George the Cyclist

A Goldmine of Cycling Books

2012-01-15T08:33:00.000-08:00

Thanks to my friend Elizabeth, a most valuable double-barreled cyclist/librarian, I just made the thrilling discovery of a gold mine of cycling books virtually out my back door. She introduced me to the incredible website http://worldcat.org, an archive of the holdings of libraries all over the world. Enter the title of a book and in a moment it reveals where it may be found and the distance from one's location, whether a few miles away or half way round the world.

A year ago "Cycle Sport," a British magazine that is one of my favorite monthly reads, published a list of the greatest fifty cycling books of all time. I'd read half of them and knew of many of the others, but not all. England has a much richer history of books on cycling than America, so most of those I hadn't read were English publications, some of which were translations of the great French cycling books. I wanted to read them all.

Most I could have acquired through Amazon. The price of some scared me off, but also the lack of space on my already overflowing book shelves. I try to limit my book acquisitions to one or two a year. I always have plenty to read, so I was willing to patiently await these books.

When Elizabeth revealed worldcat.org to me when I was visiting her at her library, I instantly began typing in titles from that list. I was overwhelmed with excitement to discover that many of them were miraculously nearby in various suburban and university libraries. I could have enlisted Elizabeth's services as a librarian at Northwestern to acquire any of them on inter-library loan, something she was happy and willing to do. It wouldn't even have been a favor, because as a card-carrying alumnus of Northwestern, I am entitled to such privileges.

But I am above all a bicyclist. I am ever eager to pounce on the opportunity to ride my bike anywhere, especially for something that excites me. One winter I made it a mission to bicycle to every one of Chicago's 75 branch libraries, some twenty miles or more away. That led to my on-going quest to bicycle to the 1,689 Carnegie libraries scattered all over the U.S.

I have had the lingering desire to bike to the many suburban libraries on the outskirts of Chicago. Seeking some of these books would give me that opportunity. Far better, anyway, to go to a book, than have it brought to me. Making the effort to search it out, to pluck it from its shelf, always enhances the enjoyment of a book. I love that moment of spotting and reaching for a title I've long yearned for. Going to a book also provides the chance of discovering other books alongside the one that I have come for that I might want to read.

In my pile of books to read were two of Samuel Abt's books on cycling that I had acquired in the past few months through paperbackswap, an on-line book trading service. Abt has written eleven books on cycling while covering the Tour de France and European cycling for the "New York Times" beginning in 1977. Some of the books are just collections of his stories, but still worth reading. Only one of his books made "Cycle Sport's" top fifty list--"LeMond, The Incredible Come Back of An American Hero." I had already read that and four other of his books, some from the holdings of the Chicago Public Library system.

Though his racing savvy does not match that of his European counterparts, I still read his books, starved as I am for books on cycling, and had a goal of reading all eleven of his books. I gave immediate thanks to Elizabeth and worldcat when I learned that two of the four books of his that I hadn't been able to get my hands on could be found in suburban libraries--one in Park Ridge and the other in Riverside. Of the other two, one was 113 miles away in Bloomington, Illinois and the other 141 miles away in Marion, Indiana, bike rides to look forward to in the future.

I was particularly pleased to have reason to bike out to Park Ridge, as its former library was a Carnegie built in 1909. It still stood, across the street from the new library, now home to an insurance company and a hair salon. And going out to Park Ridge rewarded me with another cycling book I was unaware of--"Eat, Sleep, Ride" by Englishman Paul Howard about riding the 2,800 mile continental divide race from Canada to Mexico. I did not know of this book, though I had read Howard's two other books on cycling--a biography of Jacques Anquetil that I wrote about last month and a book about riding the Tour de France route, both very good reads.

So I had a very pleasant two days at the Park Ridge library reading these two books. Then it was on to the Riverside library for another of Abt's books. The library was a magnificent, 80-year old, stone chateau of a building, in a small town atmosphere. It was a rare library these days without magnetic strips in its books to guard against their theft. The bike rack had a sign reminding people that they ought to lock their bikes and offering locks inside if one didn't have one. One could sit in a leather chair and read while gazing through a forest of trees upon the Des Plaines river. It was a most tranquil setting, belying the surrounding metropolitan sprawl, another marvelous experience I wouldn't have had if I hadn't biked out for the book.

Though I have cycling biographies of Bernard Hinault to go after in Downer's Grove and Laurent Fignon in Elmhurst and Stephen Roche in Schaumberg and a book on the Spring Classics in Skokie and the Coppi-Bartoli duel in the 1949 Giro in Joliet and a cultural history of the Tour de France at Northwestern and at the nearby Evanston library a translation of "Giants of Cycling" by the great French cycling historian Jean-Paul Ollivier who has written fifty books on cycling, the book I was most eager to read next was "Slaying the Badger" at the University of Chicago. It too was written by an English author I had read before, Richard Moore, whose first book was a biography of the Scottish rider Robert Millar, a former team mate of Greg LeMond who had somewhat disappeared amidst speculation that he had undergone a sex change. The book was worthy of the awards it had won.

As anyone versed in racing lore would surmise, the "badger" of the title refers to Bernard Hinault and is about LeMond's victory in the 1986 Tour de France over Hinault. The subtitle of the book calls it "The Greatest Ever Tour de France." That designation is usually given to the 1989 Tour when LeMond beat Fignon by eight seconds, but Moore makes a strong argument for the 1986 Tour. LeMond and Hinault were teammates, but also adversaries. LeMond had sacrificed himself the year before when they were teammates and did not attack Hinault in the mountains when he was struggling and was wearing the yellow jersey going for his fifth win.

Hinault was so grateful to LeMond that he told him, "Next year it is your turn," and promised to devote all his energies to helping LeMond win. There was much speculation before the 1986 race whether Hinault would live up to that promise, especially with everyone in France wanting him to become the first person to win The Tour six times. At that point only he and Jacques Anquetil and Eddie Merkx were in the elite club of five winners, later to be joined by Miguel Indurain and Lance Armstrong. Hinault didn't seem to be living up to his promise when he attacked on the first mountain stage and took a seemingly insurmountable five minute advantage. LeMond was devastated by this apparent betrayal.

The Race went back and forth. One of its seminal moments came later in the Alps after LeMond had secured the yellow jersey and he and Hinault rode together up L'Alpe d'Huez well ahead of everyone else. Moore argues their arm-to-arm finish at the summit is one of the greatest moments in the history of all sport.

Moore was a thirteen year old back in England in 1986 watching The Race on television. It was the first time it had been broadcast in its entirety in England. He seems to be living a dream to be able to intimately relive the race, interviewing everyone involved and rereading the many books and newspaper and magazine articles written about it, even a feature in "Rolling Stone."

He personalizes his narrative, intimately describing his visits with LeMond and Hinault at their homes, giving the impression that he would have been happy to have written this book for the mere pleasure of it and without any compensation. He says it wasn't easy to arrange all the interviews, but the only principal he failed to interview was the team owner, Bernard Tapie, a Donald Trump, larger-than-life character, who spent time in jail for fixing soccer matches after his few years in bicycling. He still manages to give a thorough portrait of Tapie, highly recommending the documentary "Who is Bernard Tapie?"

He offers up one fascinating anecdote after another, even boggling LeMond with his research. He interviewed LeMond with his wife Kathy and includes many of her poignant interjections, letting us truly get to know them. Andy Hampsten was one of LeMond's two English-speaking teammates on that 1986 La Vie Claire team of ten riders. Canadian Steve Bauer was the other. There were five French riders, including Hinault, and two Swiss and a Swiss director, Paul Kochli, another most fascinating individual, a great innovator who was known as "the kooky professor." Moore's visit to his compound full of computers and file cabinets is another of the many highlights in the book.

Moore has a great facility for making his subjects fully open up to him. Hampsten tells him, "I'm going to tell you something I've never told anyone." On a stage in the mountains Hampsten was in a small lead group with LeMond, but not Hinault. Just as the final climb began Hampsten surged ahead to lead LeMond out and to push the other riders to their limit. The others couldn't keep up. LeMond didn't chase after Hampsten, leaving that to the other riders so he wouldn't overly exert himself. When Kochli saw what was happening, he drove up along side Hampsten, as this was before the riders had radio communication with their director, and instead of reprimanding him told him to keep riding hard and to go for the stage win and yellow jersey. He said, "Your two big-headed teammates are bickering over it like its their privilege. The best thing for this team would be for you to take the yellow jersey tonight." Hampsten kind of laughed to himself, as he knew he didn't have the energy to sustain his effort, he was just going for a short spurt to try to shake things up, as he was totally loyal to LeMond.

When Moore told LeMond the story, he was astounded. He wasn't upset, just in awe, commenting, "Wow. Think what that would have meant to Andy." Moore interviewed Hinault before LeMond. As he interviews LeMond, he shares many of Hinault's comments on his version of events, often making LeMond shake his head in disbelief. I was constantly going "wow" myself, feeling as if I was right there with Moore, loving every minute of it, knowing how thrilling it must have been for him getting to talk to all these people who had been involved with this great event.

Moore also interviews Shelly Verses, a young American who was the first woman to serve as a masseuse and soigneur in the world of professional bike racing in Europe working for the 7-Eleven team at that year's Tour before being recruited to the La Vie Claire team. She too is remarkably candid. The year before at the 1985 Giro d'Italia, when she made her first appearance in Europe, all the traditionalists were totally aghast that a woman would be massaging the legs of a team's riders. "What do their wives and girl friends think and who is she sleeping with," everyone speculated.

She was subjected to all sorts of harassment. She said the great Italian rider Francesco Moser came by before a stage and asked her to work on his legs. She didn't know who he was and initially scoffed. When she realized it was Moser, she did oblige him and was mightily impressed by his legs. "They were different to my guys," she said. Hinault too checked her out at that Giro. She learned that he liked cherries, just like Ron Kiefel, one of her American riders. She always tried to have a bowl full to please Kiefel and then would offer a few to Hinault whenever she saw him. "It was our little secret," she said. "It was adorable."

But she was utterly appalled by Hinault's back-stabbing, viper-like treatment of LeMond at the '86 Tour. Moore says that she didn't initially reveal how disturbed she was by Hinault's behavior in their first interview, and felt guilty about it. She emailed him later and said she hadn't been strong enough in her disdain of Hinault's behaviour, comparing him to a virtual Stalin and Hitler and Mussolini.

Hampsten agrees that Hinault wasn't very honorable in that Tour but also says, "I don't think he could have been nicer as a teammate. He was just so frickin' nice." Another ex-teammate, the Dane Kim Anderson, who was the Leopard Trek team director of the Schleck brothers last year, said, "I would die for that man."

The book is a deep mine of juicy observations and telling detail that reveal mountains of insight into the sport of bicycle racing and its gladiators. It was a great, great read and made even greater to be reading it in a carol at one of the premier collegiate libraries in the world. It wasn't easy to gain entrance to the University of Chicago library either. I had to get an Info Pass from the Chicago Public Library stating that they could not procure the book for me before they'd allow me in.

According to worldcat.org the next nearest library with a copy of "Slaying the Badger" is at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, 204 miles away. The book is such an exhilarating read, I would gladly bicycle that far to read it. I wanted to find out who had procured the book for the University of Chicago and give him my heartiest thanks, and also to ask who was responsible for all the other great cycling books in their collection, some in French, Italian, Dutch and German. I'll be back for a history of Italian cycling and a few others.

A Review of "On Bicycles"

2012-01-04T10:45:00.000-08:00

Here's a review of the book "On Bicycles" I contributed to http://gridchicago.com/ a quite ambitious and wide-ranging transportation website. My review was a little too long, so this includes the final few paragraphs.

George Christensen Critiques Our book “On Bicycles”

By John Greenfield On January 2, 2012 · 2 Comments

Christensen, left, with bike racing great Christian Vande Velde – photo by Bike_Ema

For many Grid Chicago readers, George Christensen needs no introduction. A longtime Chicago bike messenger, George is one of Chicago’s best-traveled bicyclists, having toured dozens of countries on two wheels. A movie buff, he attends many of the world’s great film fests as well, and every year he rides the entire Tour de France route. You can read about his amazing adventures on the blog George the Cyclist. When I asked Christensen to write a guest post for Grid Chicago he offered the following review of On Bicycles (New World Library 2011), a new anthology by Amy Walker, to which local author Greg Borzo and I contributed chapters.

‘Tis the season for reading and there is no shortage of bike literature out there these days. The best selection in the city can be found at Barnes and Noble at Webster and Clybourn. Besides a slew of bike magazines, it offers nearly two shelves of books on the bike, covering it all--racing, touring, fitness, mechanics and advocacy.

One that encompasses a range of topics, appealing to perhaps the widest demographic, is On Bicycles: 50 Ways the New Bike Culture Can Change Your Life. An equally appropriate subtitle, as suggested by Where to Bike Chicago author Greg Borzo, one of the book’s 34 contributors, might have been “50 Ways To Leave Your Car.” The book is a collection of 50 articles, 25 by women and 25 by men, edited by Amy Walker, a true cycling evangelist, who wrote nine of the pieces. Walker co-founded the bicycling magazine Momentum in 2001, and served as one of its publishers, editors and writers for ten years.

Book cover

She could have easily written this book herself, but instead enlisted the expertise of a host of authorities: many journalists who have written on bicycling for years along with various specialists including a lawyer, an architect, a professor, a few planners, a mechanic, and an “enchanted unicorn.” Many of the writers are from Vancouver, where Momentum is published, and the U.S. West Coast, especially Portland, but Chicago is represented by not only Borzo, but John Greenfield, another familiar name to those who follow this website.

It is a fine mix of informative journalistic pieces and poetic odes, some that could serve as sermons to be read aloud at congregations of those faithful to the bike. They all share a passion and commitment to the bicycle. Even the more whimsical and wacky pieces offer well-reasoned and convincing arguments why everyone should bicycle more.

The book is divided into four sections: “All the Right Reasons,” “Gearing Up,” “Community and Culture,” and “Getting Serious.” There are practical, informative, advice-laden pieces on subjects such as biking with children, how to behave in a bike shop, cargo bikes, folding bikes and so on. Walker describes herself as someone who likes to bike in the rain and has a chapter on that subject. There is always a chapter by a former bike rebel who writes of the joy of completely coming to a stop at every stop sign she encounters.

There is a good balance between heavily footnoted articles (Kristen Steele had the most with 17), and those that are just breezily entertaining. Nothing was so ponderous, except perhaps the article on internal hubs, that I was anxious for the next article. There were times the writing sent me to Google to find what else the author had written.

Despite the heavy West Coast influence, Chicago is not ignored. Greenfield’s article profiles West Town Bikes as an example of a non-profit earn-a-bike program. He says there are about eighty of them in the United States and roughly twenty in Canada.

West Town Bikes’ Damian Lee reads from the chapter about the center at the Chicago release party for the book last month at Cole’s in Logan Square – photo by Serge Lubomudrov

John Pucher, a professor at Rutgers University, praised Chicago’s bike rack installment program and the bike station in Millennium Park. Chicago’s supply of bike-parking spaces of 1,121 per 100,000 residents outnumbers most American cities. Portland has 725, San Francisco 466, and New York a measly 75. But they are all measly compared to Amsterdam’s 30,271 and Copenhagen’s 6,960.

However, Chicago lags behind when it comes to bike routes physically separated from motor vehicles, with just two kilometers per 100,000 residents. San Francisco has six and New York three. Once again American cities are quite pitiful compared to Europe. Copenhagen has a staggering 76, Amsterdam 61 and Berlin 33.

Borzo’s thorough article on bike-sharing programs around the world lists a handful of entities in Chicago that offer bike sharing to their employees, tenants and students: the Field Museum, SRAM, the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower), Argonne National Laboratory, the University of Chicago, Saint Xavier University and Loyola University.

Borzo at the reading, which was followed by a Hall & Oates-themed dance party – photo by Serge Lubomudrov

An article on traveling with a bicycle by Shawn Granton gave a brief description of cycling in seven American and Canadian cities. Here’s what he said about Chicago: “The traffic can be intimidating, but there are scads of bike routes and fun settings of postindustrial decay. And it’s flat.”

Chicago receives one other mention in a highly entertaining semi-rant on freak bikes by Megulon-5. He traces the manufacture of tall bikes back to the late 1800s in Chicago. They were built for lamplighters to ride to turn streetlights on and off.

The book is mostly a positive screed extolling the virtues of the bike, though there is a certain amount of anti-car rhetoric. Lori Kessler, an architect, in a piece on designing cities for bikes wrote, “Hell isn’t other people, as Jean-Paul Sartre suggested. Hell is other people’s cars.” Another article quoted an American Automobile Association statistic that Americans spend on average $9,641 each year on their cars. Other authors cited the tons and tons of pollutants cars spew. One of the wilder statistics was the amount of space it would take to park all the cars in America–about the size of New Hampshire.

But the gloom and doom of the automobile are countered with one affirmation after another for the bicycle, none stronger than Mykle Hasen, the enchanted unicorn, stating, “Like a hammer or a telescope, the bicycle gives you superpowers.” Carmen Mills, a “bicycle bodhisattva,” is equally fervent. She says, “Bicycles are karma-generating machines, relieving suffering for self and others.”

As thorough and as fine a rallying cry as "On Bicycles" is for the bicycle, it overlooks one aspect of the bicycle movement that all such books ignore, the decline of the bicycle in former bicycle bastions such as China and Vietnam and before long Cuba. At one time bicycling advocates held these countries up as prime examples of a people embracing the bicycle. Unfortunately, once those countries began to enjoy some prosperity its citizens immediately abandoned their bicycles and upgraded to motor cycles and then automobiles, defying the supposition that one who has enjoyed the many positives of the bicycle will embrace it for life.

Two years ago I spent two months bicycling three thousand miles all over China. I hardly saw anyone on a bicycle until I reached Beijing, where some vestiges still hold out. The most stunning site I saw during those travels was a French-style bike rental program in Wuhan, a car-clogged city of ten million people. The Chinese government had the sense to try to get people back on the bike, but they weren't succeeding very well. These were people who less than ten years ago were all bicyclists. Instead, they were now all confined to cars creeping along at a few miles per hour while I and one or two others flew by on bicycles. Those motorists should have been abandoning their cars in righteous indignation left and right and flocking back to their bikes. Theoretically, they were a people who knew the sense, if not the joy, of the bike, but unfortunately they had forgotten.

The Chinese are a very practical people, but also as status-consciousness as any, preferring the misery of their proof of success to the sensibility of the bicycle. They are as prone to that all too common misconception that it is nicer to be sitting in the so-called comfort of a temperature-controlled car listing to the radio or talking on a cell phone than breezing along on a bike, getting some exercise and feeling free and not harming the environment. Walker and her gang can make countless arguments trying to reason with such a mentality, but not to much avail.

"On Bicycles" and other such books presume it is enough to give people adequate bike lanes and parking to get them on a bike. There is much more to overcome than that. Thousands get a taste of bicycle bliss during Bike to Work Day and Week. Nearly all rave how much they love it, but hardly any stick to it. David Bryne in his "Bicycle Diaries" said he couldn't convince his teen-aged daughter to bike, largely because she didn't think it was cool. There is a huge perceptional barrier to overcome. That and human nature. Let's face it, people are inclined to sloth and comfort and their present predicament. We who do bike know how practical and logical and energizing and uplifting it is. But that is a personality trait not common to all. Even in the cycling mecca countries cyclists are a minority. The best cyclists can hope for here is to be less of the microscopic minority than we are now. "On Bikes" is a book that can increase our numbers, though probably not by much.

A Garbage Bag for Christian

2011-12-22T22:43:00.000-08:00

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For the fourth holiday season in a row Christian Vande Velde made a magnificent Christmas present to his hometown fans of Chicago--a free public appearance talking about his career and life in the peloton.

I haven't missed a one and have been greatly enriched by each. I've reciprocated his Christmas spirit with a gift for him of some Tour de France souvenir from that year's Race that I figured would have a special meaning for him. My first offering was a course marker, a relic that is a prized item for anyone who has been a part of The Tour, whether as a rider or a follower. He was so thrilled by it, I asked him if he'd like another. He said absolutely, so that was a repeat gift one year. Another year my gift was a Tour edition of "L'Equipe," the French daily sports newspaper, with a photo filling its first page of he and Lance battling it out in the mountains. That also put a large smile of delight on his face.

