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.

Thank God for chamois cream

I got an innocent-seeming email last week from a riding friend about getting a couple of longer rides in over the weekend, when he was to be in bachelor mode. I was game-- what'd he have in mind?

His list included riding to Sancerre at the Loire-Burgundy border, maybe Joigny in northern Burgundy, heading down to Provence for a few days to climb Mont Ventoux and do some mountainous rides out of Nice, and schlepping out to Mont St Michel on the Atlantic coast, which while interesting, was really a bit more riding than either of us wanted.

But the candidates fell for a variety of reasons-- cost of getting down to Provence, Sancerre's a nice distance, but not that interesting physically a destination, riding to Joigny meant riding a fair ways on routes we already knew-- and so Mont St Michel kept moving up the list by default.

I wasn't convinced it was a good idea. I'd looked into the ride this spring, and it's a long way, and I didn't want to spend very much money on this trip. “We could make it in 2 long days and get one of several reasonably priced trains back home on Sun night,” he said.

I was worried about my tendonitis and other nagging injuries; 215 miles in 2 days probably wasn't the best way to start up again after being in Japan 2 weeks. “We'll take it easy, have time off the bike for lunch and snacks, and there are lots of places to bail and catch a train back,” he said.

Of all the places on the list, I've actually been to Mont St Michel once, almost 30 years ago. “I've never been there,” he said, “and I've always wanted to go.”

Aha... I'm starting to see the driver here.

“And how cool would it be to turn the corner and see it there, then have fresh shellfish for dinner?”

Bingo-- now, I get it.

He had this whole Mont St Michel fantasy worked out in his head: catching the vision of the Mont in the late afternoon sun as we hit the coast, rolling right up to the beach for a dip in the Atlantic in the shadow of the Mont before crossing over, feasting on just-caught fruit du mer and Mere Poulard's famous fluffy omelets. He'd been playing that romanticized film in his head for years, and he sensed his chance.

Cut! Sounded more like a horror movie to me: heavily traffic'd highways and cheesey tourist traps for the last 20 km, mud rather than sand at low tide, shellfish allergies that would make eating out a game of culinary Russian Roulette, and a view that omelets, however fluffy and however silly the capes and hats worn by the guys who beat the eggs to the click-click-click of tourist cameras, aren't especially satisfying recovery food.

But I was interested in seeing the countryside between here and there, I was intrigued by the lure of back-to-back centuries, and seeing the admittedly spectacular Mont a second time in 30 years wouldn't exactly qualify as redundancy. So OK, I said-- let's go.

So we set off Sat AM from the Trocadero in Paris, with a perfect view of one iconic symbol of France, for another. We got lost almost immediately. OK, not really lost, but we hadn't mapped out getting out town, since we do it so often. For some reason chose to go a way we'd never really done before, and so we had to backtrack a few times, find our way around unexpected one-way streets, etc. Starting this kind of ride tentatively can cast an early ominous pall on the day, and it didn't get any better quickly as my riding companion, recently returned from a trip to the States, was redlining as we noodled along easily up the gentle long slope to Versailles. 5 miles down, 115 to go today. Gonna be a long one.

Picking our way past yet another famous site, the Chateau in Versailles, we had a few tricky unmarked traffic circles, and we were still crawling. But once out of the congestion and into the countryside, we started to get some momentum. His jet-lag fog lifted after the first 50 km or so, when we stopped for some more sugar and liquids, and we had a stretch of good directions and signs, and we were cruising. Stopped in one town when the trail went cold, a tiny old man in a tractor cap on a bike wobbled up and gave us directions with a big, genuine smile.

You're foreigners, he said, and we said that yes, we're Americans. He noted how big and strong Americans are (I explained that I'm big, and my friend is strong), and as we pushed off he yelled after us, “Vive les Americains!” We both laughed out loud at the surprise of such an exuberant reaction from a Frenchman. But we were out of Paris, and more importantly, it was the weekend of the 65^th anniversary of victory in the Normandy Invasion and the liberation of Paris. And for that weekend, especially among those old enough to have been there, the normally annoying anglophones were probably A-OK.

