half the course, maybe more, was in cow field, rather like a grass-roots US course. If this course were part of the regional series we race at home, where “flow” of a course is highly valued and climbing tends to be of the short-and-punchy variety, I suspect the racers and other promoters alike would howl at its shortcomings: no barriers or forced dismounts at all, and an almost entirely vertical location. Koppenbergcross starts at the base of a hill, rolls around on some pavement in town (almost never a feature in US courses-- closing town roads for a CX race just isn't done), a little flat grass leading into the famed cobbled Koppenberg climb. But only the lower section, because even the steep cobbles above aren't awful enough to warrant inclusion. The course turns off of the climb and winds down some not-terribly-technical grass before climbing up, and up, and up, seemingly forever to the top of the hill, where it basically turns into a luge run back down to the bottom. Up, down, up, down. But the day we were there, Europe's best riders were beating the snot out of each other on that course, and some 15,000 people were there urging them on. And it was hard not to decide that the idea that any one group holds the Truth about what cyclocross is or isn't, or should or shouldn't be, is pretty ludicrous.

Looking up at the downhill section of the course. Just a ski run taped out in a cow pasture. This was during the U23 race; by the time the pro men started, the crowds had about tripled.

There are supporters' clubs for the various racers, and club members gather at specific points on the course (often marked by a supporters' club flag with the rider's name on it) and have an excuse to wear matchy clothes. One of the most striking differences between spectators there and in the States is the range of body shapes. In the US, most spectators at races are other racers or relations and so tend to be pretty lean. In Belgium, the spectators reflect the general population and so tend to be more, errr..., hearty. Lots of smoking in the crowds. And drinking.

And drinking means peeing. I'm pretty sure this guy thought I was some kind of pervert, but I really just wanted a picture of the porta-urinals. These brilliant contraptions should be required at every bike race in the US. 80% of the racers at a typical US race are men, and probably 60% of the portajohn use is for urination. These 4-person urinals allow for reasonably discrete bladder emptying (admittedly, the Europeans are less prudish than Americans about these things) without tying up the more precious full-service portajohns. Everybody wins.

Aside from CX, Belgium for us is synonymous with good beer. And frites. We're lucky in Philadelphia to have one of the best beer bars in the country, and likely the best Belgian beer bar, Monk's Cafe. Through his relationships with the brewers in Belgium, the owner brings in all kinds of wonderful oddities for sampling, often the only keg or 3 shipped out of Belgium. The beer on tap at Koppenbergcross was Primus, which while better than the beer in France, was not nearly as interesting as we get at home. The frites were similarly utilitarian-- twice-fried as they should be, but made from frozen potatoes. Admittedly, the set-up on the side of a steep cow pasture presents some logistical challenges for fresh food. But even that doesn't explain the meat thing that we ate. There were some corndog-like sausages being fried at the frites stand, and some giant liverwurst-like sausages being sold whole, still wrapped in plastic, both of which were more sausage than we felt up for. So when we spied what looked to be kabobs on the counter, we pounced. The kabobs, stick and all, got dumped into the fryer for a long while and then into a paper boat, which at least slowed by a few seconds the travel of hot grease to our hands. The meat was shriveled past recognition (I'm pretty sure we saw its second frying), which by all accounts was probably a good thing, but the 3 tiny slices of onion were tasty. We later found a stand with bratwurst, which was markedly better. We'll have to go back to Belgium for food and drink beyond CX race vending some other time.

The first uphill on the course, the famed cobbles of the Koppenberg. Though not the steepest section of the cobbled climb, it was still no picnic.

The long off-road slog up the side of the Koppenberg, during the women's race. The pro women really had to grind up this long slope, an accurate indication of its difficulty. The ferocity of the attacking on this climb in the pro men's race was frightening-- it's hard to believe anybody's that strong.

Somebody likes cyclocross. A lot. Even after fried mystery-meat-on-a-stick.

The view down the luge run during the pro men's race. The crowd was 5 deep or more over most of the course.

This corner was particularly tricky during the U23 race, when it was still muddy and greasy. The pros who were warming up afterwards all locked up the rear wheel to slide through it, but by the pro race, it had dried out enough that they were rolling through it. We still saw a number of tangles in it. #9 here is former world champion Erwin Vervecken-- note the rainbow stripes on his sleeve. He finished 1 spot lower than his number this day.

Bart Aernouts (Belgium) and Enrico Franzoi (Italy) fly down the chute...