I could have brought him another course marker this year, but I thought I'd surprise him with something different--one of the official green Tour plastic garbage bags that line The Tour route. When I presented him with a course marker the first time, I wasn't sure whether he as a rider would be cognizant of them, as he certainly didn't need them to find his way, as the peloton is led by an armada of gendarmes on motorcycles. But he was well aware of them as their bright day glow background are hard to miss, especially when they come in pairs or trios pointed at an angle warning of a sharp turn ahead.

I was curious if he'd be aware of the garbage bags, as they aren't mounted high like the course markers and are generally hidden from the racers by the throngs of fans lining the course. They are hung on barriers or attached to trees or posts at waist level. But Christian has surprised me over the years by being aware of aspects of The Tour that I suspected would only matter to fans.

I presented the bag to him folded with The Tour logo facing out, and asked, "Do you know what this is?" hoping he'd instantly recognize it by its distinctive soft green color, and reward me with an exclamation of delight as he has in the past. But I stumped him, even as I unfolded it further to reveal what it was. After I explained it to him, he playfully chided me saying, "What's with a garbage bag? Where's my course marker."

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"You don't have too many?" I asked.

"Hell no," he replied.

"Okay, next year I'll be sure to bring you some more course markers."

Before I could feel too bad, he held the bag up and showed it to his sister, standing off to the side and said, "Look at this. An official Tour garbage bag. Isn't that cool?"

Then he asked, "Do you know about the garbage disposal zone along The Tour route for the riders?"

"Yes, it's just before the feed zone. Do the riders actually take advantage of it?"

"We sure do. Every one's emptying out their pockets of wrappers and unused energy bars before they load up with more food. You should hang out there. You're always so skinny, you could use the food."

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I was standing with my friend Elizabeth, who brought along several bicycling calenders of her photographs for him to autograph. They are a fund raiser for the annual world wide Ride of Silence the third Wednesday of May every year in memory of those killed while riding a bicycle. Elizabeth spearheads the Chicago edition that attracts several hundred riders. Christian wasn't aware of the event, but he turned instantly serious at the mention of the subject. He's known his share of racers who've died over the years, including one in the Tour of Italy this past year in a horrific crash. Christian crashed five times in this year's Tour alone, and is well aware of the dangers of the sport, as are all the racers. He says he has a German teammate who rides with a small block of wood that he taps at any thought of death or close call.

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There were only about forty of us on hand for this year's event at the Garmin Store on Chicago's glamour shopping street, Michigan Avenue, the stretch known as the Magnificent Mile. A cold drizzle discouraged all but the most hardy of cyclists of coming by bike. The Garmin representative who introduced Christian asked, "How many people bicycled here?" Only three of us raised our hands. Then he asked, "Who came the furthest?" A guy sitting in front of me spoke up first and said, "I came a mile." My friend Craig said, "I came three miles." When the Garmin rep turned his eyes on me, the only other one to have raised his hand, I said, "I live in Wicker Park, about five miles away." Christian immediately piped up, "That's no surprise. No one bikes further than George."

Christian began by saying how much he enjoys this annual gathering with his fans and being able to spend some of the year in his home town with family and friends, since he spends so much of the year traveling all over the world to race. When he asked for questions there was a hesitancy in his audience, who seemed awed by his presence, allowing me to dive right in.

"Are you back from Hawaii?," I asked.

"No, I didn't go out there this year. My teammate, Ryder Hesjedal, who I always stay with, got married to a girl from Missouri and wasn't there, so I did my December training in San Diego instead."

"Did Ryder still have his camp for paying customers?"

"He did, but I wasn't a part of it this year."

Our informal exchange wasn't enough to give anyone else the courage to raise a hand or speak up so I simply continued, as I could have all night. "Tell us about your team time trial win at this year's Tour. When you were here a year ago you predicted you'd win it."

"I did?"

"Yes, remember I asked if you would assume the yellow jersey afterwards, as you had in the Giro a few years before with the pink jersey after Garmin won that team time trial, and you said it would probably be one of your sprinters and you were right about that too."

"The win was one of the biggest thrills of my career. I broke into tears in the team bus afterwards. I kept remembering how far our team had come in the four years I had been with it and all the effort we put into building the team. It was quite emotional for all of us."

He continued on saying how proud he was of how well Garmin did in the Tour with two other stage victories and defending the yellow jersey for a week and winning the competition for the best team. They put a lot of effort into winning the team victory, which is determined by the times of the first three riders for each team on each stage. Garmin had three strong climbers, Christian, Hesjedal and Tom Danielson. Christian said they had to be very vigilant on certain stages not letting three riders from other teams get too far up the road. "It upset some riders that we were trying so hard for the team victory," Christian said. "Stuart O'Grady chirped at me once, 'Haven't you guys won enough. You ought to give the rest of us something.' But that's not the way it goes"

At last some else spoke up asking, "What language do riders chirp in."

"When I first started riding in Europe in 1998," Christian said, "It seemed that there were more Italians in the peloton than anyone else and that was the dominant language. Now there are lots of English riders with us Americans and the Australians and English and all the Dutchies speaking English and Belgians and a lot of Germans, so you hear more English than anything else"

The next question came from a young man up front who wanted to know,"Did you dig deeper on your team time trail or the Vail Pass time trial at the Colorado race?"

"At Vail, by far. I was standing on my pedals the last three kilometers. I was 17 seconds behind Levi at the mid-point check point and I made up all but half a second of that by the summit. I held the record for the climb for about a minute, until he finished."

Christian had also finished second in the opening prologue of the week-long race that attracted crowds of Tour de France proportions and finished second overall, his best achievement of the year, ending his season on a fine, fine note tht seems to have him inspired to do even better next year.

"What's your favorite race to watch and which is your favorite race to participate in," another asked.

"I love watching the Tour of Flanders. I've raced in it a bunch of times, but I never want to race it again. I'm happy to just load up with snacks and sit and watch it from start to finish on television. And my favorite races to ride are the Tour of California and the recent Colorado race."

Christian went on to say he wouldn't be riding the Tour of California in 2012 though, as he'll be riding the Giro in Italy instead, indicating how serious he is about doing well in this year's Tour de France, as the three-week Giro is much better preparation than the week-long California race. Some years the Giro course is too demanding, as last year, which left Contador weakened for The Tour despite dominating the Giro. But the Giro course this year isn't the killer it has been.

A young man wondered what Christian's thoughts were about collegiate bicycle racing. "I'm all for it," he said. "I didn't have that opportunity and so didn't go to college, as I wanted to pursue the bike racing. That's an experience I missed and I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it after I retire."

Then he mentioned that he went riding earlier in the day with Bo Jackson, the Heisman trophy winner who was a star in both football and baseball, a man who was able to get a good education and also pursue his athletic career.

"How was Bo on the bike?" I interjected, drawing a laugh from the audience.

"Not so good," Christian said. "He weighs about 280 pounds. We were riding on a trail and his bike was sinking into the ground."

A woman said, "I don't know that much about the sport and can't understand how everyone on a team can sacrifice for one rider who gets all the glory."

Christian explained that its hard on some teams with individuals who don't get along so well, but at Garmin he enjoys a great camaraderie and respect with his teammates. "We're all like brothers. We're together so much, sharing hotel rooms and eating breakfast and dinner together, we become very close. I was very happy to sacrifice for Thor at this year's Tour when he was in the yellow jersey and I know he'd be happy to do the same for me. We'll miss him. He was just offered too much money by the BMC team to turn it down. They're printing money over there."

The Garmin rep cut off the questions after half an hour so everyone could go down stairs and line up for an autographed photo from Christian and a one-on-one exchange. No one passed up on the opportunity. If this had been Europe or Colorado or California there would have been several hundred people drooling at this chance. Though I would have loved to have seen such a mob here, I couldn't be overly disappointed that there were only a handful of us, allowing for a truly intimate and relaxed interchange with one of the sport's significant riders. Its a little over six months until The Tour starts in Liege, Belgium at the end of June. It can't come soon enough.

For more photos of the Garmin event see http://flic.kr/s/aHsjxz19Qp

To read about Christian's two previous Garmin appearances, see these posts:

December 30, 2010

December 29, 2009

A Visit to Christian's House in October 2009

"Team 7-Eleven"--Pain in the Peloton

2011-12-19T12:36:00.000-08:00

On the surface, Geoff Drake's book "Team 7-Eleven, How an Unsung Band of American Cyclists Took on the World--And Won" is the history of the first American team to race in the Tour de France and a biography of its director, Jim Ochowicz, but the book has a strong underlying theme of how demanding and painful bicycle racing is, so much so that "pain" is a category in the index. There are ten entries, though there could have been forty more.

Drake knows his subject well. He was a young journalist covering the sport of cycling during the ten years of 7-Eleven's existence up to l991, when its sponsorship was taken over by Motorola. And he is a racer as well, though not of national caliber. He doesn't comments on his own racing, but it is clear he has spent many an hour in the saddle trying to keep up, describing the pain and suffering of racing with the eloquence of one who is on the most intimate terms with it and has given it considerable thought. He never passes up an opportunity to comment on how much one must suffer to race. He calls it the "rider's lot," as is one of the sub-heads under "pain" in the index. Sprinkled throughout the book are references to pain as "the constant currency of racers" and racing as "relentless pain." He asserts that a racer must have a "capacity for suffering" and a "high tolerance for pain."

Early on he goes on for half a page proving his intimacy with pain, saying it "can be towering and profound...It is as if every muscle is being pickled with acid...Every fiber screams to be released from its state of purgatory; every rational thought says to stop...For a normal person, this load of physical stress is one of unimaginable agony. But for elite cyclists the searing in the lungs and limbs is commonplace--like punching a time card at the office."

No book on cycling can avoid the mention of pain, but few dwell on it to the extent that this does. When describing the great camaraderie of the 7-Eleven racers, beyond that of any other team he asserts, Drake said it provided "an essential buffer against the monumental pain and suffering that the sport engendered," one of the many references overlooked in the index.

Writing of the legendary stage in the l988 Giro d'Italia over the Gavia in the snow that led to the team's and Andy Hampsten's greatest victory, he said the riders spent the day "on the threshold of life and death." He quotes Hampsten's Norwegian teammate Dag Lauritzen as saying, "I knew pain, but that day was terrible."

He further implies that suffering is synonymous with racing when he refers to the list of Eddie Merck's wins as "the full continuum of suffering." A photo of Lauritzen in The Tour de France, where he won a stage riding for the team, is titled "Sufferfest." No opportunity is lost to associate racing with pushing one's self to one's threshold of pain and beyond. He describes Ron Keifel as one who "had the universal quality endemic to successful cyclists, which was that he knew how to suffer." Keifel pays teammate Bob Roll the ultimate compliment: "That guy could suffer."

He acknowledges that there can be pleasure in the pain. He says, "The best athletes will reach out and embrace the pain, welcoming it home like an old friend." He quotes Hampsten on his winning effort in a time trial at the l988 Giro that "it hurt so much it felt like a meditation."

Amidst all this pain obsession is the great story of how Ochowicz with much determination put together a team of American racers who could battle on equal terms with the European veterans of the peloton, winning stages of the two premier races in the world on its first attempt--the Giro d'Italia in l985 and The Tour de France in l986, and grew into the team that won The Tour de France with Lance Armstrong from 1999 to 2005.

Eric Heiden played a significant role in winning 7-Eleven's sponsorship, as he was fresh off winning five speed-skating medals at the 1980 Olympics and was as prominent an athlete as there was in the world. Any company would be thrilled to be associated with him. Their initial investment in the team was $250,000. Ochowicz thought he could afford six riders, paying them each $12,000, and using the rest of the stipend for expenses. He settled on Heiden, Roger Young, Danny Van Haute, Tom Schuler, and Ron Haymen. He couldn't decide between two up-and-comers, Greg Demgen and Jeff Bradley, for the sixth spot, so offered them each $6,000, which they accepted.

They were the most successful team on the US circuit. Everyone wanted to ride for them. The next year Ochowicz added Davis Phinney, Ron Keifel and Alex Steida, who became the core of the team and figured prominently when they finally went to Europe in 1985. From those humble beginnings by 1989 it could afford to offer Greg LeMond $5.7 million for a three-year contract after his second win in The Tour de France. Ochowicz thought he had an agreement with LeMond, but he settled on a better offer from the French team Z. The following year he won The Tour for the third and final time.

The book concludes with the end of 7-Eleven's sponsorship due to an economic down turn, but with the good news that John Vande Velde, father of Christian and a former Olympic racing teammate of Ochowicz, arranged for Motorola to take over the team.

As knowledgeable as Drake is, his book, as just about every other cycling book written by an American who did not grow up living and breathing bicycle racing as he might have baseball or football, has a fumble that no European book on the sport would commit, failing to be consistent when it comes to that greatest of climbs--L'Alpe d'Huez. On page 261 he spells it right, but on pages 240 and 286 he leaves off the honorific "L" that the French always accord it. L'Alpe d'Huez also qualified for an index oversight with only two of the three mentions listed.

Inconsistent spelling of L'Alpe d'Huez is all too common and as aggravating as the frequent misspelling of peloton. "Velo News," now "Velo," is a chronic offender, sometimes referring to it three different ways in the same issue. It can have alternate spellings on the same page. Its just not well enough ingrained in the consciousness of American writers and editors.

Bill and Carol McGann in their two-volume "The Story of the Tour de France" capitalize the "L" in their first volume but use lower case in their second. Since it was introduced to The Tour in 1952, it was only mentioned three times in volume one, covering the years 1903 to 1964. In the second volume it is mentioned more than thirty times, going with the lower case "L" this time, though four times without any "L" at all. Curiously it is listed under "L" in the index of the first volume, but under "A" in the second. As with Drake's book, several mentions are not listed in the index.

Drake and the McGanns had a minimum of factual and editing transgressions compared to many American books on The Tour. One of the worst was "The Tour de France for Dummies" even saying the Tourmalet is in the Alps. Wait until my report on Samuel Abt, the "New York Times" reporter who covered bicycling racing in Europe for a couple of decades and wrote eleven books about the sport from 1985 to 2005. His mistakes go on and on.

Anquetil The Great

2011-12-14T13:28:00.000-08:00

Having so thoroughly immersed myself in The Tour de France the past eight summers, riding the route just ahead of or after the peloton, and soaking in all the media attention and the fervor of the tens of thousands of fans who line the course, has fully infected me with a craving to learn all I can about its lore and history, not only to relive my own Tour experiences but to better understand how it has become such a cultural and sporting phenomenon.

From its very beginning in 1903 the spectacle of men racing bikes beyond what was assumed to be possible has touched a chord with the masses, not only in France but all over the world. Countless books have been written on it, including a recent glut in English during the reign of Lance. I've read as many as I've been able to get my hands on, not objecting at all to being reminded of its many legendary episodes that I know so well, as I'm happy for another interpretation and the usual revelation of a few new obscure incidents that heighten my understanding of its magnitude and extent of its appeal.

The recent biography of the great French cyclist Jacques Anquetil, "Sex, Lies and Handlebar Tape," by the English journalist Paul Howard, though not exclusively about The Tour de France, did offer up quite a bit of material that further helped me fathom the meaning of the Tour de France and the hold it has on the French. It included some near incredulous anecdotes that only a well-researched biography could provide.

Anquetil was the first rider to win The Tour five times, his first victory in 1957 at the age of 23, and then four more from 1960 to 1964. He was one of the greatest racers ever, right up there with Coppi and Merckx. He was the first to win all three Grand Tours (France, Italy and Spain). He broke the record for the hour at the age of 22, held at the time by Coppi, and then broke it again ten years later, though it wasn't recognized, as he declined to take a drug test afterwards. He won the Grand Prix des Nations, the unofficial world time trial championship, an unequalled nine times, the first at the incredible age of 19.

In 2000 when every sports publication around the world was compiling a list of the greatest sporting achievements of the century, "L'Equipe," the peerless French daily national sports newspaper, named his victory in the week-long Dauphine Libere race followed by winning the one-day 557-kilometer Bordeaux to Paris race the day after, not only the greatest exploit in the history of cycling but also the foremost athletic accomplishment of the century.

It was unthinkable to even attempt such a feat. It was barely twelve hours between the end of one race and the start of the next and a distance of several hundred miles. A special plane, reputedly arranged with the assistance of DeGaulle, flew Anquetil from Nimes the Saturday evening after he won the Dauphine to Bordeaux for its pre-daylight start.

Even on limited sleep after an eight-stage hard-fought race he triumphed in this most demanding test, the sport's longest one-day race, a race that had been established in 1891, twelve years before the first Tour de France, and discontinued in 1988 as being just too much, nearly two-and-a-half times the distance of even the longest Tour stages. Anquetil was known as a great tactician who meticulously plotted out his many wins. He won with calculation rather than panache. This was a dare beyond his reckoning. He was so overwhelmed by his win that he admitted it was the only time in his career that he cried afterwards, though not until he was out of the public eye, safely ensconced in a car with his wife.

He undertook this previously unattempted double in 1965, a year he had decided not to contest The Tour de France. He had grown weary of winning it and not receiving all the accolades he thought he deserved. His great rival Raymond Poulidor was the more popular of the two with the French, something Anquetil could not understand or accept. In an article he wrote for a French newspaper entitled "Why I Don't Like Poulidor," he complained that he had ridden in 80 races with Poulidor and won 77, yet the public thinks they have a duel going. "The result was decided long ago," he wrote.

Another year when he elected not to ride The Tour, he rode the route a day ahead of the peloton and reported on it for a television station. It actually paid him more than he would have earned if he had won The Race. He upstaged The Tour again in a year he didn't participate with a series of articles written during The Race admitting to doping and paying off riders to let him win. "You have to be an imbecile or a hypocrite to imagine that a professional cyclist who races 235 days a year in all weathers can keep going without stimulants," he wrote.

The 1964 Tour, the last that he won, was one of the most exciting ever. That was the year he and Poulidor battled shoulder-to-shoulder up the Puy de Dome, an unheard manner of racing. Anquetil was in the yellow jersey. All he needed to do was cling to Poulidor's wheel. Poulidor was the superior climber, but Anquetil wanted to psyche him by riding right along side him and not minding if he occasionally brushed into him. The photo of their battle is the most iconic in the history of The Tour, summing up all it represents, competitors giving it their all.

Poulidor did spurt ahead in the final kilometer to win the stage but not by enough to strip Anquetil of the coveted yellow jersey. The Race came down to the final time trial soon after on the last day in Paris. Poulidor rode the time trial of his life encouraged by an estimated half a million fans cheering him on. It looked as if he would finally win The Race, but in the last few kilometers Anquetil had an explosion of his own energy and regained the lead, winning the overall by 55 seconds, the closest finish in the history of The Tour up to that point.

The nation had thought 1964 would finally be the year that their favored underdog Pou-Pou would prevail. A well known psychic made an outrageous prediction that Anquetil would crash on stage 14 and die. It was a stage in the Pyrenees. It was so widely reported that the journalists allowed on the course in cars and motorcycles trailed as closely to Anquetil as they could. It was a rainy, foggy day with visibility on one descent of just a couple bike lengths. It couldn't have been much more perilous. Anquetil was very unsettled by the prediction, but he rode fearlessly.

After Anquetil retired he and Poulidor became good friends. The thawing was facilitated by Anquetil's young daughter, who had a fascination for Poulidor, preferring to exclaim Pou-Pou rather than Pa-Pa. Anquetil was one of those riders who regarded the bicycle as an instrument of torture and only rode his bicycle a handful of times after he retired. One of those occasions was to re-enact his ride up the Puy de Dome with Poulidor. Another time was on his young daughter's birthday when he delighted her and her friends by riding into their swimming pool on his estate.

Putting "Sex" into the title of the book was not inappropriate. Anquetil led a most notorious sex life, marrying the wife of his physician when he was 24. She was 31 and had two children. She had to abandon them, though they eventually opted to live with her and Anquetil. Anquetil was eager to have a child of his own after he retired. His wife Jeanine was incapable of having another child. As they discussed possible surrogates, Jeanine suggested her daughter. She was only 18 at the time, but was agreeable. Anquetil fell in love with her, so carried on relations with both wife and step-daughter for twelve years with the agreement of both, all living in the same chateau.