And in fact, our route took us straight through the jaws of the Falaise Pocket, the site of the decisive battles closing the Normandy invasion. Chambois, Argentan, Mortain-- this is where it happened. And we saw countless celebrations marking the anniversary that weekend: elderly British men in uniform decorated with medals and accompanied by their descendants having beers at the sidewalk cafes, American era tanks and jeeps displayed (or still rolling) in towns, and big outdoor barbecues and picnics. Memorials and simple markers to those who died there in both world wars lined most of our ride. The lack of French military resistance in the 2^nd WW is something of a (mostly good-humored) joke in the US, epitomized by Goundskeeper Willie's classic remark to his French class in one Simpson's episode, “Bonjourrr, ya' cheese-eatin' surrender monkeys,” but the losses suffered by the French in WWI, nearly 1.4 million military and 1.7 million total, or about 4% of the total population, are often forgotten in that teasing. It's hard not to be moved by memorials in villages almost too small to merit a dot on the map with hundreds of local names on them.

On our ride, the hills of this region were peaceful and quietly beautiful. We rolled through one picturesque village after another, past chateaux and abbayes and medieval churches without the luxury of time to stop and visit, but also without seeing a car for hours at a time. We'd intended to get to Argentan the first night, 200 km from Paris, so that we'd leave ourselves a shorter 2^nd day, but without knowing how my knees would hold up, we didn't dare make hotel reservations. And calling some places in the afternoon while stopped for coffee didn't leave us with warm fuzzy feelings. So when we rode through Gacé, still 30 km short of our goal, and saw a gorgeous 19^th century B&B along the road, just a block or two away from another hotel that had an outdoor restaurant, we first looked into it and then checked into it for the night. Nice room, decent dinner outdoors at the place up the street, a boulangerie with a scene display from the Tour de France in their window (perhaps from a time the Tour rode through? This one looked to be from about 1950...), and the pleasant surprise of some gratis Calvados as digestif on our return to the B&B. A guy could get used to this.

Le Castel Morphée in Gacé: 19th century splendor outside and inside, a collection of American cars (!), billiards table in the parlor, digestifs served by an amiable hostess, and at least the night we were there, a meeting of the "our parents were related" club...

The chateau in Gacé, halfway between the hotel and dinner.

Le Tour under glass

The verdant countryside from our window.

The next day was longer than we'd have liked, started later than we'd have liked thanks to a French start time for breakfast at the B&B, and started with fewer calories than we'd have liked, but the terrain through Chambois and Putanges-Pont-Ecrepin was the perfect morning wake up, great momentum climbs and descents, and since we were fresh, we knocked out the previous day's missed 30 km in no time. Things got steeper and less cohesive after that for most of the rest of the day, and it was hotter than the first day. We each had a painful blister at a saddle contact point, and about 60 km from the finish and still in the hills, my right knee picked up yet a new pain, which can change one's outlook quickly. A few NSAIDs and retreating for an hour into that time trial focus place, though, and it relented. We were tired, but as the hills again became less steep and long, rather like Lancaster County without the Amish, we knew we'd make it. Finally with about 15 km to go, it leveled out, and though the roads were the busiest we rode all weekend, they were fine. We were both bonking just a couple of km from the Mont, so we stopped and ate the last of our sandwiches while watching the grazing marsh sheep, one of which I probably ate for dinner, cooked in a cocotte (cast iron skillet) with white beans and a very tasty stock-based sauce, the beans on the bottom getting all crusty and caramelized. Simple but delicious cooking.

Putange-Pont-Ecrepin, one of dozens of beautiful little villages we rode through. There's only a picture of this one because we needed to stop for water.

The famous (and tasty) salt-marsh-fed sheep.

Sight for sore butts: Le Mont.