... but on the last lap, when it counted most, it was Sven "Svenny" Nys who put in a vicious attack on the endless climb and hit speeds on the downhill that warped the time-space continuum. He held his 4-second gap over fellow Belgian and reigning world champ Neils Albert to the finish, his 7th in a row at Koppenberg.

We were treated to a pretty good race, fast and tactical. Though the course had been wet and muddy early in the day, it had tacked up considerably by the time the men took the start. It poured rain for a few minutes just as they were about to head off, which added a little unpredictability to the start. The speed of the world's best both up the long hill and then down the chute was astonishing. A good day out, for sure.

Next up for us is the CX race in Gavere.

Life is Sweet: Addendum

I'm sick this week, and after eating dinner last night flopped on the couch and turned on the TV, a rare activity here. As I clicked through the channels, I came across the French version of Wheel of Fortune. You could tell it was actually French, since the letter-turning hostess wore impossibly high heels and the host had a dog on the set with him.

Anyway, it took me about 2 seconds to figure out the puzzle in progress, in the category of événement (event):

L _ / _ _ L _ _ /D _ / _ _ _ _ _ L _ _

That La Salon du Chocolat is well-known enough to make its way onto a game show certainly helps to explain the crowds.

I wonder how many of my other Paris experiences have made it to the Big Time.

Life is Sweet

Just after we moved to Paris, we attended the Salon des Vins, a convention of independent vintners offering generous tastings of their products to thousands of patrons. Aside from the food poisoning, a good time, for sure.

So when, a couple of weeks ago, we saw a billboard in a metro station for something called the Salon du Chocolat, we were totally on board. Paris has a dizzying number of high-quality chocolatiers, selling everything from pastries to bars to exquisite morsels of caramel or fruit or nuts wrapped in high quality chocolate. And like so many things in Paris, the presentation is as amazing as the flavors. So it seemed a reasonable bet that a show dedicated to chocolate in Paris would be pretty over-the-top.

So we went on the last day, a Sunday afternoon, where we encountered about half of the population of Paris. Turns out the Salon du Chocolat is in its 15th year and is anything but an intimate gathering. We waited half an hour to get in, wondering what waited inside. If at the Salon des Vins you get a tasting glass with your entry fee, what tasting implement one would get at the Salon du Chocolat? Maybe white gloves? Wishful thinking. Though rumors that a more liberal tasting environment prevailed on Thursday and Friday, when the crowd was smaller, the Sunday mob did not see a plethora of samples. And those booths that did offer samples more resembled a shark-feeding demonstration than a chocolate shop.

Exhibitors ranged from groups representing growers of cacao to those who makers, blend, and ultimately use chocolate for nearly any use. There were chocolate bars, candies, truffles, jarred sauces, cakes, pastries, and even liqueurs, all of it for sale. Booth sizes ranged from relatively one- or two-person stands offering just a few products to stylish mini-pavilions from some of the big chocolatiers such as La Maison du Chocolat, Lenotre, Jeff de Bruges, and Pierre Marcolini. Exhibitors came mostly from France and its near neighbors, but also from further-flung places such as the US (Chocovision, a company that makes equipment for industrial chocolate production), Japan (Tokyo Chocolate Co, a chocolatier disappointingly offering tastes of cliched chocolates dusted in green tea powder), and Madagascar (Cinagra, whose website, the first I've ever typed with a .mg address, doesn't work). There was also a stage in the center of the hall for elaborate performances of native cultures from cacao-growing regions, demonstration areas for cooking with chocolate, lectures on everything from chocolate history to the science of its taste to chocolate myths and legends (Le chocolat est-il aphrodisiaque?), and this being Paris, a crowded hall of fashion, the clothes all made from chocolate.

We stuck to the eating. And whereas the sample rate was maybe 1 in 6 exhibitors, it's surprising how quickly a series of small chocolate tastings can overwhelm. We had a couple of opportunities to compare chocolate made from beans from different sources, and just like coffee or wine, the flavor differences were immense and fascinating. There were some superb dark chocolate-covered sauterne grapes: super-intense fruit, hard to identify even as grapes, with prominent mango- and tropical fruit flavors mingling with the chocolate. We had some delicious chocolate wafers filled with spiced caramels (ginger, cardamom, etc). And our favorite of the day was an intense classic truffle that just dissolved luxuriously on your tongue, made by Pascal Le Gac, a chocolatier in St Germain-en-Laye, a picturesque town on a hill top just outside of Paris.