His daughter Sophie thought it was wonderful to have two mothers. In 2004, seventeen years after the death of Anquetil, she wrote her biography with contributions from her mother and grand-mother. The story was widely known, but it still caused a media circus, especially with the three of them on the talk-show circuit promoting the book. The final twist to Anquetil's sex life was divorcing Jeanine and marrying the wife of his step-son, who had come to live with the Anquetils to oversee his farm. She too wrote a biography in 1989, two years after the death of Anquetil at 53 from stomach cancer.

The title of the book isn't the only play on a movie title. Many of the chapter titles pick up on the movie theme--The Apprentice, A Star Is Born, Mission: Impossible, Italian Job and The Cyclist, the Wife, Her Daughter and His Lover and then The Cyclist, the Stepson, His Wife and Her Lover.

What a life and what a book.

Questions for the Pros

2011-12-09T09:52:00.001-08:00

Friends: There are more bike blogs out there than you would want to know, hundreds and hundreds. "Outside" magazine recently published a list of what it considered the top ten. Among them was fatcyclist.com.

Fatty, as he is known despite not being fat, achieved fame back in December of 2009 when he sent a mock letter of application to Johan Bruyneel to ride for the RadioShack team in the second year of Lance's comeback. Johan played along with the gambit. He said if he could raise $10,000 for World Bicycle Relief and $10,000 for LiveStrong within a week, he'd be welcome to try out for the team at its training camp in Tucson later that month. Fatty offered up a couple of bikes to his readers to raise the money and pulled in a staggering $135,000. He had a fine time at the camp, though he didn't ride well enough to earn a contract.

This past week Fatty announced that he would be conducting periodic interviews with pro cyclists and solicited questions from his readers. At last count more than 140 of his readers had responded with a wide range of quite good questions. Fatty was so impressed he said, "You guys are knocking it out of the ball park." Scanning the identities of those submitting questions, more than 25 of them had blogs of their own.

More people wanted to know how the riders deal with pain and suffering than anything else. They were well informed on how demanding the sport is with a few asking if they'd want their children to pursue the sport. One asked, "Do your parents think you're crazy too?" Another series of popular questions had to do with what the racers thought of the various bikes they've been obligated to ride due to the team's sponsors and also the uniforms they've had to wear.

There were the usual questions about shaving and eating and maintaining their weight and taking a leak in the middle of a race and sex and what they'd be if they weren't a cyclist. A couple of readers who race wondered if they too had to take a pee every couple minutes just before the start of a race.

There were quite a few questions relating to the human side of the riders--if they had ever been to summer camp, their favorite pie, who was their best friend as a kid, memories of their first bike, their hobbies, if they were ever picked on for being a skinny little kid. Others wanted to know if they ever ride just for personal enjoyment and if they have a favorite ride. At least five readers wondered about their mechanical aptitude, if they could fix a flat tire, and if they'd stop and help a cyclist in distress when out on a training ride.

There were quite a few trying to understand what its like to be in the peloton--their reaction to the closeness of the fans, if it smells in the peloton, the cost of their socks, if tubulars are really that much better than clinchers. Several asked how easy it was for them to fly with their bikes. At least four questions related to podium girls, including "Do you exchange pleasantries with podium girls, or do they all just ask if you can give them Mario Cipollini's phone number?" One of my questions was if they randomly tossed their water bottle when it is empty or if they are selective to whom they throw it. Someone else asked if they aimed corks on champagne bottles when they were on the podium at specific individuals in the crowd.

Readers wanted to know if David Ziebriskie is real that weird, if they are afraid of Jens Voigt, if they'd want to go riding with Bob Roll, if Levi Leipheimer had ever put them in a head lock, Frank or Andy, if Thomas Voeckler is as disliked as has been reported.

There were those interested in their mindset of living in Europe--if they give their shoe size in European or American measurements, how many languages they speak or what key phrases they knew from other languages.

There were a handful of goofball questions asking if they'd consider riding The Tour on a fixie unicycle, if they ever sing in the peloton, what is their favorite flavor of road grit, why don't pro bikes have bells, how many bugs they swallow in a year, if they ever feel the need to take pictures of their bike when out riding, chunky or creamy.

All in all the readers were quite knowledgeable. Of the fifteen readers who included the word "peloton" in their questions only three (20%) misspelled it as "peleton," an all too common mistake among American neophyte fans of the sport. Another of my questions was to ask the racers to spell "peloton." It is so little used in our lexicon that it has yet to qualify for spellcheck.

Since the vast majority of those offering up questions had more than a few, Fatty has well over 500 questions to choose from. It will be a challenge not only for him to narrow them down but for the racers to provide answers as interesting as the questions. Let the interviews begin.

Later, George

Home Stretch

2011-11-26T16:41:00.000-08:00

Friends: One question all touring cyclists get used to being asked is, "How many miles do you ride a day?" My answer is an off-handed, "Oh, about 80, depending on the conditions, but I know that if need to I can always do 100."

I had a chance to put that to the test once again on Thanksgiving, when I began the day a little over 100 miles from home and the invitation to a Thanksgiving dinner with a reader of the blog and 24 of his vegetarian friends, none of whom I had met. It would be a mild challenge to arrive before dark with less than ten hours of light, but it was a challenge I heartily welcomed, making for a fine home stretch run after another fine tour.

I had had occasional email correspondence with Ross over the years, so I somewhat knew him, but was happy for the opportunity to finally meet him, as well as to share in a feast with a group of interesting folk, a great final travel experience. Ross had tried to arrange a visit for me with his mother in Fargo, North Dakota last month when I was riding route two across the top of the country, but it hadn't worked out. I was happy for his persistence.

I set my alarm for 6:30 and was on the road by sunrise at seven after camping behind a dumpster at a construction site east of LaSalle on route six just south of Interstate 80. There was a nightmarish non-stop bumper-to-bumper river of headlights on the interstate the evening before, but it had slowed to a trickle by morning. Fortunately it was far enough away I couldn't hear it, nor was it close enough to be a distraction as I pedaled along, as had Interstate 44 right next to Historic Route 66 earlier in the trip in Missouri.

I had two last Carnegies to pay homage to, the first in Marseilles, after about an hour. An old codger, who told me he was living in a building dating to 1903, two years older than the Carnegie, let me know I was just a block away. He also gave me directions to the laundromat, a block down and a block over, where I hoped to give myself a wash.

The Carnegie identified itself with PVBLIC LIBRARY over its entry and above that a nice light fixture and 1905. The entry to the fine tan brick building was given an additional air of majesty with a pair of globe lights on pedestals and a flagpole and planters. It had had a small addition behind it, not detracting at all from its prominence as the most distinguished looking building in the town.

The laundromat was open and I had it all to myself. I took out my nearly frozen bottle of honey and ran hot water over it, while I washed, giving it a chance to soften up enough so I could squeeze it out without giving myself carpal tunnel. I had enough bread and peanut butter left to make myself three sandwiches, finishing off both, almost enough fuel to get me home, along with a few oatmeal cookies I had left.

I had less success finding the Carnegie in Morris, as it had been torn down, though it took me a while to get confirmation of that finally at the town's police station. A Vietnamese women at a open hair dresser across the street knew nothing about it, nor did two people smoking out on the porch of their house nor a young women at a convenience store.

I was squandering time, but I could not give up on my quest. It would be the last of sixteen Carnegies I had searched out in Illinois in the past six days. I hadn't found them all, as besides the ones in Springfield and Pekin and Morris that had been torn down, the one in Greenview never existed, as I had gotten it confused with Greenville, one hundred miles to the south. But I at least had a nice conversation with a cyclist in Greenview who had ridden RAGBRAI and was signed up for the annual three day tour of the Finger Lakes in northern Wisconsin this June. I could have pitched my tent in his back yard if I had wanted.

Even though the Carnegie in Springfield had been torn down nearly 40 years ago, I felt like I knew it better than any of the Carnegies I did see, as I spent an hour in the new library's history room paging through several folders of articles tracing the history of the library. Springfield was a thriving city of 30,000 people when its Carnegie was built in 1904 with a grant of $75,000, just one of 52 of the 1,689 Carnegies built in the US with a grant of more than $50,000. Most grants were $10,000.

It had been an architectural monstrosity, in a style derisively called Carnegie Rococo with a mixture of marble and columns in at least 16 architectural styles. It was said that, "Any architect who saw it has practically thrown up." It was built to accommodate 40,000 books. When it opened it had 35,000 books and was soon overwhelmed. By 1940 more than 135,000 volumes were crammed into the building.

I felt like I was on a scavenger hunt trying to find the Carnegies in Alton and Peoria. The one in Alton was actually in the adjoining community of Upper Alton, above the Mississippi, and was on the campus of the dental school of Southern Illinois University. It was now a biomedical library after starting out as the library for Shurtleff University. It retained "Carnegie Library" on its red brick facade flanked by two pillars.

I arrived in Peoria at 7:30 am after my night in a warehouse. I was lucky to find a bushy-bearded fellow beside a van he looked like he was living in outside the library in the heart of the city who knew that this wasn't the site of the Carnegie, but rather it was a couple miles away. My ride took me past the Cubs' dazzling Triple A minor league stadium that seats 8,000 and past a street named for Richard Pryor, born in Peoria. The Carnegie was identified as the Lincoln Branch Peoria Public Library. The four-pillared building sat on a slight rise in the middle of a couple square block park that it had all to itself. Hidden behind it was a vast addition. It was closed, as the old building was undergoing a vast restoration.

After Alton, the first of my Carnegies after crossing the Mississippi, there were still functioning Carnegies in Jerseyville, Carrollton, Winchester and Jacksonville, each with its own charm and personality that gave me a glow upon making their acquaintance. As interesting as any of them though was the Carnegie in Chillicothe, as it was now a used book store--Waxwing Books with a website of the same name listing some of its 30,000 titles and including a photo of its proprietors, the Popps, Richard and Wendy, out front of the building. They bought the building in 2005 just after it went on the market. They had just moved to Peoria, 17 miles to the south, after discovering South Dakota wasn't such a good place for a book store. They had relatives in Peoria and decided to relocate there. Shortly after they arrived, the Carnegie became available. They couldn't have been happier with their good fortune.

Fifty miles after Chillicothe I had a run of three Carnegies within five miles in Spring Valley, Peru and LaSalle, the tightest cluster I have ever encountered. The one in Peru likewise now housed a business, this one Video Services offering VHS duplicating and DVD transfers. The new library in Peru though still honored Carnegie with his standard portrait holding an open book on his lap. Those in Spring Valley and LaSalle had both doubled in size with virtual clones of their originals added alongside.

The librarian at LaSalle was a true Carnegie enthusiast. She went on and on sharing anecdotes of the library, telling me about its small reading room with a fireplace that they dared not use and advising me to make sure to give a look to a couple of cases of over 200 clocks all manufactured in LaSalle. As I slipped away to prowl about she said, "If you have any more questions come back. I'm on the circ desk until we close."

All these Carnegies were on my mind after I left Morris and closed in on Joliet for my final forty mile run into Chicago. From Joliet I thought I'd take route 171 on into Chicago as it passed through Lemont, home of Christian Vande Velde, where I'd paid him a visit two years ago (see the October 1, 2009 entry for a full report). I wouldn't barge in on him, but I imagined I might catch him out on a training ride or perhaps a run to the store for some last minute Thanksgiving fixings. I was wearing one of the jerseys he had given me, but unfortunately the near freezing temperatures had it buried under a sweater and a vest. Otherwise if one of his friends or relatives had seen the jersey, they might have been curious enough to stop and ask if I was a friend of Christian's and perhaps invited me over to their gathering. I pedaled merrily along fueled with fantasies of sharing a Thanksgiving Day meal with a Tour de France hero and his family.

When I came to Joliet I began to see signs telling me I was back on Historic Route 66, a special Joliet version saying "Kicks on 66" in honor of the song about Route 66. Joliet even had a Kicks on 66 Visitor Center. Since I had ridden 66 for over a hundred miles in Missouri, I couldn't resist the lure of following those signs all the way back to Chicago, even though that wouldn't take me through Lemont. I began to regret that decision though about 15 miles later when Historic 66 took me on Interstate 55 for a couple of miles. The entry ramp had no signs barring bicyclists, and even if it had, I would have ignored them for such a short stretch. I had a wide wide shoulder all to myself and had to negotiate only one exit ramp before escaping.

Not only was it meaningful for me to be riding Route 66 once again, it was also meaningful that before Joliet I had crossed the Illinois and Michigan Canal, as my riding partner on those first Route 66 miles, Jim Redd, The Don, had written a book on the I and M Canal back in 1993 called "The Illinois and Michigan Canal: A Contemporary Perspective in Essays and Photographs."

As I closed in on my century, I was on schedule to arrive at Ross' apartment in down town Chicago on State Street just a few blocks south of the Harold Washington Library, where several copies of Jim's book can be found, before dark at 4:30. The traffic was minimal as I headed in on Ogden, then turned on Roosevelt, taking me me past perhaps the most unsettling sight I saw during these travels--a Best Buy with a block long line of people, some in tents, waiting for its Black Friday opening, and a Channel Seven news truck parked nearby.

Ross said his gathering would be at the fourth floor hospitality room in his building. When I arrived everyone was already seated at one long table. I didn't mind at all that dinner had already started. I was somewhat concerned that I might have to stand around on tired legs and make conversation when I desperately needed to get off my feet after having ridden 103 miles in the past nine-and-a-half hours. Ross gave me a grand introduction, followed by applause. Then I hit the buffet table and collapsed into a chair.

There were quite a few cyclists among the vegetarians beside Ross. One was a former San Francisco bicycle messenger. He was presently working as a salesman, but missing the messengering. I could give him all the ins and outs on messengering in Chicago. He had resisted it, under the assumption that it wasn't as lucrative as in San Francisco, but I assured him if he worked hard enough, it could be.

His sister, presently on sabbatical from college, had just bought a bike and was eager to start riding after a several year absence. Ross and her brother were heaping all sorts of advice on her, especially to be patient with it if it took her awhile to get used to her seat, or if she was initially intimidated by traffic. I didn't have much to say.

I've learned over the years that either one has it in them to like cycling or one doesn't. There isn't much I can say to convince anyone that the bicycle is the answer to all their troubles, though I know it is. Their conversion has to come from within. I let my life speak for itself. They were impressed by my devotion to the bicycle and didn't seem to regard me as some sort of kook. I've inspired a few over the years to take to the bike or to give touring a try, but many of those for just a short period, after initially promising to be a fellow zealot. A bad incident or bad weather can quickly turn them back into an unbeliever and back to their car dependence, renouncing what they had at first embraced with great and extreme fervor, almost regarding me as a messiah in their gratitude for the great joy and freedom the bicycle had at first brought them.

Ross is a strong advocate of the bike though without the mania of a television evangelist. He's taken the crusade to wherever he is, whether in Chicago or Indiana, where he once owned a pharmacy, or traveling or wintering in Florida. He still has a hint of his North Dakota accent and maintains the easy-going demeanor of someone who grew up in a non-urban environment. His emails always close with a quote or two extolling the virtues of the bicycle. One of my favorites is one of his own: "A bicycle gets you there and so much more. There is always the thin edge of danger to keep you in the moment and comfortably apprehensive. Dogs become dogs again; potholes are personal. You feel like a kid again while getting fit and strong."

That's as good a close as I can give to another great tour. Though it was only three-and-a-half weeks and less than 1,500 miles and not far from home, it was as satisfying as any of those of months and months and thousands and thousands of miles in some distant land. The point is to spend hours and hours day after day regarding the world from over my handlebars freed of all earthly concerns other than the basics while reveling in the beauty of the countryside and the goodness of its people, and that I achieved. I can't get back to it soon enough.

Later, George

Chillicothe, Illinois

2011-11-23T08:10:00.001-08:00

Friends: As I sat in my tent last night I was feeling more pleased than usual at my resourcefulness and good fortune at having sniffed out a most noteworthy campsite under the most dire of circumstances. Adding to my great good cheer was I had been fully reconciled to having to spend the night in a hotel.

I had been rained upon all day, even delaying my start a couple hours, actually considering spending the day in my tent hidden by a row of six foot tall bales of hay if the rain didn't let up. The temperature was barely forty and the wind was blowing from the north, making it feel even colder, not the most inviting of circumstances to get out on the bike. Once I did though, as always, I discovered the conditions weren't as bad as I imagined, or at least that infallible joy of being on the bike made it seem so.

I needed plastic bags over my wool gloves to keep them from becoming fully saturated and to keep my hands warm. The booties over my shoes kept my feet somewhat dry, though the holes in the bottoms to accommodate my cleats did allow enough water to seep in to dampen my shoes and socks. My feet were more cold than warm. My torso was fully dry, but my tights were wet, though they were of such a quality that my legs didn't feel cold.

I had retreated to the warmth of indoors only three times all day. The first at a Casey's General Store just long enough to buy a burrito and a quart of chocolate milk, which I nibbled and guzzled as I pedaled along. Then the Carnegie library in Delavan, a town of 2,700, just double what it was when its Carnegie was built in 1914. It is a rare Carnegie that hasn't had an addition. There was no sign for the library, forcing me to stop to ask. No one was out and about in such conditions, so I ducked into the local laundromat where I saw a woman reading. "It's just down the street," she pointed. "Its the nicest building in town. I've been going to it since I was a little girl."

The three ladies tending the library were equally enthusiastic and kindly. The head librarian explained it was called the Ayer Library, as a Mr. Ayer at the time of its construction donated over $10,000, more than the Carnegie grant, for its operation. She said the library was on the National Register of Historic Buildings. Then she pulled out a book on all the Carnegies in Illinois, "The Carnegie Library in Illinois" by Raymond Bial written in 1991, a book I had never come across. It had a full page photo of the 85 still standing at the time and a one page history of each.

I wasn't fully dried out when I went back out in the rain, headed to the Pekin library 17 miles away, my third and final refuge from the wet. Its Carnegie had been torn down and was replaced by a large, glassy building that will never end up on the National Register of Historic Buildings, as most of the Carnegies have. It was ten miles to Peoria along the Illinois River. It was less than an hour until dark. I figured I could find a cheap hotel there, what with Bradley University and Catepillar based there.

But I wasn't counting on the low overcast making dark come much sooner. Most cars had been driving with their headlights on all day. I only made it halfway to Peoria not feeling safe at all on the two-lane highway with no shoulder in the near dark. Much as I had been looking forward to a warm hotel room to dry out all my gear, when I saw an abandoned gas station off the road down towards the river, I decided to give it a look. As I approached I noticed a series of factories that looked closed down as well.

It was an industrial wasteland, a genuine oasis for me. One factory was surrounded by barbed wire and signs warning No Trespassing, but another was unfenced. I was looking for a secluded overhang to pitch my tent when I discovered a door next to its loading dock was open. There were a few lights on, but there was no evidence of anyone being around or it being in use, other than rows and rows of pallets of plastic tubing wrapped in plastic stacked to the ceiling filling about half of the warehouse/factory.

I pedaled around looking for a somewhat hidden spot to pitch my tent. I found a dark corner several rooms down from the entry. At the entry was a stack of cardboard sheets, just what I needed to insulate me from the frigid concrete floor and also to absorb the moisture in my tent floor. How lucky could I be. I was still reveling at having Another Memorable Night in My Tent after Another Great Day on the Bike, when at nine p.m. I heard a golf cart patrolling the premises. My heart slightly plunged, but then I thought "this ought to be interesting." Would this be a kindly security guard or would he kick me out or even worse call the cops. His headlight swept past me, but not on the tent. He circled around and let me be, leaving me with a feeling of relief but also of mild disappointment.

Later, George

Athens, Illinois

2011-11-21T10:05:00.001-08:00

Friends: For years my long-time friend Chris has been reading snippets from my touring dispatches and sharing incidents from my travels with his three children, now aged 11 to 17, whether they wanted to hear them or not. Will, the youngest, wasn't entirely certain I actually existed, but rather was simply some alter-ego of his cycling-obsessed Dad, no more real than Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.