The Mont was even more touristy than I remembered. Only 50 people actually live on the island, and so we didn't see a single business that didn't exist solely for tourists. Like San Gimignano, it has the feeling of Disney World, and still bonking, and tired, and maneuvering the bikes through the crushing crowds, and frustrated by trying to figure out how we were really going to get to our 9.07 train 60 km away the next morning, the scene and the cheesiness were pissing me off. But the day-trippers were starting to head out, and we got cleaned up and had a wander around before stopping for a cider and then dinner on a terrace on the rampart, watching the tide rush in and hoping that we'd get to see the few remaining cars of the people who had apparently not heard or understood the repeated loudspeaker warnings about the coming tide in 5 languages float away (no such luck-- they were all moved without incident). Late at night, the Mont deserted, one could almost imagine what it must have been like in earlier centuries. And though its current gothic splendor is 19^th century renovation, it's a spectacular vision from just about any angle at any time of day.

View from town at low tide. The bay is silting in, helped by the construction of a permanent causeway some years ago, but a public works project is scheduled to dredge it.

And at high tide. The bulk of the change takes place in about 30 min. If you don't move your car "schnellstern," it might not be there when you get back.

All lit up.

It's only at night that this place actually feels like it might really have been an Abbey, once.

Sunrise from our hotel window.

The trip back was mostly uneventful. The sunrise was stunning, we made it to the station with a few minutes to spare, and though our train was both oversold and 2 cars short, and so packed to the gills with returning vacationers, we and the bikes made it back none too worse for the wear (though I still have flashbacks of the giant fleshy buttock that was pressed against my shoulder and back for the last hour of the trip).

In the end, the visit to Mont Saint Michel might not quite have lived up to my friend's internal idealized movie, but the reality was surely a much longer ways from mine. It was a really neat place to be after 2 pretty great days of riding.

I've never done back-to-back centuries-plus before, but I'm ready for the next one(s). He mentioned in passing maybe riding down to Nice sometime. Let's see, that's 600 miles... so that's about chicken-bucket of ass cream. I can live with that.

The ride

Rolling through the Bois at 7 on Karen's wheel, it's chillier than I expected. Glad I wore the arm-warmers. Hard to figure it'll really be mid-90s this afternoon. It was dark this morning when we got up, a big change even since we left for Japan. That means our longer-than-Philly days are going to pretty quickly become shorter-than-Philly days. It also means that the distance riding season is about to close, and I've missed it. So much for the plans of seeing France on epic rides from the apartment. Usually the shortening days mean the hot humid days are numbered, and that cyclocross is just around the corner, the best part of the year on both counts. But not this year. There'll be no cyclocross this year.

As soon as I get up on the bridge, the cool microclimate of the Bois dissolves. Maybe it will hit 90 today. The gentle grade of the bridge is the first work of the morning, soon to give way to the wall on the other side. Now I'm working, out of the saddle, steadily pushing up the gnarled street, avoiding the cars backing out of their parking spots on the way to work. Not many of them today, this week, this month. It'll be different in September, when everybody's back, and when I'll have to wait longer for light. The pumping in my chest feels good, it's still early, but the building pain in my knees is a reminder that in most years I could do this for 20-30 minutes, instead of just 3 or 4, so I'm happy to be over the top, where I pass a guy in his 20s on a heavy commuter, coming from further up the ridge, handlebar in one hand, cigarette in the other. We pass a delivery van on either side before going our separate ways.

The GPS beeps out its prompts on this new route I'm trying through Versailles, trying to send me twice around a traffic circle before exiting, and I wonder again why its pro bike team-sponsoring manufacturer seems so intent on adding training management capabilities while ignoring the woefully inadequate route-mapping and bike-relevant plotting. Sometimes I hate this thing. The new route won't be so good in September; maybe I should have ridden through the palace grounds, since it's been so dry. Last time I did that a big group of mountain bikers laughed at me as I rolled through on my road bike over the mud-covered country pave and through the big holes, the grit stuck between my tire and my chainstays wailing insistently. I smiled sheepishly in response, later learning they were laughing because one of their crew had fallen just before I showed up, and they were discussing the details of tread pattern and tire volume as I slid upright through the same muddy corner on my 23 mm slicks.