Given the mob inside, we were shocked on our way out to see that the line was probably 10 times longer than when we waited to get in. That was hard to explain, since the event closed in just 90 min. Maybe the long line wasn't actually to get into the event-- maybe they were autograph seekers waiting to mob the chocolatiers when they exited. Or better yet, maybe the exhibitors stand on the balcony and toss the rest of their samples out to the crowds below. Kind of like trick-or-treating.

Speaking of which, it's nearly Halloween. I wasn't so surprised to see EuroDisney billboards with a Halloween theme in the metro in the past month. But on several rides in the countryside recently, I've seen Halloween-like decorations on fences and houses. What gives? Halloween isn't a traditional French holiday. A friend here recalled that when France Telecom bought the Orange brand for its mobile networks and internet about 8 years ago, they did a Halloween tie-in that kind of stuck. That perception meshes with a broader explanation here. Regardless, it seems it's celebrated by little kids, especially outside of Paris, and young adults looking for an excuse to party. No word on whether, given the French fondness for setting cars afire, they also celebrate Devil's Night. But just in case, I'm bringing a fire extinguisher to dinner tonight.

Less is more

Early in our marriage, I decided that despite the fact that I'd been told many times that my head was full of rocks, my experience with myself was consistent with my being a super-genius. And using the now-popular tactic that saying something often enough makes it true, I made sure I told Karen of my super-geniosity whenever it was convenient for me. Which was often.

All of that changed on an airline flight. I was flying alone in the pre-ipod era, and being a super-genius, I'd forgotten to bring anything productive, or even fun, to read. So I was left with the airline's in-flight magazine. Yadda yadda yadda "Kansas as the next great travel destination," yadda yadda yadda "amazing new kelp diet," yadda yadda yadda "are you a genius?", yadda yadda yadda... hold on there, "are you a genius?" Hell yeah, and I'd been looking for proof. All I had to do was take the 20-question test and add up the score. Piece of cake-- I've always tested well. It was a mix of logic questions and some deliberately seemingly-easy-but-there's-a-trick puzzle questions. I forget what the time limit on the test was (this was serious business), but I finished early. Looking good.

Found the answers in the back of the magazine and checked my score. Yup, yup, yup, got that one, yup, yup... I knew it was going to be a piece of cake. I was killing it. Until number 14. Got #14 wrong. Got it wrong by making a dumb mistake. That was the only one I missed.

And it cost me. If I'd gotten them all right, I'd have earned the title of super-genius. As it was, I was only a genius-plus-plus. I thought about the circumstances. I'd just made a silly careless error. A dumb mistake I'd have caught anywhere but on an airplane. I was sure of it. I may not be a super-genius, but I wasn't a cheater, either. It's one thing to be certain of being a super-genius with no evidence to the contrary, but to ignore the results of an airline publication-approved IQ test would be recklessly irresponsible, an insult to the publication and to real super-geniuses, alike.

It was hard to handle the disappointment. To have the bedrock of your entire belief system revealed as fraud is hard. To have it happen 30,000 feet in the air, without access to your emotional support network, is devastating. Somehow I made it to my destination. And being an honest not-super-genius, I told Karen right away. She tried to make me feel better: "genius-plus-plus is still pretty good." Yeah, but it doesn't roll off the tongue, does it.

I've moved on in the many years since then, aside from the occasional nightmare revisiting the flight, usually right around performance evaluation time. I think I've grown.

What does this have to do with Paris? Well, shortly before flying to Italy, I bought a bathroom scale. The airlines are so fussy about baggage weights these days, and the penalties are so high, especially if your bags have bikes in them and so switch from "personal luggage" category to the "sporting equipment" category if you're a gram over the limit, that we decided it was worth the 25 eurobucks to know exactly what could go in which bag. We did a superb job of packing. We were half a kilo under on each bag going and even managed to remember what went into which bag on returning. Even the evil check-in people were impressed.

As long as we had the scale, I decided to weigh myself. And to my surprise, after the most frustrating year of riding and by a wide margin the year of largest wine consumption in my life, my weight was down essentially to racing weight. Hmm. Returning from Italy, where we eat a lot, it was a kilo less, yet. Double hmm.

The weird thing is that I don't think I'm that skinny. I've been really lean before, and I'm definitely not race-lean. So if I'm not skinny but I weigh less, what's going on?

The answer is obvious-- I've gotten smarter. If my body isn't different, it must be my head that's lighter: my head has fewer rocks in it. And that loss of rocks must mean I'm smarter. Which can only mean, after all of these years, that I'm finally really a super-genius.

All I need it an airline publication IQ test to prove it.

Which is why I'm taking the train from now on.