So Chris was quite happy when I passed through St. Louis and had time to pay a visit, not only to see me, but also so that he could introduce me to his children and verify that there really was a George the Cyclist. I was equally pleased to meet up with Chris once again and also his parents, Ellwood and Robin, who if things had been slightly different would have been my brother and sister-in-law. Robin is the sister of Crissy, my fellow free-spirit, whose life's we shared for nearly three decades until she succumbed to cancer several years ago. Robin was so endeared to her kid sister, as was anyone who knew her, that she named her first-born after her, adding extra significance to my friendship with Chris.

Robin and Ellwood couldn't be closer or more genuine friends than if we were legally bound by some official vows and paperwork. The same can be said of Chris. We don't see each other often enough, though we do stay very much in touch through the Internet. Before I was unveiled to Chris's children I was able to first drop by the office where Ellwood and Chris maintain their investment firm and begin catching up. Then it was dinner with Robin and Ellwood before venturing over to Chris' home, two doors down from home run king Mark McGuire.

I hadn't had time to shower or even change clothes, so I still had on my adventurer's costume of tights and cycling jersey, attesting to my authenticity. Besides Chris' family of five, his wife's parents had just arrived from Connecticut for the Thanksgiving week. They too had been subjected to Tales of George. They weren't skeptical of my existence, but maybe to the extent of my travels. They've done their share of world traveling, most recently to India several times visiting grandchildren and a daughter and son-in-law who taught there the past three years until moving to Senegal to do the same. I was eager to hear of their experiences, especially to learn if Senegal would make a worthy next destination for me.

As we sat around the family's grand twelve foot long dining room table Robin kept trying to keep me on topic as I talked about being attacked by a wild boar in France and knife-wielding thugs in South Africa and other stories. It was all too easy to get sidetracked. Somehow I was talking about bicycling in Cuba with my friend Dwight, an eco-terrorist who is wanted in six countries for single-handedly sinking a whaling ship in Norway and a drift-netter in Taiwan and escaping from Mexico City's maximum security prison, one of only two persons to accomplish the feat, the other being Pancho Villa.

"Whoa," Chris exclaimed. "How did you ever meet him?," then asked his name, so he could google him. When I said, "Dwight Worker," Robin commented, "There's a picture of the two of you on your Facebook page, isn't there." She was right about that. Dwight is soon to become even more famous, as the National Geographic cable network is going to feature him in an hour segment of its "Locked Up Abroad" series.

The stories flowed fast and furious like an untapped oil well. I didn't have to fake my passion or enthusiasm recounting my experiences thanks to a sincerely interested audience. No need to win them over. All the while Chris' aspiring-photographer daughter was shooting away and Chris was holding up his telephone recording my ravings. It wasn't an entirely novel experience, as I've experienced similar semi-celebrity status in foreign lands in places where Westerners are rarely seen and the population is well-equipped with telephones that have recording devices. It was quite common in newly affluent China, with everyone wanting to try out their new toys.

It was a Friday night, so the kids didn't have to devote themselves to homework or get to bed too early. Will though had to keep his fingers limber on the piano in preparation for a recital the next morning at 11 a.m. If not for the early hour of the recital, Chris could have biked with me across the Mississippi to Alton. Instead he just had time enough to accompany me to within five miles of The Arch, nearly twenty miles from his home in the western suburbs of the city.

We were joined by one of Chris' regular Saturday morning riding mates, an avid racer who was wearing a Tour of Missouri cycling jersey. Christian Vande Velde had won the first week-long Tour of Missouri several years ago. Chris' friend had heard plenty about me too. He greeted me saying, "Any friend of Christian Vande Velde is a friend of mine." As we rode along he said he had learned the phrase "plus vite" from reading my blog. He was indeed a close reader, as I could well remember the one time I had mentioned that phrase when a teen-aged boy yelled it at me as I was climbing a steep mountain during The Tour de France, telling me to go faster.
Our ride was a fine capper to what seemed like much, much more than less than a day in St. Louis with as fine a group of friends as one could wish for.

Two days into Illinois and I've already added six Carnegies to my Life List. At one point in Carnegie's dispersal of libraries across America, Illinois had more than any other state. It was eventually overtaken by Indiana and California, but remains in third place tied with New York and Iowa with 106 of them. With luck I'll be able to visit ten or so more in the next 200 miles. The library here in Athens is not one of them. It is less than ten years old and was constructed in part with funds donated by McDonald's. Part of the deal was that the library had to exhibit a Ronald McDonald. He is sitting out on one of the two benches in front of the library. The librarian said, "The kids love him."

Later, George

The Hoppy Wanderer

2011-11-18T11:46:00.000-08:00

Friends: The Don had an epiphany in Clinton, Arkansas, the evening after we went our separate ways and has adopted another identity, "The Hoppy Wanderer." Here he recounts how it came to be, a moment he refers to as the "Immaculate Conception."

Standing out front of a Motel 6 in a dry county in Arkansas is an unlikely place to start the "Hoppy Wanderer" project, but something about pavement as far as the eye can see inspired me: a landscape of McDonalds, Hardees, Taco Bell, and, just over the horizon, a Super Walmart, all joined by the lifeline of petroleum: the vehicles, corpuscles in the asphalt veins that supply these organs of commerce with their nutrients.

But beyond the neon clutter I could see a backdrop forming. I raised my right hand to shield my eyes from the glare of the Waffle House parking lot lights to see the sunset, and a welcome sight appeared in the foreground: a bottle of Shiner Bock from Spoetzle Brewery (est. 1909) in Texas. I held it high and the sunset became a new dawning: the birth of the age of the Hoppy Wanderer. I had just pulled the Bock from the bottom of my right pannier, attached to my Cannondale mountain bike, in my room (#116, complete with HDTV, microwave, and, conveniently, a refrigerator). This bottle, and five of its companions, along with one renegade Samuel Adams Stout, had been buried there since leaving Pinewood Cabins in Mountain View, two dry counties and two days ride north.

How did that beer end up in your pannier in a dry county? you may ask the Hoppy Wanderer. This is a good question because not even the non-God-fearing minority of store owners responded as desired to my knowing wink and "under the counter" hand motion when asking "Oh, come on. Really? Just how dry IS this county, my friend?"

My last bicycle tour with George Christensen, a fellow Chicago cyclist, was from Minneapolis to Chicago, ten years ago. Since then he's toured all over the world, and I bought a hotel in Ecuador. Now we're on a "reunion" tour from St. Louis to Little Rock, through the Ozark Mountains. An unlikely riding partner for the Hoppy Wanderer, since George neither mountain bikes or drinks beer or smokes, all vices hard-wired into the Hoppy Wanderer's knees, stomach, and lungs, respectively.

But ya basta this digression: the point is George does not like to live a day off his bike, so when I told him I planned to spend the day doing single track through the Fall colors of the Ozark National Forest, he offered to make a "beer run" from this "black hole for alcohol" (as he so alliteratively put in his blog) to the nearest liquid oasis at the Baxter county line, twenty miles away. If I hadn't already been convinced of the existence of a God by the clever Bible snippets on a multitude of holy highway marquees we'd passed, I was when I returned to Pinewood Cabins after the eight-mile single track loop to a refrigerator with a six-pack of Sam Adams Stout and one of Shiner Boch, the last of which I'm shading my eyes with as I watch the sunset.

My life was surely blessed, if not by God, then at least by George, but as frequently happens, I had to make a difficult choice: which to open first? Unlike the Bock, the Stout had twist-off caps. This wouldn't normally be an issue but my Leatherman was obviously not designed with the Hoppy Wanderer in mind, and has no bottle opener. So the choice was manifest. Thus, destiny determined, by elimination, that Shiner Bock, was to be the inaugural brew of the Hoppy Wanderer's many future bike & brew product investigations, in a dry county in the Bible Belt. An Immaculate Conception if ever there was One!

PART TWO

"Drank One, Thanked One"

Cameron, the U.S. Marine, and his girlfriend just returned from a cigarette run in their Hummer and I'm sitting with them at the Capprichio Bar in the Peabody Hotel in downtown Little Rock because they just bought me a Diamond Bear Pale Ale, locally brewed 2 blocks away. (www.diamondbear.com: "A balanced classic English Ale, medium bodied with both sweetness from the malt and a pleasant hoppy aroma. O.G. 13.4P, I.B.U. 33") They're looking at the 10ft by 20ft mirror on the wall behind the bar and fantasizing about having it on the ceiling of their bedroom.

I tried that one go and order another Diamond Bear. Am I really sitting here drinking with a Marine Bud-Liter with a Hummer? Travel, especially doing micro-brew research alone by bike, sometimes yields strange bar-fellows. Cameron and Shiela are at the Peabody because they were attendees at the Marine Ball last night, and it appears have been drinking ever since.

We all go for a smoke outside and Cameron gives a homeless man $20 and tells him to go get drunk. He asks me for a cigarette and I say I only got non-filter Camels is that OK? "Beggars can't be choosers," the beggar says.

To spark conversation I tell Cameron I live in Ecuador, expecting the usual puzzled look. But he knows that's where the Galapagos are and goes into a creationist lament about how he was raised a Southern Baptist but on the other hand Darwin had some good points.

Back at the bar, in front of the big mirror, he introduces me to his friend, Tracy, also a Marine. But he's studying Geology at Hendrix College in Conway, an upscale suburb of Little Rock I had just ridden through on my way in. ("Does that make you a Marine Geologist?" I asked). He notices I'm the only bar-fellow having micro-brew and he tells me about Bosco's, a brewpub down the street. I'm out the door and when he and Sheila join me later I've already half-glassed their Hop Harvest Porter, dark and full-bodied, brewed with "citra" hops, "cones" fresh out of the field, dried and cured. (O.G. 1062, I.B.U. 35).

As I contemplate the porter in my glass I'm reminded of mountain biking in the Ozarks last week, and an especially contemplative moment when I stopped to sit on a rock outcropping I assumed was an ancient granite slab, the bedrock underlying the trail I'd been riding. Across the valley (or "holler" as they say here) the trees were still in foliage and a slight breeze was making them shimmer, as if alive (well, they are, aren't they?) in the sun, itself receding to the southwest. Since I happened to be sitting next to a geologist, I mentioned the rock to him, curious if he had any idea how old it might be. He said the rocks in the Ozarks aren't granite at all, but sedimentary, formed under ancient oceans and revealed when the oceans receded. A little more Ozarkian geology-talk and my porter-level recedes and reveals the bottom of the glass, and I have to get to the Amtrak station to head to Chicago so so-long Tracy come down to Ecuador to study volcanoes sometime. "Drank One."

The train's 30 minutes away and the harried ticket agent's got a bike box, but no tools and I'm on my own as far as boxing the bike. Twenty minutes away and I have no pedal wrench. Fifteen minutes away and where's my allen wrench? I'm trying to remove the pedals with the pliers on my Leatherman when an Amtrak porter shows up with a 15-mm open-end and removes the pedals. Five minutes away and a young Amish man helps me put the bike in the box. But no tape! The train's loading and where's the ticket agent to check the bike? The porter says maybe he can send the bike on the next train and runs to find out. He can't find the ticket master, and I'm watching the train pull out. But the porter went beyond the normal porter duties, and I thank him. "Thanked one."

Farmington, Missouri

2011-11-17T09:52:00.000-08:00

Friends: For four days I enjoyed relatively flat terrain as I skirted the southern fringe of the Ozarks in Arkansas, but after I crossed back into Missouri south of Poplar Bluff, the hills began again. I ventured off onto county roads identified by letters rather than numbers that took me through towns that were nothing more than a small church.

For more than fifty miles of steep ups and downs from Lake Wappapello to Marquand I had the roads nearly to myself without a general store or cafe for fuel or warmth in the sudden wintry temperatures. I was down to one bottle of water. I began stopping at churches in search of a water spigot without success. I knew if need be I could stop at one of the occasional homesteads, but before that was necessary I came upon a campground on the outskirts of Cascade, the only cluster of homes to qualify as a town along the way, though without any stores that weren't boarded up. The campground only had an outhouse and no showers, but there was a water tap.

I knew if I were truly desperate I could have dared to drink from any of the many streams I crossed, all with low-lying bridges and signs warning "Impassable In High Water." Each had a measuring rod sticking up going to three feet. This was truly the back country. The temperature was only in the 40s, so I had to keep moving to stay warm, just taking a couple short breaks to eat and rest the legs leaning against the south facing wall of a church to shield me from the stiff north wind that had cooled the temperatures dramatically. Just two days before it had been in the 80s. It was a most strenuous day, but I managed 75 miles with all the time on the bike. How strenuous it had been was confirmed when I settled down to sleep and I could feel a still accelerated heart beat as my body continued to recover.

Though this had been a sunny clear day, the shift in weather had brought rain a couple days before. The guy who told me I was in for a rainy night in Walnut Ridge was absolutely correct. Even before I had set up camp, thunder and lightning were menacing the near black sky. I had to leave the road I was riding flanked by farmers' fields in the flats of Arkansas to detour down a side road that turned to dirt to reach the nearest forest. I found some high ground, so if the rain was as severe as the sky was intimidating it would be, I needn't fear flooding. My biggest concern was the dirt road turning into a muddy quagmire the next morning. I considered turning back when the road turned to dirt, but there hadn't been any place to pitch my tent where I was confident of the drainage or that was secluded enough, plus it was too near dark to go back to the main road in hopes of finding better camping along it.

It rained all night and didn't let up with the morning's light. My tent dripped a bit slightly dampening my sleeping bag, but not significantly. I slept to eight hoping the rain would abate, but ended up breaking camp in a light drizzle. Seeing the dirt road in the morning light, I was relieved to discover it was more gravel than dirt and only had patches of standing water. It was rideable. Best of all, no dirt or mud clung to my tires and clogged my fenders and brakes, as I have experienced all too many times on rough roads in isolated quarters around the world. Once in Bolivia the mud was so adhesive I had to remove my fenders, but was still unable to push my bike through the mud, forcing me to carry it.

It was a couple hours before the rain let up. The sky remained thickly clouded though, threatening more rain at any moment. I had been hoping to stumble upon a laundromat to dry out my sleeping bag and tent, but had no such luck. I did unroll my tent late in the day, drying it a bit, but without any sunshine, just a slight breeze, it was hardly worth the effort.

I was slightly nervous about attempting to camp that night with wet gear and very soggy countryside. The furrows of the fields along the road were all filled with water, looking as if they were rice paddies. It would be a challenge to find unsaturated turf, but I was gaining on more forested terrain that promised better drainage.

I feared that I might be forced into a hotel, something I always dread. I consider it a defeat, an admission that I'm not tough enough to endure a little discomfort or risk, as bitter a pill to swallow as accepting a ride from a car. Resorting to a hotel is like buying one's way out of trouble--maybe not an immoral or unethical act, but at the least the easy way out. Far better to solve a problem with ingenuity and fortitude than by throwing money at it.

I passed through the large city of Poplar Bluff just as it was getting dark with motel after motel offering a temptation. But I knew thick woods awaited me and pushed on. The first couple of patches of woods I attempted were too spongy and on lower ground. But before I could get to thicker, higher forests I came upon a small church on a hill surrounded by a lawn. I checked the turf behind the church. It wasn't saturated and hid me from the road.

Not long after I was set up the rain began again, not hard, but steady. It soothed me to sleep. But I awoke at one a.m. with a wet arm. The rain was no longer soaking in and I was in the middle of a small lake. The front of the church had an overhang. Though it was concrete it was dry. I quickly moved all my gear, without once regretting I were in a motel, happy to have spent the night in my tent.

I am now within 7seventy miles of St. Louis hoping to overnight with friends tomorrow, then visit a Carnegie in Alton across the river and pick up Historic Route 66 back to Chicago.

Later, George

Walnut Ridge, Arkansas

2011-11-15T11:17:00.000-08:00

Friends: It is "Can Forgiveness Month," at the Walnut Ridge, Arkansas library. Bring in a can of food and one is able to "can" one dollar's worth of library fines.

As odd as that scheme might be, it wasn't the oddest thing I encountered in Walnut Ridge. As I sat outside the library putting some calories into me making a dent in the two-pound tub of macaroni salad I'd just purchased at the local Sav-A-Lot before going into the library, an older gentleman stopped by to warn me I was in for some rain this evening. He also asked if I had seen the Beatles sculpture a block away. I hadn't. He told me it commemorated the Beatles landing at the Walnut Ridge airport in 1964. "Some people think it's the most significant thing to have happened in the town's history," he said.

The sculpture was a black metal silhouette of the Fab Four prancing along, emulating the Abbey Road album cover. It was behind the "Imagine Artist's Gallery," which featured individual paintings of each of the Lads from Liverpool on its front window. The shop's proprietor, Carrie Mae Snapp, was delighted to tell me every detail I could have hoped to know about the Beatles visit. She was a 14-year old girl at the time and a Beatles lover of the first order. She gushed with as much enthusiasm telling me all about their visit as if it had happened day before.

Walnut Ridge had the only airport within one hundred miles large enough to accommodate the Beatles private jet. They had a couple days between concerts and wanted to take a break from their hectic tour at the ranch of a friend in Alton, Missouri, a town that Don Jaime and I passed through a week ago. They landed at Walnut Ridge at two a.m. after a Friday night concert in Dallas and then flew on to Alton in a puddle jumper, all that is except for Paul, who was leery of small planes and preferred to be driven.

A boyhood friend of Carrie Mae's happened to be at the airport when the Beatles made their surprise landing and immediately called Carrie Mae, waking her family up in the middle of the night, to tell her that he had hung out with and drunk whiskey with the Beatles. The next day, Carrie Mae and her parents drove out to the airport to see if the Beatles jet was truly there. Not only was it there, but Carrie Mae and a couple of her girl friends were able to sneak aboard the jet, climbing up on its wing and slipping in through its emergency exit, which they noticed was ajar. They made off with five small pillows. Her father found out later that day and made them return the pillows, though she kept the slip it came in, which she still has.

They learned that the pilot of the jet was staying at a local motel. They searched him out to see if he would tell them when the Beatles would be flying out. He said he couldn't say, but if they wanted to see them they shouldn't go to church on Sunday. That's all they needed to know. They were among about 300 people at the airport Sunday morning, about ten per cent of the town's population.

When the small plane landed, only John and Paul exited, rushing straight to the jet, hardly acknowledging the crowd. "Ringo looked tipsy, as if he were drunk," Carrie Mae said. "And then right after they boarded the jet, a red GMC Suburban, that had been parked a little distance away, drove up right where I was standing and out hopped first Paul and then George. Paul passed me before I could react, but I was able to touch George. This very hand touched George," she gushed, as if she were still that 14-year old girl who had experienced the dream of a lifetime.

From the plane John glanced out once and gave a wave, but Paul gave the crowd a prolonged look. "Every girl there claims he made eye contact with her, but I know I'm the one," Carrie Mae said.

I wondered if Alton acknowledged the Beatles visit as did Walnut Ridge. Don Jaime and I spent a fair bit of time circling about the town late one Sunday afternoon trying to find a six-pack of beer for The Don and hadn't noticed anything commemorating the Beatles. Carrie Mae confirmed there wasn't, though the ranch they stayed at has tried to auction off every bit of its content that it can connect to the Beatles.

The 1962 GMC Suburban Paul and George were given a ride in is still around. It was in Walnut Ridge this past Sept. 18, the 47th anniversary of the Beatles landing, when the Beatles sculpture was unveiled. Carrie Mae said the "Wall Street Journal" had a front page story on the event. Google "Carrie Mae Snapp and the Beatles" and you can read much much more. Carrie Mae has been featured in quite a few articles over the years. "I give a good interview," she said. Yes indeed.

She added that a documentary was made of the Beatles visit, but because of rights problems with some of the footage, it has never been released. Someone else is working on a feature film of that momentous weekend.

Later, George

Possum Grape, Arkansas

2011-11-14T09:16:00.000-08:00

Friends: As I closed to within ten miles of downtown Little Rock approaching from the west on thickly forested route ten, neither my map nor anyone I asked could tell me how to link up with the bicycle path along the Arkansas River that went straight to the Clinton Library. I knew it was to my left, but there didn't seem to be any main thoroughfares bisecting the road I was on.

Then I caught a glimpse of a cyclist in Lyra a block over. It took me several blocks to catch up to him. He was headed to the bike path himself. He said I'd have to follow him, as it was too complicated to explain how to reach it riding through the small affluent suburb of Cammack Village up on a high bluff overlooking the river to reach the lone road heading down to the river.