Just this one last stretch of crap, along D307, and I'm free. If I can just get through here without flatting... The GPS beeps out a turn around a 1-way street I usually ride illegally; OK, I'll bite. Little climb and a fun pinball road among old stone houses back down to the main route. OK, so the GPS can stay.

1:03, and the real riding finally starts. Wending down from the ridge into the valley, it doesn't take a lot to make the bike really move, now. It's fast, and I always feel strong here, like the first few minutes of a time trial, when I'm hopped up on adrenaline and feel like I can crank out the power forever, before my body catches up and fills with pain. I miss that pain, sometimes. The new pain sucks; there's no warped pleasure in there.

Surprising amount of traffic on this little country road at this time of day, but all of it going the other direction. That makes the decision to ride the loop this way doubly good. I'm feeling pretty smug about my luck, having chosen the direction of the loop for visibility, to have the low morning sun at my back so drivers can see me, rather than traffic flow. Not as lucky on the bigger highway that follows, but it won't matter by the next turn.

Totally worth it. The rolling road pulls me forward, coaxes and then rewards the effort to push up each rise. There's no sound aside from my breathing, the whoosh of my tires on the pavement, the faintest clicking of the chain in the drivetrain, and the wind. I pulse through shady old forests and fields of recently harvested wheat, the short stubs left by the combine have a pronounced nap in the still-low morning sun, bright blonde as I approach with the sun behind us both but deep gold as I turn around, to clear my nose. It's team colors out here, gold and green. I can't imagine not doing this, not hammering over the tiny farm roads and careening through sleeping stone villages with their medieval churches. At this moment the fact that my knees both hurt, that I can't really train, let alone race, that I'm feeling guilty about some lingering work obligations, that I'm surprisingly disappointed to not be going home in a month to see friends and do one of my favorites weekends of 'cross, doesn't matter. Riding is all that matters. And though I've been here, and I suppose many more-beautiful places in the world, on the bike before, today it's experiential overload. It's overwhelming.

I've got more company as I close the loop, but it's August, and it's not yet 10.30, so still little enough that I can take the long screaming descent in the highway itself, rather than on the path. I have just enough left at the bottom to stomp my way up to St Germain en Laye, where the road I need is closed for work. I know that the detour passes the spectacular chateau on the edge of the hilltop, though, so I'm not complaining. I consider stopping for a coffee on the square across from the chateau, wanting the ride to last a little longer, hoping that sitting out under the umbrellas in the building heat will add just that extra cherry on top of this magical ride. But it's done, and I know the bad coffee will only break what's left of the spell.

You want grits with your Dauphiné Libéré?

With the finish last Sunday of the Dauphiné Libéré, a last 8-day dress rehearsal for the Tour de France for many participants, it looks like there'll be no more TV coverage of the pro cycling season at our apartment until the Tour starts on July 4. Quel dommage.

The Dauphiné was fun to watch, with a preview of the form of some self-proclaimed Tour contenders (eg, Cadel Evans and Alberto Contador) in the time trial, an exclusive view of the strengths of probable Tour persona non grata Alejandro Valverde (for suspected doping offenses), and yet another review of Evans' questionable judgement in matters tactical (allowing Alejandro Valverde to escape unchallenged on the Mont Ventoux, instead obsessively defending every attack by non-threat Jacob Fuglsang and looking to others to help reel in Valverde). As at the Giro, where Danilo Di Luca made every conceivable effort to attack eventual winner Denis Menchov after the time trial, Evans was anything but passive after yielding the leader's jersey to Valverde on the Ventoux. In fact, Evans was persistent and irksome enough to Valverde that Contador, whose mantra at the race was that he was only there as a spectator, pitched in a number of times to neutralize his attacks. And with just 16 seconds separating Valverde and Evans, the suspense ran right to the end. As Eurosport's French commentator Jackie Durand says frequently to commend a good finish, chapeau!

I don't expect the same close race among those protagonists at the Tour-- Contador never looked the least bit bothered on any of the climbs or by any of Evans' attacks, and he didn't cede nearly enough time in the time trial to Evans to make the July race between those 2 interesting. Hopefully something/somebody else will bring the spark.

As American amateur bike racers, I think we had a typical misconception about the place of bike racing, and more generally energetic cycling, in France. Aside from the peak of Armstrong Fever, it's probably fair to say that the core of bike race fans in the US is the extended bike racing community itself. Which is a pretty small group. On our limited TV coverage of bike racing in the US, though, we see the huge crowds that line the courses at races like the Tour and Paris-Roubaix. We see pictures of thousands of amateur riders doing the etape, a mountain stage of the Tour ridden on the 2nd rest day, and lots of ads for bike tour companies in the back of cycling magazines telling us how big a part of the culture cycling is in France. And so we assume that France is some kind of cycling utopia, a place where the beauty and nobility of the sport is still cherished by The People, even if not always honored by racers.

And the public is definitely more aware of cycling on several different levels here than in the States. Even the most nattily dressed commute on the city-owned and -maintained Vélib' bikes in Paris. The bike-circuit at Longchamp and the roads of the Chevreuse are lousy with gray-haired fellows on 1980s and 1990s race bikes who ride echelons more intuitively than most US racers ride pacelines. A friend of ours even watched a recumbent bike time trial, complete with standing start, at the velodrome in Bois de Vincennes (though he was the only spectator there). And obviously, with a number of French companies sponsoring pro teams, there must be enough people interested to merit considering the outlay of cash required.

But the notion that it's a national pastime, or even a dignified sport, here is misguided. Professional cycling in France is probably closest to the equivalent of NASCAR at home. Falling well behind football/soccer, and even considerably behind motor sports (which are huge here: superbike is ubiquitous on TV, and there's an array of car race classes too subtle in their differences for me to distinguish), it's more mainstream than in the States, but it's definitely a little red-necky. I think that would come as a surprise to most cyclists in America, where cycling probably has more socioeconomic overlap with golf than, say, pro wrestling.

But the red-neck association is especially true in Paris, where engaging in strenuous exercise of any kind is viewed with a whiff of aristocratic disdain. As a friend who has lived here nearly 20 years observed, sports are unifiers in the US and dividers in France (or at least Paris). In the States, Sunday's game is the subject of discussion at the water cooler for everybody from custodian to CEO. In France, with the exception perhaps of the French Open tennis tournament and the exploits of the National football team late in the World Cup tournament, those with aspirations to class (and in Paris, that's a lot of people) would avoid such banal conversation.

Suits me just fine. I'm breakin' out my "I'm with stupid" sleeveless T-shirt, gettin' a mullet haircut, and settin' a broken washer out on the balcony, jes nexta the still. We got 17 days 'til the prologue, an' I's fixin' to be ready fer it.

Eating Fancy: Dury

In the picture above, can you identify the 2 features that definitively identify this as a restaurant of grand ambition?

It's not necessarily the fancy paper napkin wrapper on the table, or the carefully pressed table cloth, the flowers, or even the chic black slate “placemat.” In my experience, the best way to tell you're in a serious dining establishment in France is by the bread, or more specifically, by the bread accouterments. In this picture, the bread has its own proper place to sit, and it has friends.

In most restaurants in France, bread comes to the table in a basket, and when pieces leave the basket, they spend whatever time they're not being eaten on the table top itself, not on a bread plate, and definitely not on the edge of the dinner plate. And usually, the bread is eaten naked. Umm, for clarity, the bread is naked, not the eater, at least in the places I've eaten. The bread gets no olive oil or fancy spreads, and definitely no butter.

Since I'm a bread-for-bread's-sake kind of guy, that generally suits me just fine. If you've got flavorful, crusty, chewy, webby bread, why distract from its wonder? One of the most memorable meals I've ever eaten was simply a perfectly cooked piece of perfect pizza dough, right out of the wood oven, all puffy and lightly charred, the ultimate balance of crisp and chew, yeast and smoke. It needed nothing. I've always thought of butter for bread as akin to ketchup-- something you put on food that either needs flavor added, or worse, needs flavors covered up.