He warned me that if I ever drove through Cammack Village to strictly observe the 25 mile per hour speed limit, as the cops ticket drivers if they exceed the speed limit by even one mile per hour. When we reached the river, we came out right at the bicycle bridge that crosses the Arkansas River. It is the longest pedestrian/bicycle bridge ever built, 4,226 feet long. A commemorative plaque from its dedication in September of 2006, also stated it was the only bridge ever built into a dam, and listed numerous awards this engineering marvel had won. It was a magnificent structure with supports jutting out of a dam lofting it ninety feet over the river.

My riding partner said he was continuing on to Pinnacle Mountain, a pyramid shaped mountain we could see in the distance. Just a little over a mile away was another recently completely bicycle bridge, one of three on this bike route. "If you come along with me you can bike over all three of them," he said. "The third was just completed this summer and it will take you out right at the Clinton Library."

I had told him I was meeting a friend at the library at noon. It wasn't even ten o'clock, so I had plenty of time. He wasn't all that impressed that I wanted to visit the library. "Not everyone here likes Clinton all that much. When he decided to put his library in Little Rock, it caused quite a stink, but they built it anyway."

He wasn't the only person I'd met in these travels to echo such a sentiment. A former Arkansan who was tending the desk at the Wagon Wheel Motel in Missouri on Historic Route 66 told Don Jaime and me that many people in Arkansas had voted for Clinton for President to get him out of the state.

As we bicycled along the bicycle path my fellow cyclist commented, "If you'd been here yesterday this trail would have been mobbed with cyclists. But you're in the Bible Belt, and this being Sunday, most people are in church this morning." About the only others out enjoying the path were a few woman joggers and a few Asians taking a stroll.

The bridge over the dam was seven-and-a-half miles from downtown Little Rock. I thought I might be able to see the handful of its 40-story tall skyscrapers as I crossed over it, but the bluffs and winding river blocked the view. It was still very rural, even that close to the heart of this capital city of 200,000 people. The path took me through farmlands with recently harvested huge rolls of hay and past several soccer fields and more forest. After four miles I at last came upon residences and could begin to see the Little Rock skyline on the other side of the river.

A most pleasing sculpture of a young boy on a BMX bike wearing a broad grin and a backward baseball hat stood at the foot of the bicycle/pedestrian bridge leading to the Clinton Library. The bridge had been a former train bridge, still retaining its towering grid of metal camouflaging that it was a bicycle bridge. Like the dam bridge it was a nifty piece of engineering and not without a few aesthetic touches--flower pots on its railing and pull-outs to gaze upon the river.

The Clinton Library too was a magnificent structure with the look of a battle ship perched on stanchions along the river just east of downtown Little Rock. It was part of a mile long Riverfront Park, including an open door pavilion for concerts and an array of sculptures and monuments. One of the sculptures was of a giant hog or razorback, the mascot of the state University in Fayetteville. Many message boards of businesses from banks to beauty salons shouted out "Go Hogs." More than a few companies had taken on hog-related names, none more apt than the car wash calling itself "Hog Wash."

The Riverfront Park had exhibits celebrating the town's past and its role in the Civil War as part of the Confederacy. A Wellness Walkway had placards proclaiming "It's Good to be a Loser" and "Be a Quitter," encouraging people to lose weight by eating sensibly and engaging in regular physical activity and also to quit smoking--"one of the most important things you'll ever do."

Paralleling the Riverfront Park was Clinton Avenue with a Clinton Museum store packed with Clinton books and posters and memorabilia and t-shirts. The most prominent was "I Miss Bill."
I did all the exploring on my own, as Don Jaime didn't make our appointed rendezvous time. He must have been slowed by the continuing strong winds from the south. I was able to head north from Little Rock and take full advantage of the winds, nearly doing 100 miles for the day.

And those strong winds persist today. Rather than angling against them eastward to Memphis I'm letting them blow me directly north. Chicago is now just 600 miles away. If I'm not careful I'll be home well before Thanksgiving. I had been looking forward to making Turkey Day the final leg of my trip home. The winds are due to start blowing from the north any time, and if so, I can reduce my pace and spend more time lingering, but while I have such a wind as I do now, I want to take full advantage of it. I've already spent more time in this library than I wished to. As is my motto, I'd rather be on my bike.

Later, George

Morrilton, Arkansas

2011-11-12T07:57:00.000-08:00

Friends: One of the great traveler's cliches is raving how friendly the people are. Of course they are friendly. It is often their job and if not it is a natural inclination to express curiosity towards an outsider.

But there are certainly degrees to friendliness and also genuine friendliness compared to simply rote friendliness. The friendliness of the Ozarks has been exceptional. It is the South, a region known for its hospitality. But the Ozarks are also a cousin to Appalachia, both regions dominated by people living in semi-isolation off in the hills with a natural suspicion towards outsiders. When I have biked through Appalachia I have encountered a certain degree of reserve. That has not been the case at all in the Ozarks.

When Jim and I slipped into the Mona Lisa Cafe for lunch in Shirley, a town of 300 off on lightly traveled route 9 south of Mountain View that began with a warning "Crooked and Steep Next 17 Miles," we thought we had slipped into a family gathering, the people were so friendly, not only towards us but to everyone seated at the seven tables in the cosy two room cafe. All of a sudden we were the guests of honor with everyone from the waitress to the people at neighboring tables asking about our travels.

The owner, a woman by the name of Lisa, kept up a lively banter with everyone. Jim and I just sat back and enjoyed it all. One woman had driven up from Little Rock, 85 miles away, to take her 80-year old mother out to lunch. When the mother declined the German chocolate cake desert, Lisa asked, "Are you watching your weight? Trying to catch another husband? You keep outliving them all."

Her daughter commented she had many suitors. "She makes me look tame and I'm not tame at all. She had three daughters. One was crazy, one was shy and one was wild. I was the wild one."

A bald-headed guy with a goatee, who had earlier been telling Jim and I he had hitch-hiked all over the country, responded, "Sounds like you take after your mother. I was the black sheep of my family. Everyone kept telling me, why can't you be more like your brothers. I didn't want to be like them and I'm glad I wasn't."

An older gentleman walked up to the counter and told Lisa, " I hate to say it, but that was all too good of a meal not to be able to afford to pay for it."

Lisa quickly retorted, "If you don't have the money, I'll just have to come after you to get it."

"I live off in the hills," he replied. "You'll never find me."

"Oh yes I will. I got real good at trackin' down folks when I first moved here and had a video store."

She told us that when Netflix put her out of business, she was happy to have the opportunity to open up a cafe, her true love. The walls were filled with paintings of Mona Lisa and dolls and other knick knacks. "You should have been here at Halloween," she added, "I had Mona Lisa's decorated in Halloween costumes."

When a couple asked her what they owed her, "She said $15.43, and the entertainment is free."

We've encountered such unrestrained friendliness all along the way. On our second lay-over day in Mountain View, while Jim went off to Ozark National Forest to ride some single-track I took a ride to Baxter County, twenty miles away to pick up a couple of six-packs for Jim. It took me through the small town of 56. When I had seen such an unlikely named town on the map, I was sorry it wasn't on our route, so was delighted for the opportunity to see it, and learn how it got its name. It was six miles before the county line.

There was a liquor store just across the county line, four miles before the next town, with a flashing sign warning "Dry County Ahead." The young lady at the liquor store lived in 56, but she said she didn't know how it got its name. "You can ask my mother. She's working in the convenience store back in 56." We had a pleasant 15 minute chat on her varied customers and family life. She wasn't concerned at all if the neighboring county ever went "wet," as she said they had loyal customers who she was confident would remain faithful to the store.

She wasn't a beer drinker herself, so couldn't recommend a beer for me. My instructions from Jim were to get any micro-brewed beer they might have. And if they had none, just don't get anything lite or Bud or Miller or Michelob. If his cell phone hadn't gone kaput the day before, I could have tried calling him to tell him what was available. I simply asked what was her most expensive beer. It was Sam Adams and Shiner at a little less than ten dollars for a six-pack. Jim would have been happy with anything, not having had a beer for three nights, but these he was pleased with.

When I stopped in at the general store back in 56, the woman at the counter seemed too young to be the mother of the woman at the liquor store, but it was indeed her mother. She said she hoped her daughter hadn't told me too many bad stories about her. She explained 56 got its name from its school district, 56. She too was happy to chat as if we were long-time friends without any nervousness of telling me too much.

Ten miles after the Mona Lisa cafe Jim and I arrived in Clinton (though not on the "Billgrimage Route") on busy route 65, just 75 miles north of Little Rock. It was 3:30, two hours before dark. We had gotten a late start out of Mountain View and had only biked 35 miles. Jim said his ankle was bothering him and he was too tired to continue riding into the strong head wind. Since we would be soon parting ways in Little Rock, where he would take the train back to Chicago, while I would bicycle back, he said it wasn't necessary for me to continue tagging along with him at his pace.

His heart was clearly no longer into the biking. Back in Mountain View he said he wished he could find someone to drive him the 100 miles to Little Rock. "If this were Ecuador I'd have no problem finding someone with a pick-up truck to drive me anywhere for five bucks." Jim had been dreading those last few miles into Little Rock through the heavy traffic for days and had been trying to figure out a way to avoid them.

Jim was so eager to get to Little Rock, he was willing to continue on busy 65, a road he normally would have utterly abhorred. He'd be cursing and raging at every passing vehicle until there was a danger of his head exploding. It was a relief not to be subjected to that. If he wasn't at such a low energy level he would have most certainly stuck to route nine, just an additional extra fifteen miles to Little Rock, and my preference by far, not only for the minimal traffic, but for the small towns along the way and the added bonus of a Carnegie library, one of only three remaining in the state. The fourth in Little Rock had been razed quite a few years ago.

Jim was hoping to catch the midnight train on Sunday, two days away. Ordinarily he ought to have been able to easily ride the 75 miles by then, even though we had only been averaging 40 miles a day in these travels. The road would be flatter than it had been as we had descended into the Arkansas River valley.

"Let's aim to meet at the Clinton Library in Little Rock at noon on Sunday," I suggested. That will give me enough time to explore the city and then escape before dark. Jim said he would do his best to make it.

I was sorry not to get his reaction to the Carnegie in Morrilton, 45 miles beyond our departure point. It was a classic small town Carnegie, built on a small hill near the center of the town of 6,000 residents. The red-bricked building was adorned with several plaques inside and out recognizing Carnegie and designating it as a National Historic site. It was identified by "Public Library" in black block letters over its entrance.

At first I thought it was the rare Carnegie without an addition, but its back-side had been extended in 1991 with a barely detectable red-brick extension. Carnegie's portrait hung in a corner of its upstairs room overlooking several framed photos of the library as well as a two-page document telling its history, tracing it back to a woman's group in 1896 that collected books for a rotating library until they won a grant from Carnegie in 1915 to build a permanent library. Morrilton was the smallest town in the South to receive a Carnegie grant.

Though we've stopped at small town libraries nearly every day, none had the majesty, nor the history, of this Carnegie. Its been nearly 400 miles since our last in St. Louis, about the longest stretch I've ridden in the U.S. without coming upon one. It will be a couple hundred miles or more until my next. Which it will be, I do not now. I'm still uncertain of my route back to Chicago. It could be through Memphis and then along the Mississippi or perhaps back up to Missouri and a Carnegie south of St. Louis along the river. Either way, I hope to pick up Historic Route 66 at some point in Illinois and follow that through Springfield and Lincoln's Presidential Library, the largest by 50% of any of the Presidential Libraries. Now its on to Clinton's and hopefully a final meal with The Don. I scavenged a Rebel flag this morning along the road for him. He can appreciate it, as it was once the state flag of Alabama, where he grew up.

Later, George

Mountain View, Arkansas

2011-11-09T09:26:00.000-08:00

Friends: Don Jaime was quite startled to learn that Arkansas's Fulton Country was dry when he went in search for his nightly six-pack in Salem, the first town we stopped in after leaving Missouri. It was less than an hour until dark, so we didn't have enough time to make it to the next county. We assumed that it had to be wet, as how many dry counties could there be. But we assumed wrong, as more than half of Arkansas's 75 counties are dry, a higher percentage than any other state.

The husband and wife team volunteering at the Calico Rock tourist office in the next county, Izard, also dry, said that they had been part of a periodic petition drive to put the issue up to vote for their county. But each time they had, it had been voted down. They had retired to Calico Rock from the western suburbs of Chicago ten years ago after having done some canoeing in the area and falling in love with it. The husband commented when he was researching the profile of the county's population, he discovered it had no blacks or Hispanics or Asians, though he didn't say if that had any weight in their decision to move here.

The 80-year owner of the ice cream shop next to the tourist office said he considered the region paradise and he didn't like others finding out about it and moving in. Back when he was in the army 60 years ago he was too embarrassed to tell anyone where he was from, because he said, "People from Arkansas had a reputation of having no education and no shoes." Now when he travels he doesn't want to admit where he's from, as he's afraid he'll rave about it too much and make people want to move here.

Don Jaime was desperate enough for a beer to hire someone to drive him to Norfolk, ten miles away, to the nearest liquor store, but couldn't find any takers. Nor could he find anyone who had a spare beer for sale or who knew of any bootleggers or moonshiners. As kindly as the husband and wife were in the tourist office and a couple of other locals who dropped in to talk to "the bicyclists," no one cared to give us a lift or arrange one or find a source of The Don's favorite beverage.

Ever since we entered this black hole for alcohol we found ourselves in the curious situation of intently studying our state map for county lines, hoping the next county might be wet. "Never before have I cared so much about county lines. Put that in your blog," The Don said with an exasperation he normally reserves for automobiles.

Two young girls with tattoos up and down their arms at a hamburger joint at Calico Rock, who should have known, couldn't offer any help nor could that feisty 80-year old owner of the ice cream store. A woman who provided jams and jellies and dried fruit at an artist's cooperative thought her husband might have some beer to spare, but that was a false alarm. We later surmised that they all might have feared we were part of a sting operation and that we ought to have produced our Illinois driver's licenses and assured them we weren't undercover agents. So The Don has had to survive two nights without beer and may have a couple more ahead.

The first night we were wild camping in a forest too thick to risk lighting a fire, so it was simply early to bed. The Don slept twelve hours. "I've never done that before. Put that in your blog," he commented the next morning.

Last night we sought refuge at Pinewood Cabins in downtown Mountain View, as we were drenched by a hard, cold rain the 25 miles from Calico Rock to Mountain View. The rain continued well into the night, dumping a total of four inches. We were so soaked and bedraggled, the first bed-and-breakfast we tried made it obvious we weren't welcome. We were lucky this wasn't the weekend of the Bean Fest and Outhouse Races. The 29th annual edition a week ago drew 40,000 people, filling every bed in this town of less than 3,000.

Besides being dry, the biggest contrast of Arkansas to Missouri so far is all the dead armadillos along the road. The ice cream shop owner said they began migrating into the region just ten years ago and are now taking over. "I shoot 'em whenever I see 'em on my property," he said. "They dig holes everywhere and are a great nuisance."

The Arkansas folks seem to be a take-charge lot. A sign outside a yard full of broken down cars just beyond Salem announced, "Attention. Theve or Theves. Restitution Will Come If I Don't Get You First."

The few motorists on these little trafficked roads through the Arkansas Ozarks have had no more objection to our presence than those in Missouri. The Don never imagined he could ride so many miles on pavement without being irked by a gas guzzler. He had initially been reluctant about starting our bicycling in St. Louis, 300 miles from the single track in Arkansas he wanted to ride, preferring to take the train to Memphis instead, just 150 miles away, 150 miles less of pavement he would have to ride. But I said I was very confident we'd find little traffic in the Ozarks, which has been true. Also, Amtrak would allow us to take our bikes onto a passenger car unboxed to St. Louis, while we would have had to box them and put them in a baggage car to Memphis. After my recent experience of my bike not making it into the baggage car to Grand Junction from Chicago, I wanted to avoid that possibility again.

The Arkansas Ozarks have been as superlative for bicycling as was Missouri. Arkansas seems to have a genuine bicycling consciousness. The woman at the Arkansas Visitor Center just across the border from Harvey, Missouri gave us two brochures on bicycling in the state. One listed 22 bike routes, eleven off road and eleven on road. The other detailed a 17-mile trail in Little Rock along the Arkansas River and across the Big Dam Bridge, the longest bridge in the country built specifically for walkers and cyclists, 4,246 feet long. Among the sites it passes is the Clinton Presidential Library. She also gave us a brochure/passport to Clinton Places in the state--a "Billgrimage" it is called. But she gave us no warning or information on the dry counties of the state.

Yesterday we had such a fine breakfast of biscuits and gravy The Don pulled out his camera for a photo. "People do this all the time at our hotel," he said. What had at first seemed like a silly thing to do, he can now understand. He has also found himself turning into one of his clients when we check into a hotel. If he starts asking too many questions he realizes he is becoming a dreaded "VHM"--"Very High Maintenance" client. He and his wife Marshia have five categories of clients--very high maintenance (VHM), high maintenance(HM), medium maintenance (MM), low maintenance (LM), and Poster, the ideal client they'd like to put on a poster.

They employ fifteen people maintaining their restaurant and bed and breakfast. They have expanded it from ten rooms to sixteen since acquiring it seven years ago, and within the past year have started up a brew-pub and restaurant managed by their son Jason, a chef, a few blocks away. Don Jaime says they treat their staff so well none of them want to leave.

This is a most welcome respite from the business for The Don, so only occasionally do our conversations veer off to his business life, but he can't help but revert to it when he encounters someone else in "the hospitality business," as he calls it. "Dealing with tourists all the time," he says, "It's hard not to become jaded. I don't want to, but its not easy."

As always, its been a grand time sharing The Don's company and hearing more of his exceptional and fascinating life. He's another of those larger than life characters that I feel so privileged to have come to know thanks to my traveling life.

Later, George

Thayer, Missouri

2011-11-07T08:31:00.000-08:00

Friends: It wasn't until after Winona on Route 19, after nearly 200 miles of biking through the Ozarks, that we finally encountered a series of those killer steep hills the region is notorious for. We had been warned of brutally steep, "heart-attack," hills just ahead for miles and miles. There were hills that someone unaccustomed to a bike with low gears might have considered forbidding, but to us, it was all child's play, especially to Don Jaime, living in the Andes.

For 100 miles of Route 19, after 100 miles on Historic Route 66, we had enjoyed absolutely idyllic cycling on a gently rolling and twisting road with no traffic through thickly forested terrain following a ridge line with only a couple of dips down to rivers and then a four or five hundred foot climb back up to the ridge line. It was one of those roads where I wished I had a traveling companion to jointly revel in the fabulous cycling, and lo and behold, I did. Don Jaime was ecstatic beyond belief at a paved road without the annoyance of cars. The occasional pick-up that passed us gave a wide berth and was in no hurry to pass. The only shout from a motorist was someone who noticed The Don had dropped a glove a little ways back.

Fortunately the wall-steep hills came in just a few small batches. We had several miles of relatively flat terrain until the next batch. We couldn't complain at all though. Maybe some worse ones await us in Arkansas, just ahead from Thayer, a most amiable town where we didn't have to fill out forms to use the computer promising not to go to porno sites. It is a town of euphemisms with a church referred to as a "Worship Center," and an antique store called "Creative Poverty."

We can't say we've encountered any hostility whatsoever either on our bikes or off. We must be a rare site, grown men in tights, but no one has queried us about our attire. We've been prepared to tell them we dance for the New York Ballet and are on a holiday trying to gain some extra strength in our legs to keep up with the young up-and-coming dancers in our company.

At the Cherryville general store/cafe/post office we were the object of some extra attention. One of the hefty good ol' boys sitting at a table sipping coffees came over to our table with some friendly advice. "I hope you boys are taking your vitamins," he said. "You're going to need 'em for the hills up ahead." After a few minutes of conversation he returned to his table and told his mates, "I told them boys they better be taking their vitamins." That drew some chuckles. Then one of them said, "Yeah, if they get a heart-attack, I wouldn't want to give 'em mouth-to-mouth."

The daily special was a fish sandwich. Even though it was after noon I asked if I could have pancakes. The waitress, who also served as the cook and tended to the cash register in this one person operation, said she could whip some up. I wondered about the flour she used when she presented me with a nice fat barely tinged trio of albinos. She must have been in a hurry tending to the other customers as their color was due to their only being only half-cooked. I was so hungry I ate them anyway, dousing them with half a bottle of syrup to make their doughiness somewhat palatable.

It is not always easy to determine whether some of the homes along the road are lived in or not. Dogs are one way to tell. Near the top of one hill we could see a dilapidated shack that look abandoned until we stirred up six dogs each, tied to its own pole into a frenzy of barking and charging at us the length of their chain. As we came along side them a rotund, disheveled woman in her underwear, with a belly drooping half way to her knees, stepped out onto her porch to see what had riled her critters. One glance at us and she retreated back inside.

Don Jaime sighed, "Some of these Missouri folk make the poor of Ecuador look like gentry."

Earlier in the day The Don felt more at home when we passed the startling sight of a llama and an alpaca grazing in a pasture. They came trotting towards us. Don Jaime proudly said, " I think they recognize I'm from their homeland." He stopped and hopped off his bike to give them a closer look, grabbing a bunch of weeds to offer them. He couldn't entice them closer than twenty feet, even trying some other vegetation, hoping it might be more to their liking. After a couple of minutes he gave up.

Just after we resumed our riding a pick-up truck turned down the dirt road bordering the pasture. Don Jaime sped up and waved at the motorist. She stopped. She told us that many of the farmers in the area have such animals to protect their calves from predators. Don Jaime had never heard of such a thing and was eager to tell friends back in Ecuador all about it. Then he told me, "Be sure to put that in your blog." That has been his constant refrain. I was counting on him to post a journal of our travels, as he did of our first trip, but so far I'm our lone trip chronicler.

Two nights ago in Eminence, he decided he wanted to sleep in a hotel rather than wild camp once again. His sleeping bag isn't as warm as mine and with unseasonably cold temperatures near freezing the night before, hadn't gotten the best of sleeps. He had quite a choice of bed and breakfasts and cabins and motels to choose from, while I easily found a spot to pitch my tent just out of town along one of the two rivers that converge there, making it a popular canoeing spot.

The town only had one bar though without much of a choice of beer. The Don has just started his own brew pub down in Banos and has been checking out locals beers along the way. His four beers a night are "research." The bar closed at nine on a Saturday night, barely enough time for his research. He was invited to drink with a woman and her husband celebrating her 29th birthday. She was crying in her beer, as her mother hadn't called to wish her Happy Birthday. "Be sure to put that in your blog," The Don said.

We were surprised to see no road kill deer along Route 19 through the thick forest. The husband and wife proprietors of the general store/service station in Timber, the only place offering supplies on the 44-mile stretch between Salem and Eminence, told us that was because there was so little traffic on the road, as there was plenty of deer. Its also because the deer have retreated deeper into the woods, as the hunting season has just begun, though the first two weeks of it are just for youth. The men hate that as it alerts the deer that the hunt is on and makes it harder for them to find them once they can start hunting next week.

We had a good hour's conversation with the couple as we snacked and rested our legs. On the wall was the Tea Party manifesto. "We better not talk politics here, " Don Jaime commented. We didn't need to, as they filled us in on all the local color we could want. They'd lived there for more than 40 years. They stock their store by buying from the Wal-Mart 25 miles away in Salem. Many people complain that their food is more expensive than the Wal-Mart, but then complain if they take a day off or if they are a little late in opening. The wife said she used to read three or four books a week sitting in the store waiting for customers, but since she got Netflix, she watches three or four movies a day and hardly reads any more. She keeps a gun behind the counter, but hasn't had to use it. Her husband hunts, but uses his gun more often to kill the raccoons and possums that come around their chicken coop. When we left, she thanked us for the nice conversation.

When we arrived in Alton about an hour before dark last night The Don was worried he might not be able to find a six-pack for his evening's research at our campsite, as it was a Sunday and we were greeted by a sign listing the town's ten or so churches. But one of the town's two gas stations had a refrigerator full of beer, though mostly of the all too common standbys. The Don was worried at first that he would have to settle for Heineken. "For a beer snob like me, it will do in a pinch," he commented. But then on closer look he found Boulevard, which we had seen on the menu in Cuba and had been told came from a micro-brewery in Kansas City. Don Jaime declined it then in preference to a more local brew, but was now happy to give it a try.

About three miles out of town we ventured down a dirt road a couple tenths of a mile and disappeared into the forest. We then ducked under a drooping barbed wire fence to a patch of pine trees on the fringe of a meadow. There were a few scattered rocks that we could gather to make a ring for a fire place. It wasn't so cold that we needed a fire, but The Don has a compulsion to fire-building, perhaps due to some Creek blood in his heritage. He frequently builds a fire at his bed-and-breakfast in Ecuador. He proved his devotion to fire-building by going at it just after he set up his tent, even before opening one of his beers. Even he was surprised by his priorities.

While I ate my ramen and baked beans, the Don did his research, waiting to eat his pizza until later. And we reflected on Another Great Day on the Bike.

Later, George

Salem, Missouri

2011-11-04T14:38:00.000-07:00

Friends: After one hundred miles of Historic Route 66 through Missouri we'd had enough. It had been little more than a frontage road along Interstate 44. It was well-labeled with blue Historic Route 66 markers, though it is just a series of frontage roads pieced together, alternating from one side to the other of the Interstate. It serves as an "Incident Bypass Route" when accidents block the interstate.

It is largely traffic-free, making it a virtual bicycle path, but the roar and tidal flow of 18-wheelers and other gas-guzzlers on the interstate along side hardly made us feel as if we were off in rural America on a quiet road all to ourselves. Nor were there many acknowledgements to Route 66 or oddball businesses catering to Route 66 devotees, as we hoped there would be, other than a Toy Museum, "For anyone who has ever been a kid," and Merrimack Caves and Jesse Jame's hideout.

The town of Cuba, where we had decided to veer from 66 and head south into the real Ozarks, was the first that truly celebrated its heritage of being a part of Route 66, "America's Main Street," the first main artery from the East to California after the era of the automobile began. Buildings all over Cuba had large murals hearkening back to the early days of Route 66.

The mural on the town newspaper building was a paper with the headline "Bette Davis Comes to Cuba." There were murals of Model T Fords and old style gas pumps. One mural commemorated a visit by Senator Harry Truman during a 1940 Presidential campaign visit. Another depicted an emergency landing by Amelia Earhart in the town in 1928. If we'd had such curiosities to gaze upon all along the route, we would be tempted to continue on despite the blight of interstate traffic intruding upon our tranquility. But not even the sign "The World's Largest Rocking Chair four miles ahead" could entice us. Maybe if we had been passing through in the summer on the one day of the year that the owner provides a hoist to lift people up into the chair at $5 a pop for a photo we would have wanted to check it out. But we were eager to get off into true rural America and escape this characterless corridor.

There was more of a Halloween spirit than Route 66 spirit. Before I visited the rest room at the service station in Gray Summit, I was warned, "Don't forget its Halloween." There were streaks of fake blood on all its walls and "Help Me" spelled out in blood. Carved pumpkins adorn most homes. The Scrooge of one town had four large pumpkins on his porch all carved with mouths turned sharply downwards.

The back side of our Ortlieb panniers each have a palm-sized white reflective patch. I've met cyclists who have etched smiling faces into them, as if they were pumpkins to be decorated. When I mentioned this to Jim, he proposed that we etch some slogan into them, one word per patch. Our initial brainstorming only produced profanity laced epithets towards motorists. That led to my suggestion 'Get A Bike.' "

"It has to be two words," Jim said.

" 'Get A' is short enough that could be one one side."

"No, we have to stick to two words."

"How about 'Bike Good' then." "That would be perfect. You can put those on your panniers and I'll put 'Car Bad' on mine."

If we'd had this discussion after our lunch in Marje's Cafe in Cuba we might have had some weight loss ideas. Pam, our overnight hostess the first night of these travels, told us that Missouri has the highest obesity rate in the country. It was fully confirmed at Marje's. Three blimp-sized women waddled in several minutes after we arrived. Not so long after a husband and wife of even more gargantuan proportions took a seat. We've both seen obesity before, but nothing to compare to this.

Jim kept fidgeting with the thermostat at Marje's as we were cold and wet. People came into Marje's saying that there was snow up the road in Rolla at a slightly higher elevation than what we were at. Not even a couple hours at the library fully dried and warmed us, so Jim suggested we splurge on a room at the Wagon Wheel Motel, a classic on Route 66 going back to the '30s. It had recently been restored. The grand reopening had been this summer with prices rolled back to what they were back then--$3.10 for a room and ten cents for pie--for that day.

The lady who checked us in didn't react at all when Jim said he was from Ecuador. They'd never had a guest from Ecuador before, but she said about 70% of their guests are foreigners traveling the route. For many who start in Chicago, the Wagon Wheel is their first night. She said a couple from Sweden on motorcycles arrived with such horrid sun burns the wife went to the emergency room. Her son is in the army in Germany and many Germans are impressed that he lives on 66. An English camera crew spent three days at the motel using it as a base for a documentary they were filming on the road.

Later, George

St. Clair, Missouri

2011-11-02T13:01:00.000-07:00

Friends: Its been nine years since Jim Redd, also known as Don Jaime or The Don, and I biked from Minneapolis to Chicago. We had a rollicking fine time and have wanted to join forces for another ride ever since. Jim has come close to dropping everything and linking up with me in the middle of a ride several times, but having a wife and owning a business doesn't make it easy for him to get away. I even flew down to Ecuador, where he owns a bed and breakfast, six years ago to do some touring together, but his business interfered and I had to make a circuit of Ecuador on my own. The details can be found of those travels by going to March of 2005 on the blog.

I heard from him once again as I was bicycling across Montana last month, wishing he was along for the ride and wondering if we could do something together in the near future. I never want a ride to end, so I suggested he fly up from Ecuador for a ride through the Ozarks after I returned. Jim had to find a night manager to assume his duties at his hotel, and managed to get up to Chicago two weeks after I returned from my last trip. Two weeks was plenty of time for me to catch up on everything I needed to in Chicago after being gone for six of the previous seven months.

We couldn't settle on a route and we still haven't, even though we're a day into our ride after taking Amtrak from Chicago to St. Louis. Jim would like to do some single track riding on his 29 inch mountain bike and I would like to search out a few Carnegies. Jim was very eager to see a Carnegie himself after reading my many ravings about them on my past few trips in the US, even though he said he had a slight leeriness as "Car" are the first three letters of his name. Jim is an autophobe of the first order. He's been car-free for years. On those rare occasions when he's had to rent a car, he leaves it to his wife to drive it.

There are 33 Carnegies in Missouri and just four in Arkansas. Most of those in Missouri are in the northern half of the state. There is a huge black hole in the dispersal of Carnegies across the U.S. in the Ozarks. In times past those living in the Ozarks have been suspicious of too much education. The region still has one of the highest high school drop-out rates. Communities had to apply for a Carnegie. There wasn't much interest in the Ozarks for a library when Carnegie made available funds for libraries in the early 1900s to just about anyone who asked for one who could fulfill a few requirements--providing the land near the center of a town and an annual fund of 10% of what he provided to sustain it. He's responsible for 1,698 libraries throughout the US in every state except Alaska and Delaware.

There were seven built in St. Louis from a grant of one million dollars for a main library and six branches. I wasn't too confident that any of them would still be around, but miraculously two of them were on our route out of the city on Lafayette Road leading us to Historic Route 66 that we wanted to follow at least for a spell. The first was just a few blocks beyond Busch Stadium, where the Cardinals just claimed their eleventh World Series. We gave the Stan Musial statue out front a salute as we rode past. No one was about, nor hardly anywhere on the fringes of the downtown. The same was true with the Soulard Carnegie, a now closed down building, the front door padlocked. It still retained its majesty. Jim pointed out various features of its architectural grandeur, and then took a few photos.

Less then a mile away, when Lafayette intersected the main thoroughfare of Jefferson, was another Carnegie, the Barr Branch, still functioning as a library and without the need of any additions. Chiseled into the side of the entryway was "Fund for Building Given by Andrew Carnegie." The interior was a bright canary yellow, but had no portrait of Carnegie as many do, though it was no requirement.

We couldn't believe our good fortune at this unexpected dose of Carnegies. Our fortune wasn't so good though when Lafayette came to an end and we had to take Manchester. The four-lane highway was thronged with traffic, even in the pre-rush hour. Jim's head was spinning, especially since he'd had only a few hours of sleep, arising before five a.m. to catch our seven a.m. train. After an hour we were still in the thick of sprawl and traffic, over 20 miles from the down town. Ten miles later it was still a nightmare. There seemed to be no alternative.

When we saw a sign for Castlewood State Park we decided to make it our camp site for the night even though there was nearly two hours of light left and we were eager to escape the brain-numbing sprawl of the metropolis. Jim, having come for a small town in Ecuador, simply couldn't take it any more. It was three miles off the road and turned out to be for day use only. We'd just have to wild camp in the forest when it cleared out. It was surprisingly packed though with cars and bicyclists. Jim was thrilled to see it was laced with single track trails. He stripped his two panniers from his bike to get a taste before we went in search of a camp site when it got closer to dark.

While I was waiting, a cyclist of about our vintage came up and asked if I was looking for a place to stay. He said he knew there was no camping in the park and offered his house, just a couple miles away. That was our third and perhaps greatest stroke of good fortune of the day along with finding some Carnegies and Jim getting an unexpected dose of single track. He said he was training for a San Diego to South Carolina ride in April. His previous longest ride was from St. Louis to Green Bay along with the friend he would be riding with coast-to-coast. He was eager to talk to a couple of fellow touring cyclists.

He called his wife to alert her that he'd be dragging home a couple of wayward touring cyclists. Kim said that he'd be traveling a little differently than Jim and I, staying in hotels on a budget of $100 a day. He expected his trip to take 50 days. He and his friend already had their hotels plotted out, about 75 miles apart. He had hired a trainer to condition him for the ride. He was supposed to be doing intervals today. He was a fairly recent convert to the bicycle, beginning riding about six years ago when he was 54. Now he was a full-fledged adherent and an avid Tour de France fan. He said he had never been a sports fan of any sort until recently, not even following the Olympics. Now when the Tour de France is on, he spends hours every day glued to the television. He can hardly believe his transformation into a sports fan.

His wife Pam is also a devotee of the bike, though not quite to his extent. She is one of the few bicycle advocates in the state of Missouri. They both bemoaned how unfriendly Missouri is to bicyclists. They knew well as they had last lived in Portland, Oregon and before that California, two hotbeds of cycling.

Kim and Pam were slightly confused about Jim's name. I had mentioned to Kim that Jim was known as Don Jaime in Ecuador, but without making clear that "Don" was an honorific term " applied to anyone in a respectable position in Latin America. They both continually referred to Jim as "Don," which would be like referring to Queen Elizabeth as "Queen" if she had been around. Neither Jim nor I bothered to correct them. It wasn't until the following morning when we were all well rested that I finally straightened them out.

Though Jim and I were exhausted and would have been asleep by eight if we had camped, we happily stayed up well beyond that talking all manner of cycling. It was Jim's first experience of being honored as a touring cyclist. I know of some cyclists who make a practice of fishing for such accommodations every night. It is nice every once in a while, but it can become tedious having to recount the same stories night after night. One certainly earns one's shower and food. But we were truly blessed to have had this evening with Don and Pam. They couldn't have been more welcoming. When we mentioned that Jim acquired his bed and breakfast in Ecuador seven years ago to escape Bush America, they told us we were lucky to have them as hosts, as they were the only non-Republicans in the county. The gigantic cherry on top of all their kindnesses was they had a Delorme atlas of Missouri, a highly detailed manual of every road in the state. Jim worships them. He was thrilled to be able to give it a look and even more thrilled when they said we could have it. Jim pulled out a twenty dollar bill, its cover price,to pay for it, but they wouldn't take it.

Jim is serving as translator on our travels so far. Having grown up in Alabama he is much more familiar with the slight Southern lingo we have already encountered. Back in Gray Summit when we asked how far it was to the next town with a library, we were told it was in "Sinclair, about 15 miles away." We couldn't find a "Sinclair" on the map. Then Jim realized that the women had said St. Clair. The library here in St. Clair is beside the funeral parlor. Jim said, "Perfect. You can read until you die."

As always, Jim has me chuckling with his nearly every wisecrack and musing. He said to be sure to mention that the barbecued chicken at the Gray Summit convenience store was as good as any he had ever had. He wasn't sure how much he approved of the store though at first as it had cups of food for sale labelled "Car Snacks."

"Where are the Bike Snacks?" he demanded of the sales clerk.

(For more of Jim's wit and pontifications check out his commentary on our previous trip in July of 2002 on the blog.)

Later, George

2822 Miles, 35 Days, $252. 51

2011-10-15T19:50:00.000-07:00

Friends: For the record here are the official stats of my Telluride to Chicago ride:

35 days, 2822 miles through nine states (Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois) at a cost of $252.51 ($7.21 per day).

The bulk of my diet consisted of seven gallons of chocolate milk, 27 cans of baked beans, eleven loaves of bread, eleven burritos, sixteen bananas and 62 packs of ramen noodles.

I had two meals in restaurants--hotcakes for breakfast--and camped wild each night.

I picked up $2.87 in loose change and had one flat tire.

I passed 56 anti-abortion signs (Jesus Once was A Fetus Too) and 58 stray bungee cords.

I read five books ("We Need To Talk About Kevin" by Lionel Shriver, "A Map of the World" by Jane Hamilton, "Napoleon" by Felix Markham, "The Elephanta Suite" by Paul Theroux, "The Matter of Wales" by Jan Morris) and searched out 28 Carnegie libraries.