At least that's been the case until recently. The thing about butter in France is that it's really, really good. As a native son of America's Dairy Land, the startling inferiority of American butter is painful to acknowledge, but there's no avoiding that truth. At home, it takes us about a year to go through a pound of butter. It gets used a tablespoon at a time in pancake batter, to finish risotto, or swirled into a sauce just before serving. In France, we've (a handy euphemism for I've) eaten a pound and a half of butter in just 3 months. I put it in and on everything. The butter from the supermarket is very good, and so far I've avoided buying any of the artisanal butters from the fromageries. I have this premonition of sitting naked on the kitchen floor at 4:00 in the morning, spoon in hand, with a big bowl of softened lightly salted butter, big smile on my face-- it's not a dignified future.

So it's kind of a shame that you have to Eat Fancy to get butter with your restaurant bread in France, but that's the way it is. Neither the butter(s-- unsalted and salted, an even more addictive combination) nor the bread at this particular Eat Fancy establishment, the Michelin-starred l'Aubergade in Dury, disappointed.

I had occasion to eat there a couple of weeks ago while Karen was globetrotting. I had worked my way down through a host of decreasingly impractical potential cycling scenarios-- starting with spending a week in Italy or Provence with a friend, then riding 4 days to Bordeaux, then 3 days into the Loire or Burgundy-- ending up with a 2-day out and back 150 mile ride for dinner. The criteria for a destination were simple: it needed to be 70-85 miles away, with a good but affordable restaurant, open on Wed, and an affordable hotel within walking/easy public transit distance from the restaurant.

And so it was that I packed my messenger bag with street clothes for dinner and some food for the ride and rode up into l'Enfer du Nord, the region of France that was so devastated by trench warfare in WWI. Many of the attractions around Dury are WWI battlefields. The routes up and back were beautiful, mostly on tiny local farm roads that wended through quiet villages. I had a tail wind both days (for which I will probably pay for the rest of my life), and even though I had a spring cold that left me without a voice for a couple of days just before venturing out, I was able to croak loudly enough to order my dinner.

Happy thing, too, since it was a good dinner. I ordered from the 4-course menu du marché, quite a bargain at 39 euros, and an even bigger bargain considering the meal could be considered as 7 courses, (mostly) shown in pictures below. That sets a high hurdle for my fast-approaching next cycling dinner, destination yet to be determined.

I just hope there'll be butter on the table.

My room for the night, at the Chambres d'hôtes, about 200 m from the restaurant
Amuse bouche: since it was rattled off at lightning speed, I don't really know for sure. Cream of some type of greens, with dried tiny dice of beet, croutons, and some tiny pieces of cured ham. Very good.
Mosaic of seared tuna and foie gras, with horseradish cream, balsamic reduction, and edible flowers. At least I hope they were edible...

Chicken scented with Szechuan peppercorns, served in a foam with wild asparagus and fava beans. I really wanted the fish (I never eat chicken out-- it's just usually not that interesting), but it came with a shellfish mousse, and since I already had a room for the night, I didn't need a trip to the Dury emergency room. The chicken was very good, actually, but the 3rd option, a mille feuille of cabbage and foie gras/veal smelled unbelievably good when it arrived at the neighboring table (and the friendly regulars who ordered it let me know that I was missing something special-- I almost thought they were going to give me a taste). Next time.

I didn't get pictures of the cheese plate (3 excellent French cheeses) or the pre-dessert, a shot-glass filled halfway with rice pudding, topped by maybe the best tablespoon of chocolate mousse I've ever eaten, with a perfect raspberry on top. The pictured real dessert is a praline and green tea concoction covered with chocolate, with a citrus cream and cherries. Maybe a bit much going on for me-- my dessert tastes are pretty simple, just give me a good fruit tart (or the bucket of that chocolate mousse).