Here are the day by day stats--where I camped, distance traveled, miles per hour and money spent (all on food other than $1 on a book and $2 to use the Internet):

Sept. 10 after Uravan, Colorado 72 miles 15.32 mph $3.86
(pint chocolate milk, can baked beans, can of spaghetti)

Sept. 11 after Fruita 97 miles 13.69 mph $8.19
(bread, baked beans, two cans spaghetti, yogurt, can of ravioli, Fanta, burrito)

Sept. 12 before Rangely 74 miles 12.08 mph $4.89
(two yogurts, half gallon apple juice, hot dog, soda, chips)

Sept. 13 after Vernal, Utah 63 miles 12.85 mph $15.27
(2 qts. choc. milk, peanut butter, honey, baked beans, ramen, burrito)

Sept. 14 after Manila 62 miles 10.24 mph $9.23
(burrito, bread, ramen, baked beans, grape soda)

Sept. 15 after Carter, Wyo. 63 miles 12.67 mph $7.43
(book, burrito, tortilla chips, 3 yogurts, baked beans, ravioli, 2 ramen, grape soda)

Sept. 16 after Cokeville 78 miles 12.11 mph $11.39
(3 lbs macaroni salad, qt. choc. milk, baked beans, 2 hot dogs, soda)

Sept. 17 after Alpine 87 miles 12.83 mph$7.57
(2 qts choc. milk, corn flakes, 2 cans baked beans, ramen, burrito)

Sept. 18 after Idaho Falls, Idaho 87 miles 12.57 mph $5.27
(bread, oatmeal cookies, 2 bananas, Dr. Pepper)

Sept. 19 after MacKay 81 miles 12.11 mph $4.54
(2 qts choc. milk, baked beans, 3 ramens)

Sept. 20 before Salmon 87 miles 13.43 mph $4.63
(potato salad, 3 ramens, baked beans, ginger ale)

Sept. 21 before Darby, Montana 79 miles 13.07 mph $8.08
(hot cakes, 3 ramens, baked beans, qt choc milk)

Sept. 22 before Lolo 61 miles 14.60 mph $16.72
(hotcakes, bread, honey, baked beans, burrito)

Sept. 23 after Bonner 30 miles 13.27 $5.76
(6 ramens, 2 boxes pop tarts, baked beans, 2 bananas)

Sept. 24 before Sims 105 miles 13.51 mph $2.75
(baked beans, spaghetti, Shasta cola)

Sept. 25 before Big Sandy 121 miles 15.58 mph $14.46
(peanut butter, 12 ramens, baked beans, cookies, burrito, 32 oz soda, 44 oz soda)

Sept. 26 after Harlem 91 miles 15.94 mph $6.08
(qt. choc. milk, bread, creamed corn, 2 baked beans)

Sept. 27 after Glasgow 111 miles 15.63 mph $5.44
(qt. choc. milk, banana, potato chips, Dr. Pepper)

Sept. 28 before Bainville 114 miles, 16.12 mph $5.66
(qt. choc. milk, baked beans, tamale, banana, Pepsi)

Sept. 29 before Stanley, N. D. 96 miles 13.56 mph $7.26
(2 qts. choc. milk, bread, pop tarts, cookies, 2 cans baked beans)

Sept. 30 after Minot 78 miles 11.19 mph $2.00
(Internet Minot library)

Oct. 1 before Devil's Lake 94 miles 14.28 mph $6.69
(qt. choc. milk, 4 ramens, baked beans, hot dog, juice)

Oct. 2 before Grand Forks 91 miles 12.83 mph $8.69
(qt. choc milk, baked beans, ramen, grape jam, burrito, Dr. Pepper)

Oct. 3 before Fertile, MN 56 miles 11.50 mph $6.65
(qt. choc. milk, bread, 2 bananas, corn puffs, juice)

Oct. 4 before Detroit Lakes 69 miles 10.56 mph $8.33
(qt. choc. milk, 12 ramens, Dr. pepper, cinnamon roll)

Oct. 5 before Motley 74 miles 12.26 $5.18
(bread, coconut cookies, 2 cherry pies, tortilla chips)

Oct. 6 before Richmond 71 miles 10.98 mph $3.46
(2 yogurts, baked beans, 2 bananas, sport drink)

Oct. 7 before Hutchinson 49 miles 8.18 mph $6.91
(qt. choc. milk, macaroni salad, ramen, creamed corn, peanut butter)

Oct. 8 before Mankato 70 miles 10.80 mph $12.19
(choc. milk, bread, honey, corn, 3 bananas, lemonade mix, burrito)

Oct. 9 before Hayfield 82 miles 12.07 mph $9.36
(2 qts. choc. milk, 2 lbs macaroni salad, 2 baked beans, 12 ramens, Dr. Pepper)

Oct. 10 after Rushford 83 miles 12.20 mph $7.11
(qt. choc. milk, bread, banana, cookies, cheese puffs)

Oct. 11 before Richland Center, Wis. 88 miles 12.7 mph $4.43
(qt. choc. milk, four muffins, burrito)

Oct. 12 before Belmont 70 miles 11.96 mph $9.65
(qt. choc. milk, salami, 2 lbs macaroni salad, 2 baked beans, 2 bananas, cookies)

Oct. 13 after Rockford, Ill. 108 miles 14.13 mph $3.03
(qt. choc. milk, burrito)

Oct. 14 Chicago 80 miles 14.82 mph $4.35
(qt. choc. milk, bread)

Marengo, Illinois

2011-10-14T07:39:00.000-07:00

Friends: The best laugh I get every day is whenever I see a sign for camping. That's hilarious. There is camping everywhere. Two nights ago it was in the cemetery of Belmont, Wisconsin, the state's first capital. Cemeteries are usually a last resort and so it was this night.

It had been a day of rain, though it had finally let up. Another night in a corn field amongst the tall withered stalks seemed my most likely camping spot until I happened upon the cemetery. The corn field would have been muddy and soggy. The cemetery offered a well-drained grass mattress, much preferred, and a few towering pine trees for shelter in case the rain resumed.

Cemeteries are my prime source of water when cycling in France. Rare is it to find a water spigot though in American cemeteries. The French cemeteries are all concrete and crammed with graves, not conducive at all for camping. They are quite picturesque, invariably surrounded by a distinctive high stone wall that can be seen in the distance, immediately alerting me of an oasis ahead, as if it were a well in a desert surrounded by date trees. American small town cemeteries are quite paltry in comparison, a scattering of very drab and stubby tombstones without much character and not very well maintained. One of the reasons all the French cemeteries have water is that relatives pay regular, almost weekly, visits to spiff up their graves, all monuments of a sort that they take pride in.

My final campsite of these travels last night was behind a closed down factory on the outskirts of Rockford, the third largest city in Illinois with 150,000 residents, just behind Aurora. I was caught by the dark and the full moon was late in arriving over the trees in the distance, so I couldn't quite make it out into the countryside. But the camping was as fine as if I were in an isolated forest.

Rockford offered my final Carnegie of these travels, number 28, seven less than one a day. It dated to 1902 and wasn't recognizable as a Carnegie at all with a grandiose glass expansion in 1966 totally swallowing up the original library. The third floor historical research room had a magnificent large painting of the original library. If it hadn't been getting dark, I could have spent a couple hours reading up on its history. Like many of the towns I have passed through, downtown Rockford had an interesting character that would make me want to return to get to know it better.

Twenty-five miles north, just across the border, the college town of Beloit once had a Carnegie, but no more. When the city outgrew its Carnegie and couldn't expand it, it took over the town's post office for a few decades. When it outgrew that, it moved into a former JC Penney's department store in a mall on the outskirts of the city, one of the most interesting libraries I have encountered. It was huge with lots of large windows letting in tons of light overlooking the Rock River.

Platteville is another town with a Carnegie that I would gladly like to hang out at for a few days pretending I was a resident. The library now houses an architectural firm. Not unsurprisingly it has superbly maintained the strikingly beautiful Tudor style building. It has no library identification on it. It is on a corner facing the town's large park. Scattered all over the town are historical markers. Sixty of the town's buildings have been declared historical landmarks. On one is a mural of nine significant figures in the city's past. One of them is Walter Payton, in remembrance of his time spent there when it was the site of the Bear's pre-season training camp.

Darlington, 25 miles east of Platteville, also had a Carnegie built in the Tudor style. It is now the Lafayette County Historical Society, though retaining "Carnegie Free Library" on its front. It too faces a large park. Right next door is the Johnson Public Library, built in 2000. Benches at its entry are dedicated to its donors Erwin W. and Phyllis K. Johnson. Just beyond the large park is the majestic County Court House, an extravaganza comparable to the most grand of French City Halls. The French would also appreciate the modest picnic table on its front lawn.

The last few days many of the small towns I have passed through have had murals on the sides of buildings. Many are so detailed that I have to stop and give them a closer look. They are another of the many delights of pedalling-paced travel. My heart is continually buoyed by such small discoveries. I paused to sit on a bench a farmer had placed a little ways off the road that had a spectacular view of the hilly countryside. Included in the view were a cowboy cut-out and an eagle on a pedestal and a bird-feeder. He and his wife and others had doubtlessly spent countless joyous hours gazing out and contemplating the wondrous scenery. It helped remind me to be happy for all that I see as I'm pedaling along.

Later, George

Muscoda, Wisconsin

2011-10-12T08:36:00.000-07:00

Friends: As I closed in on the Mississippi and the mythical dividing line between the Western US and the Eastern, I had one final flurry of flashbacks to my previous incarnation as a Pony Express rider as I romped along as if I was desperate to make it to the next outpost and a fresh horse.

I can't be certain that I was among the couple hundred or so young men who served as riders for the short-lived service, but I do know that I would have wanted to have been one. It is as good an explanation for the present life that has chosen me as any, only wishing to be out all day riding my bike long distances in wide open spaces. It could well be that the taste I got of it wasn't enough, when the telegraph put an end to the service in October of 1861, less than 18 months after it started.

There were 120 initial riders covering the 1,900 mile route from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California with outposts every ten miles, the distance a horse could ride at a full gallop. It took ten days for a packet of messages to complete the route. We riders couldn't weigh more than 125 pounds. We rode 75 to 100 miles at a time. Our pay was a fantastic $25 a week, considerably more than the dollar a week the average laborer earned in those days. As with the bicycle messengering, I didn't care what I was paid. It only mattered that I got to be astride a horse all day riding all out. What I did after the service was curtailed I know not, but I am having a great life this time around reliving that experience.

Crossing into Wisconsin was almost like crossing from one culture to another. Suddenly there were businesses everywhere catering to the tourist culture---antique stores and bed and breakfasts and quaint cafes. The small towns were dotted with shops for souvenir hunters.

Lacrosse is such a beer town that one of the breweries had a statue out front of the man known as the inventor and king of beer--the Belgian Gamrinus. He was adorned with a crown and a bright red robe holding a sword in one hand and a stein of beer in the other, upraised, toasting all those who came by.

I have encountered even more friendliness in Wisconsin than on the other side of the Mississippi. Out West people always seemed a tad wary at the approach of a stranger. In other times their hand would be drawn to their pistol until they were certain the desperado on the bike or horse came in peace. But the West also offered a more overt friendliness from those who recognized me immediately as an unthreatening sort and were curious to learn about me, frequently offering a gift.

As I circled around Richland Center this morning in search of its Carnegie Library no one cringed when I drew up along side them asking for directions. I had pleasant conversations with a bicyclist, a woman retrieving her road side garbage can, a man in camouflage walking his dog and a woman on her porch drinking a cup of coffee. It was Rockwellian small-town America at its finest.

I needed guidance as the Carnegie had burned down a few years ago. Joni Mitchell could write a song about it, as it is now a church parking lot. It had already been replaced as the town library and was vacant when it burned down.

The day before I had another disappointing Carnegie experience. The Carnegie in Viroqua had an addition that made it completely unidentifiable as a Carnegie. At least the interior of the old portion retained its majesty with the high ceilings and fine wood work and original long wooden desks and the original checkout counter complete with tiny drawers. Along side the standard portrait of Carnegie paging through a book on his lap was a painting of the library as it had been in all its magnificence.

Muscoda does not have a Carnegie library, but the municipal building it shares is adorned by a mural with bicyclists and canoeists. My last library in Minnesota, in the small town of Houston, also was graced with an eye-catching mural of bookshelves. There was no mistaking it was the library. Quite a few other non-Carnegies have had personalities and peculiarities that made them a delight. The New Ulm library in Minnesota, a river town, rented life jackets.

Next up is the Carnegie in Platteville, forty miles south of here, former pre-season training camp for the Bears. I will relive another of my lives there, my time as a football fanatic. I biked there in 1986 from Chicago on my way up to the Boundary Waters for a week of canoeing with several friends, back before I was a Carnegie fanatic.

It will be less than 200 miles back to Chicago. With the full moon I could make it in one go. I rode into the dark last night with its bright illumination and easy forest camping whenever I felt the inclination. A pair of Amish families in horse carriages added to the ambiance. They had headlights they could turn on when traffic came along. The full moon shined its full approval, not wanting me to stop riding.

Later, George

Preston, Minnesota

2011-10-10T13:39:00.000-07:00

Friends: No worries for the citizens of Mankato confusing their renamed Carnegie Art Museum with its first incarnation as a library, as a thick growth of vines covers the front of the building, covering up the "Public Library" over the entry, unlike many of the Carnegies with "Library" still on prominent display though they no longer serve such a purpose.

The Carnegie isn't the only place to go to see art in this large college (Mankato State University) and industrial city on the Minnesota River, a tributary of the Mississippi. One can take a stroll along an art sculpture tour through the city's downtown. A sculpture right around the corner from the library is made up a bike parts, largely handlebars, shaped into a cube, and is entitled "27," a cubic yard of space.

I have been on a stretch of Carnegie libraries that do not prominently and proudly acknowledge Carnegie on their original facades as most of those in Montana and North Dakota did. Some communities were reluctant to accept funds from the steel magnate, not caring for his treatment of his workers, but begrudgingly took the money. Carnegie did not care if they put his name on the library or not. He in fact preferred they didn't.

The library in Hutchinson didn't even have library anywhere on the outside of the building. When I spotted the building in the center of a large park in the very heart of the town I though it was the city hall, though it had the unmistakable majesty of a Carnegie including a pair of pillars. The park in front of it featured a large fountain and a network of walkways with benches. It was clearly the town's centerpiece. It had a sizable addition to its rear that did not mar its appearance in the least. A plaque beside the original entry identified it as being on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Carnegie in Mapleton, a town of less than 2,000 residents, also has an entire block to itself in the very heart of the town. It had no "Carnegie" on its building and spelled "public" with a "v." The town probably hasn't grown much in the hundred years since the Carnegie was built. It is a rare one that hasn't needed an addition. It looks as pristine as if its grand opening was last week. It is a fine example of a Carnegie in its original state with a pair of inset columns and four sets of three tall magnificent windows.

No one was out and about in Mapleton early Sunday afternoon nor on the roads either, as the Vikings were doing battle on television. When I ducked into a Wal-Mart for groceries mid-morning in Mankato nearly every shopper was wearing a Viking jersey. The most popular was Favre. My fifteen minutes of provisioning was the only time I spent in doors all day. I relish all my hours in the out-of-doors.

The wind has slackened but its still blowing from the south and keeping the temperatures warm. I was happy to take advantage of the fifty-cent sodas in these small town's soft drink machines. At Mapleton I was finally able to start heading directly east, so the wind was less of a nuisance than it has been.

It was nearly one hundred miles on highway 30 to the next Carnegie in Chatfield. No Carnegie on this one either, just "Public Library" in white lettering against a green trim over the entry. This library had had a seamless brick addition. It also serves as the Chatfield Historical Museum.

Fourteen miles south the Carnegie in Preston had been desecrated by a garish bright green canopy over its entry. At least it was open on Columbus Day. Most of the libraries I have visited the past two weeks has notices saying they would be closed, some due to budgetary restraints. Though Preston still has only 2,000 residents, its library has been greatly expanded, though more tastefully than the canopy would imply. No "Carnegie" on the building, but his portrait hangs in the addition.

I passed through the tiny town of Fountain on my way to Preston from Chatfield. It is the self-proclaimed Sink Hole Capital of the U.S.A. due to the prevalence of karst topography. It is also the starting point for a bike trail that is prominent enough that the town's water tower has a bicycle on it and the town's welcoming sign features a penny-farthing.

This is my last Carnegie in Minnesota. The Mississippi is less than fifty miles away. I'll cross at LaCrosse tomorrow morning and then have less than 300 miles back to Chicago. I don't have to feel any let down about a trip coming to an end as I already have plans to join up with Don Jaime for a ride through the Ozarks shortly after I return.

Hopefully I will be able to pick up the Bears game tonight in my tent. They are playing the undefeated Lions in Detroit. It is a huge game for all of Detroit--its first Monday night game in over a decade. The Bears are two and two, trying to figure out how good they are. Tonight's game will be a big test. If I were watching it on television I would be hoping to see the Super Bowl Chrysler commercial.

Later, George

Litchfield, Minnesota

2011-10-07T14:04:00.000-07:00

Friends: For much of its length the Mississippi River forms a dividing line between states. It doesn't begin serving that purpose though until after it meanders through the middle of Minnesota on over to the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul near the state's border with Wisconsin.

I met up with the mighty Mississip near the center of the state in the small town of Little Falls. I was able to follow it for ten miles on its western bank, past the homestead of Charles Lindbergh where he lived a Tom Sawyer youth building rafts to cross the river with his dog and playing in the woods. The house he grew up in is part of the 110 acre Charles A. Lindbergh State Park, the family's former homestead, established in 1931, four years after Lindbergh's historic flight, in honor of Lindergh's father, a five term Congressman from 1907 to 1917. His home has been largely restored, as it was greatly vandalized by souvenir hunters in the first months of his great international celebrity. He was Time magazine's first Man of the Year and remains its youngest, narrowly retaining the distinction over last year's honoree--Mark Zuckerberg.

Lindbergh was only two years old when Little Falls dedicated its library in 1904--a Carnegie that still serves its intended purpose, though it has been swallowed up by a huge addition in 1999. I didn't even notice the original building until I asked the librarian if the old library still stood. "Its behind you," she gestured. And indeed it was, its brick walls forming one of the rooms of the library. The old library contains a "Lindbergh Room" for special events. On the wall is a 45 star American flag that was discovered in the walls of the old library when the addition was undertaken.

The library stands on a large park-like parcel of land graced with large trees, explaining why I hadn't noticed the old library when I biked up. The new canopied entrance from local stone was also impressive enough to distract me from looking around and noticing the original building alongside it . A wooden beam above the original entry was etched with "Carnegie Library". Just below, chiseled into the cement, was A. D. 1904. Beside the entry was a U.S. Department of Interior plaque designating it as a Historic Place.

I had expected to reach my next Carnegie in Litchfield about 70 miles south early this afternoon, but with the fiercest winds of the trip holding my speed to under eight miles per hour, I was lucky to make it before closing time. Litchfield has a new library, though it honors the old Carnegie with a painting of it in its entry and a Carnegie Room for special events.

The original library is several blocks away past a Burger King and is now privately owned. It has been renamed "Library Square" and is home to three businesses--Grand Concepts Hair Salon, The Work Connection Employment Center and Divine Home Care. It has a small glass addition that is an affront to the original building to accommodate them all. There is no Carnegie on the building, just "Library" above the double-pillared entry.

The winds blew all last night, a rarity, foreboding another all-day battle in the saddle. I was lucky to be camping in a gully protected from the wind, though the trees surrounding me shed twigs and leaves on me all night. There was no early morning lull in the wind, as is normal. This is the fifth straight day of strong winds from the southeast, quite uncharacteristic for this time of the year.

Leaves and corn husks and other debris have been flying past me on the road all day in a mad rush as if the apocalypse was nigh. A farmer in a pick-up flagged me down and commented, "You've got ten pounds of shit packed on a five pound bike. Can I give you a lift to the next town?" He seemed genuinely concerned for me pushing into the near gale force winds. I told him I had come over 2,000 miles already and that I could manage, but thanked him for his offer.

Road signs were shimmering in the wind as if they were kites wanting to go airborne. It was garbage day for this region and all the empty garbage cans out along the road had blown over. The wind was a deafening roar in my ears. Luckily the towns were just ten miles apart, almost an hour-and-a-half of riding between each. It sure will be sweet when the wind finally lets up and I can pedal along without having to give it all my attention and effort. My five days of tail winds across Montana are now evened up with the head winds of Minnesota.

At least it is good news for my roommate. Those tail winds of Montana made it look as if I would return much earlier than anticipated, disrupting her plans. She's had the apartment to her self for six of the last seven months. It is always an adjustment when the wanderer shows up and disperses his gear all over the place, not bothering to pack things away knowing he will be off again before long.

Later, George

Perham, Minnesota

2011-10-05T09:56:00.000-07:00

Friends: I have been dodging sugar beets along the road the last 150 miles fallen off trucks taking them to market. I haven't had to worry about being pelted by a beet falling off a truck though, as there is a temporary moratorium on the harvest with excessively hot temperatures in the 80s, twenty degrees higher than normal. The harvest is best when it gets down to freezing at night. The last two nights its been a balmy 58 degrees.

The moratorium put a young man rolling a cigarette I met outside the Carnegie library in Crookston temporarily on hiatus. He had bused in from Minneapolis, 300 miles away, for the work. He wasn't complaining though, as he was enjoying the quiet rural town of Crookston and its fine library and the movie theater across the street, the Grand, one of the oldest in the country, divided into two screens with $4 matinees and $5 evening features. The Carnegie building was now used as storage for the Historical Society. The new library was less than fifty feet away, but because the Carnegie was built on a bit of a rise, the new library could not have been added on to it.

Like most of these western Carnegies, "Carnegie" was engraved into the building along with the old style spelling of "Pvblic" with a "v" and "Library. It was so traditional that the date of its construction, 1907, was accompanied with an "A.D.", though not so traditional as to give the date in roman numerals. It looked gallant with four pillars sitting on its rise overlooking the small downtown. The concrete sides on the steps leading to its entrance were engraved with the mayor, the architect and contractor on one side and the library board on the other. It must have been a magnificent grand opening with all present.

The strong southerly winds gusting to 30 miles per hour have kept me under 70 miles the past two days. Yesterday was one of the few days in these travels where I didn't pass a town with a library. I was on a lightly traveled secondary road known as the "Prairie Passage" with towns of less than 1,000. At least now that I'm in more fertile terrain there are more towns and roads to choose from. Its not as forested as I would like with much of the land under cultivation--sugar beets and soy beans and corn and wheat. The occasional clump of trees temporarily blocks the wind, allowing my speed to spurt from ten miles per hour to almost fifteen, but not for long. I didn't even average eleven miles per hour yesterday.