The mignardises, or little sweets that come with coffee, which I didn't order-- afraid to ruin the good run of food. In the glass are home-made marshmallows of lemon (good), religieuse (which is a pastry here sold in either chocolate or coffee-- I think these were coffee-chocolate combo, also good) and strawberry (amazing). The little cookies were macaroons, a passion fruit gelee, crisp almond tuilles, miniature cannelle (I adore cannelle), and little intensely dark chocolate rice crispy-like treats. Yes, I ate them all, except I couldn't bring myself to finish all of the marshmallows. The regulars told me to take them with me, but I explained they wouldn't travel well on the bike and left them on their table, instead, so that they'd have extras to take home. Wished I'd had them earlier to barter for a taste of their main course.

A week in review

You know things are rolling when there have been a lot of cool things to write about but no time to write. That's especially true when you're temporarily retired and theoretically have copious time to write. So I'll let pictures do most of the talking.

The last couple of weeks have finally been good weeks on the bike. I can't tell you how frustrating a winter it has been, but now that things are looking up, it feels great. To give an idea of the slow going, I averaged less than 6 h/month on the bike in Dec, Jan, and Feb, March saw an average of 3 h/week, and finally in April I got weeks of 3, 6, 9, and 15 h. The build came thanks in part to finally being healthy and working hard on stretching and rebuilding core strength, in part thanks to the visit of a friend (Sean) of a friend (Allen) from Philly, who came here for some business and biking, and in part thanks to randomly meeting a British ex-pat on the way back from the Longchamp Hamster Wheel who invited me to join a Sunday anglophone ride out of the city to the Chevreuse valley. As such, I can now update Karen's comment than one can't ride seriously in the city to say that there are escape and entry routes that allow for good riding from the apartment without having to take the train. Not many, mind you, but any is better than none. Anyway, both the roads and the company on the rides have been great, and I'm ready for a week off to try to recover. Feels fantastic to have to recover from hard riding, rather than being sick or hurt.

The 16e from Champ de Mars train station waiting for a train to the southern riding grounds

Chateau de la Madeleine in the Chevreuse: well worth the climb up

Rapeseed fields and wind farms in the south: just flat climbing here in the wind
Labbeville in the north
Taking blurry pictures in the Chevreuse
The blurry Chevreuse
Pre-ride breakfast
Walled hamlet in the south
Torfou, in the south
Counting stops on the way back from Pontoise, exhausted from all of that videography

In the middle of all of the riding we had dinner at Hidden Kitchen, an "underground restaurant" or supper club where the atmosphere is rather like a dinner party: a small number of people eats together at one dining table in an apartment for a suggested, though not optional, donation that covers the food and drink. There are number of these types of establishments around the US and now a couple in Paris. The night we were there, the 16 guests started the evening at 8:00 with an aperitif and worked our way through the menu below, finishing the petits fours about 5 hours later. The food was teriffic, imaginatively conceived and then executed with fresh ingredients and precise technique. It was decidedly not French food (the "hosts" are Americans from the Seattle area), being brighter with more layers of flavor and more playful, but it complements the French food here in the city very nicely. Definitely a fun evening, and with wine accompanying 7 of the 10 courses, the next day's early morning ride was a bit rough for awhile.

The 2nd course of the dinner really resonated with me, because I'd been waiting for good peas to make pea agnolotti. I'd originally been thinking minted pea filling, but the fava raviolo at Hidden Kitchen used chervil in the pea sauce, which was just an outstanding pairing. Never one to shy away from stealing a good idea, I did a pea-and-chervil filling, instead, evened out with an ad libbed substitute for mascarpone (a mixture of fromage blanc and blended cottage cheese). I sauced them in an intensely saffroned light cream sauce (infused chicken stock with saffron threads, reduced with a little cream and creme fraiche from my local fromagerie) and topped it off with a little sliced prosciutto and some chervil. I wish I'd made 3 times as much and frozen the agnolotti for lunches, because they were heavenly.