I camped in a clump of trees last night on the White Earth Indian Reservation about ten miles north of Detroit Lakes. The local radio station was fully devoted to the harvest, giving advice and even interviewing the owner of the local hardware store on what products he had to help. There were commercials for fertilizers and seeds and crop insurance and a flat tire repair service that would come directly to the fields. I have to cover my face when I pass a field where a tractor is at work stirring up the dirt and crop fragments.

Detroit Lakes was on my route as it had a Carnegie, my second of Minnesota's 63 Carnegies, eleven more than in all of Montana, North Dakato, Idado and Wyoming. This one was on level enough ground and on a corner lot large enough that it could accommodate an extensive expansion. The former entrance looking out onto the town's main street was now closed and barricaded by a chest high hedge. The front facade of the prominent yellow brick building was engraved with "PVBLIC LIBRARY" and "CARNEGIE" below it. A band of white stone beneath the roof was ornately carved. It too was a most grand building the town could be proud of.

Not only do I now have a choice of many roads to choose from, I also have a much wider choice of radio stations to listen to at night before I dive into my latest book, a biography of Napoleon, a book I picked up at a library along the way. At the entry of nearly every library I've visited is a shelf or two books for sale, usually about fifty cents for the paperbacks and sometimes for free. Whether I need a book or not, I always check the selection as its not very good.

I was desperate enough early in the trip to give an Oprah book a read, "A Map of the Heart" by Jane Hamilton. Its the first time that I've knowingly read one of her recommendations. I couldn't resist a book with "map" in its title even though the blurbs on the book jacket gave no indication what it was about, only that it had made the top ten list of several publications for book of the year in 1994.

The book turned into a very good read, even though it had nothing to do with maps. It was written as a first person narrative of a husband and wife who are making an attempt at farming in Wisconsin outside of Racine. A neighbor's two year old daughter drowns in their pond and then the wife is accused of child molestation on her job as the grade school nurse. She can't meet bail so spends three months in jail. There the highlight of her day is the Oprah show. The book warranted recommendation by Oprah even without this added assist, though Oprah waited until 1999 five years after the book was written, when the movie of the book was released, to add it to her book club.

Hamilton's first book, "The Book of Ruth," was Oprah's third selection in 1996, the year she began her club. She is just one of several authors to have been chosen more than once. Toni Morrison has had four books chosen, the most of any author among Oprah's list of 65 books. Bill Cosby and William Faulkner have had three each.

Last night for the first time since I left Telluride I found an NPR station. I occasionally pulled in a CBC station when I was closer to the Canadian border, a virtual NPR station, likewise commercial free. But my book always takes precedence over the radio.

Later, George

Grand Forks, North Dakota

2011-10-03T08:33:00.000-07:00

Friends: For the last 800 miles across Montana and North Dakota towards the end of each day as the sun approaches the horizon behind me my shadow begins to grow larger and larger in front of me and my legs spin a little bit easier with a cycling companion to draft.

As the sun dips lower and lower, my shadow creeps further and further ahead of me, eventually even outdistancing 18-wheelers as they roar by. But I am determined to not let it drop me. Sticking in its slipstream keeps my pace up and makes the end of the day cycling all the more glorious. No matter how far ahead of me he gets, I can still reach out and give him a pat on the back, letting him know I am doing just fine and to not let up.

The scenery all about takes on a golden luster. Its lines are drawn all the more sharper by the low-lying sun. When the pebbles on the road start having shadows I know I am about to lose my drafting partner. I ease up a bit in anticipation of being on my own and having to expend a little more energy.

When he is finally spent and falls off, disappearing at about the same time as the sun does, he has given me such a good lead out and respite for quite a few miles, I can continue the pace he has set, riding triumphantly and joyously for another 15 or 20 minutes until the light is nearly all snuffed out, reluctantly ending Another Great Day on the Bike. I'll pass up spots that would be ideal for camping, enjoying the riding too much to quit. Its just like with the messengering, always wanting to make one more delivery and then another before having to end my day on the bike.

Last night I camped ten miles from Grand Forks in a patch of forest that adjoined someone's property. I was lucky they didn't have a super sleuth of a dog. It was my fourth Sunday in my tent since leaving Telluride and the first one where I could pick up a sports station, thanks to the nearby metropolis of 80,000 people, including East Grand Forks in Minnesota on the other side of the Red River. For once I didn't have to wait until Monday to find out how the Bears fared. The night before I listened to the Fighting Sioux of North Dakota hockey team in an exhibition game against a Canadian team. College hockey is the most popular sport in these parts.

And then today I cycled through the University of North Dakota campus in search of its Carnegie library. It was on the fringe of the 14,000 student campus, a block behind the new megalith of a library. Though the old Carnegie still has "Library Building" chiseled into its front facade, it is now known as Carnegie Hall and arranges campus visits and enrollment. Its cornerstone was engraved with 1907.

The Carnegie Public Library in down town Grand Forks was torn down nearly 40 years ago, though its metal fence and limestone facade with "Library" etched into it have been relocated to the new large library on the outskirts of this now sprawling city. A large Air Force base with a population of 5,000 contributes to the town's size and economy. I passed it along Highway 2 last night. A sign warned of low-flying air craft.

I began yesterday too with a Carnegie visit in Devil's Lake, a library that is now in private ownership, "An Elegant Affair," hosting and arranging weddings and events. Its phone number is 66 BRIDE. It was another mini-Taj Mahal of a building with a plaque besides its entry, as should all Carnegies, stating, "This property has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior." "Carnegie Library" is chiseled into its front facade. Just below, above the double door entryway are the numbers 19 on one side and 09 on the other. The modern new Lake Region Public Library is around the corner and a huge Masonic Temple, also available for weddings, is across the street.

The first of the four Carnegies I paid homage to in North Dakota in Minot was the first I've encountered in these travels that had pillars out front, a pair, a more common accoutrement in the eastern Carnegies. It was now a community center holding local events. "Public Library" was chiseled on its front facade with 1911 just below. It was nearly six p.m., but there was no sign on its saying closed or with its hours. I tried to the door. It was unlocked, though no one was in the building. There were two large rooms, one with long banquet tables and chairs and the other with chairs lining the wall, ready for the weekend square dance. When I exited I noticed a small sign on the door saying, "Just close the door, don't try to lock it."

When I returned to my bike a white-haired gentleman was awaiting me. He was another ultra-friendly North Dakotan. "Would you like a piece of cake?" he asked. " I just left the Catholic church buffet and they sent me home with three pieces, more than I need." I gladly accepted. Then he unwrapped another plate with tin foil around it and said, "Have some garlic bread too if you'd like."

I heartily thanked him. He said, "I'd stay and talk, but my wife just left me and I've got to meet a friend who is picking me up to go to his house."

The next day, about halfway across the state I was welcomed to the town of Rugby by a sign stating it was the geographical middle of North America. Even though it was mid-day on a Saturday the visitor center across from the obelisk marking the spot right on the highway was closed and I couldn't ask when and by whom it had been established that it was the center. Three towns in France all lay claim to being its center, each using different criteria. I've been to them all and they each have a very official looking marker.

Rugby's librarian couldn't answer the question either nor could the town's two local cyclists. One entered the library just as it was closing at two p.m., drawn by my bike out front. He was riding a quality Peugeot, though he said it wasn't his best bike. He also had a Colnago. He was a former racer and a former hippie. When he learned I had passed though Missoula, he said he was very interested in moving there and wondered how easy it was to find pot there. That I couldn't tell him. He asked if I needed a shower. I don't know if he could tell I was in need of one or if he just understood that is something that touring cyclists are on the alert for. He said the County Fairgrounds had free hot showers. He had camped there for three months until recently. I eagerly accepted his offer to lead the way.

As we talked outside the library the town's other cyclist passed by, a guy he had mentioned, a guy who had eight bikes and had done a bit of touring himself and was a member of Warm Showers offering free lodging to touring cyclists. Like his friend he spoke with an authentic North Dakota accent, as thick as that of William H. Macey in the Coen brother's movie "Fargo" from 1996. Even if these guys weren't such interesting characters, it would have been highly entertaining just listening to them talk.

The touring cyclist had most recently spent a month in New Zealand and before that Iceland. He admitted that he, like every other cyclist I met while in Iceland except one, a Japanese fellow who was on too tight of a budget, had buckled to the winds at one point and resorted to the bus that circles the Ring Road around the island.

We talked for nearly an hour. I had to restrain myself from sharing too much, wanting to learn of his experiences and hear him speak the lingo. When the ex-hippie and I finally set off for the shower, he asked his friend, "What are you doing tomorrow?"

"There's a gun show in Bismark I was thinking of going to."

"If you decide to go, let me know."

Later, George

Minot, North Dakota

2011-09-30T14:16:00.001-07:00

Friends: I almost feel as if I'm back in China riding one its its industrial corridors with all the truck traffic and bustle. It is boom times in North Dakota thanks to all its oil production.

The first large city across the border from Montana, Williston, has just one per cent unemployment. There were "Help Wanted" signs everywhere, many adding "All Shifts." The local newspaper advertised a seminar this weekend for employers on how to keep their employees happy and to prevent them from leaving for another job.

Highway Two might not be the best route across North Dakota for a cyclist, as it has turned to four lanes wide, compared to the mostly two lanes in Montana, and has a steady flow of truck traffic and doesn't have much of a shoulder and what shoulder there is, a rumble strip takes up most of it. But I am stuck to it for the time as the wind has turned on me, gusting from the south east, holding me to barely ten miles per hour after doing nearly double that across all of Montana. I can't turn south to a more lightly trafficked road as that would be into the teeth of the wind.

It is wide open country with nothing to block the wind. Its another 200 miles to Minnesota and trees, but of course the wind could switch tomorrow and I'll be flying once again, wracking up the centuries. After five straight days of frolicking with a hearty tailwind I was almost feeling guilty for how easy it was, but I've had plenty of head winds over the years, including my coast-to-coast ride in 1977 east to west into the wind most of the way, though fortunately rarely as ferocious as today's wind.

If I assess my ledger of days with the wind and days into the wind, I know I have earned a good dose of tail winds from all the head winds I have endured over the years. Five straight days was a heaping big bonanza of tail winds. I greatly enjoyed it and tried to take full advantage of it, keeping my breaks to a minimum. I was just hoping it didn't spoil me, as being upgraded to first class on a trans-Atlantic flight spoiled me for flying.

Now having the wind as a foe rather than an ally, I have geared down and reconcile it taking twice as long to reach the next town as it had in Montana. It still feels good to be propelling myself along. My legs almost enjoy the extra exertion required of them. Even though the wind is from the south it doesn't have much warmth in it. It is just 66 degrees today. When I stop to rest I have to put on a layer or two to stay warm and have not shed my tights after beginning the day with the temperature below 40.

Being in oil country with drills dotting the landscape, it was no surprise that I camped last night behind what I though was an oil company reserve. It was a one hundred foot by one hundred foot plot surrounded by a high fence with barbed wire atop it and hatches to a bunch of compartments. It was down a dirt road about a quarter mile off the highway.

I felt sure my tent couldn't been seen from the road on the backside of the plot when I set it up just before dark. There were "no trespassing" signs on the fence and some more writing that I didn't bother to read, though I noticed at the bottom there was a warning "Armed Force If Necessary." I thought that a little excessive, but gave it no more thought until I was woken in the morning, just as the sun was peaking over the horizon, by an authoritarian voice demanding, "Could you please exit your tent."

I was greeted by a burly soldier in camouflage and full military gear cradling a monstrous rifle. "This is a military zone, you must vacate the premises," he said. I was lucky it wasn't China, as I would have been hauled into the local police station or military outpost, as happened to me when I inadvertently bicycled into a forbidden zone. But this was more like Israel, when I camped near the Syria border and Israeli soldiers on night patrol stumbled upon me. They recognized by my bike I was a harmless sort and just advised me not to go wandering across the border. This soldier made a similar assessment and was most cordial about his duty. He explained I had camped alongside a weapons depot.

The night before I took refuge behind a pile of railroad ties stacked to my height alongside the railroad track that runs alongside Highway Two, the only object for miles taller than the knee high wheat. They reeked of tar, but my tent and the wind kept the scent from bothering me.

My most unique campsite though of these travels was the night I camped behind two large tubs near a spring for cattle to drink from about half a mile up a jeep trail from the road I was biking. They didn't provide full shelter from the sparse traffic along the road, but in the dark it was highly unlikely anyone would spot me. Where I shall camp each night is something I always look forward to with great anticipation.

Despite the booming economy in North Dakota, the library here in the large city of Minot is the first in these travels, and one of the few ever, to charge me to use the Internet--$2 for an hour. I don't mind at all contributing to a library's coffers. It is a large three-story facility that replaced a Carnegie in 1966. The Carnegie still stands and is now known as the Carnegie Center for community events. Art Center.

It will be my only expense for the day. I had a windfall of free food yesterday that I haven't eaten up. A kindly gentleman who has always wanted to take a bike trip gave me a bunch of food yesterday at the Williston library--chunky soup, apple sauce, saltine crackers and granola bars. I also picked up several cups of dehydrated soups still sealed in cellophane and a pound of potato chips that must have flown out the back of one of the many pick-up trucks that are a common site overloaded with supplies headed out to a drill site. It was cold enough yesterday with a wind from the north that I bought a half gallon of chocolate milk, good for two days.

Later, George

Wolf Point, Montana

2011-09-28T10:41:00.000-07:00

Friends: When I finished my photo shoot with Greg at Adventure Cycling and was ready to be on my way, he asked if he could give me some advice on the best way to head north to Route 2. How could I say no to the man who has mapped out a whole network of the most renowned and most traveled bike routes in America totaling thousands of miles--not only the Grand Daddy of them all, the 1976 Bikecentennial Trail from Virginia to Oregon, but northern and southern coast-to-coast routes as well, and routes down the Pacific Coast and along the Mississippi River and about the western National Parks and down the Continental Divide, just to name a few.

I pulled out my Montana map and let him guide the way. "It may seem counter-intuitive," he said, "to go a bit south at first, but if you follow the frontage road along Interstate 90 to Helena and then follow Interstate 15 to Great Falls, you'll be following a drainage and will avoid a series of nasty hills on highway 200. It may be a little longer, but it won't be as hard. You'll have to ride on the Interstate for a couple of short stretches, buts its legal to ride on it any where in Montana.

I noticed I'd be climbing to 6,325 feet to cross the Continental Divide his way, compared to a pass of 5,609 feet the other way. He said the steep hills would make more aggregate climbing though. I was pleased to be able to take this "Siple option." I would allow me to pass through the state capital, Helena, and then to follow the Missouri River on to Great Falls.

It was a little after five when I bid Greg farewell. After sitting around all day and having only ridden twelve miles that morning after camping along the Lolo River outside of Missoula,I was eager to do some biking. Two-and-a-half hours of light remained to the day, but first I had to swing by the Free Cycle bike co-op a mile away that fellow touring cyclist Nicolas had highly recommended to drop off all the water bottles and bungee cords and some stray tools I had collected along the road. Nicolas had spent a couple of nights there and said I'd no doubt be able to as well if I so desired. I didn't think I cared to linger, but I still wanted to see this non-profit operation that provided bikes and parts and repairs without charge, just donations.

There was no mistaking Free Cycles as I approached it in a residential area on the outskirts of Missoula. A huge pile of bike frames stripped of their parts was in a lot beside the Free Cycle warehouse. Inside it was a clone of Working Bikes in Chicago with bins and bins of brakes and derailleurs and other bike parts and neatly organized clusters of wheels and handlebars and forks.

Free Cycles started up seven years ago and is so successful that it has expanded to an even larger warehouse across the street. There were a handful of volunteers working on various projects. The most ambitious was a "bike bus'--a large rectangular frame that would seat 21 people and that would be powered by two cyclists.

I could have spent the night, but I was too eager to ride my bike and to spend the night in my tent off in a forest. When I mentioned the interstate route that Greg had suggested, I was told that the camping wouldn't be so easy along that way. As I studied the map, looking at the route I had originally planned on biking, I remember one of the reasons I was attracted to that route was that it took me through Lincoln, the town the Unabomber had chosen to live in after moving west from back east. Some steep hills couldn't deer me from giving it a look.

I had a superlative campsite twenty miles outside of Missoula along a creek. It was another 58 miles to Lincoln, in Lewis and Clark County. There had been a Lewis and Clark historical marker or reference every few miles since I picked up their trail in Salmon, Idaho. I had multiple opportunities to camp exactly where they had. There pioneering trail in 1805 is quite well-documented. There was just one stretch over a pass up from the Salmon River when the rapids became too intense for them to continue to follow the river where there is great debate as to where they camped three nights.

I was welcomed to Lincoln with a sign that advertised itself as "Part Wilderness, Part Paradise." There was a series of small non-descript motels and cafes through the small town and a small grocery store. I took advantage of the laundromat alongside it for a quick wash. This one didn't have a shower as some of these small western towns have, just a rest room. There was no reference to the Unabomber and I resisted asking any of the locals if they had known him. I knew he had taken advantage of the town's small library on its outskirts, but it was closed on Saturday, a rare small town library that had Sunday hours, but not Saturday.

It was a gradual 18 miles up to the Continental Divide. Though there was a pull out for vehicles to put on chains, the grade never exceeded four per cent, making it not much of a strain. It was a much steeper grade on the descent, though a pine forest of mostly dead trees, victims of the gypsy beetle. The descent took me out of the forests of Montana and out into the plains of whet fields and cattle grazing. No more bear worries. But then came a series of killer hills that Greg had warned me about. They just went on for 25 miles or so.

I found a somewhat protected gully to camp in a bit off the road, 38 miles from Great Falls. Out in the open I was able to take advantage of a south westerly wind the next day, arriving in the large city of Great Falls on the Missouri River before noon. I went in search of its library, a Carnegie. It had been torn town and replaced by a large modern library. If it had been a week later I could have gone inside, when it began Sunday hours in October. One of the gray beards I asked for directions told me if I had been a couple hours earlier I could have had a free breakfast at the Salvation Army.

Out of Great Falls heading northeast to Route Two 114 miles away the wind had me romping along at better than twenty miles per hour. Forty miles away at Fort Benton another Carnegie awaited me, this one in fine shape, a white brick building with a matching expansion just a block from the Missouri and an old iron bridge that was now only available for pedestrian and bicycle use.

Four more Carnegies awaited me on Route 2, allowing me to check out eight of the seventeen built in Montana at the beginning of the 1900s. None of the four were still in use as libraries. The one in Havre is now an Art Museum as is the one in Missoula. Chinook's Carnegie, twenty-two miles to the east, was now occupied by the Bear Paw Cooperative and wasn't being well cared for. The one in Malta was vacant after having been the county museum for a few years. It looked most forlorn, though its grandeur could not be hidden. It is a gem waiting to be restored. Malta was a thriving community at one point with at least two movie theaters--one now a medical facility and the other an H and R Block outlet.

The Carnegie in Glasgow, like that in Great Falls, was no more, torn down and replaced by a characterless library at the same location in 1966. The contents from its 1908 cornerstone now reside in the new cornerstone. The library wasn't too far from the high school. Its mascot is the Scotties. The back of the team bus said, "You are behind the Scotties once again."

No more Carnegies now until North Dakota, less than 100 miles away. With the winds still at my back I'll be there in no time. Four of its eight are on my three hundred route across the top of the state. They no doubt will be as distinctive and majestic and worthy of preservation as all I have come across over the years.

Later, George

Missoula, Montana

2011-09-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

Friends: I first became aware of Greg Siple in May of 1973 when he and his wife June along with Dan Burden and his wife were featured in a National Geographic cover story about a bicycle trip from Alaska to the tip of South America. I was a month away from graduating from Northwestern. The story planted the idea of long distance bike travel in my mind, though I wasn't able to act upon it for several years.

If I were the ardent cyclist I am now I would have recognized the name Siple, as he and his father founded TOSRV, Tour of the Scioto River Valley, a two-day 210-mile tour in Ohio in 1962, a tour that spawned Indiana's Hilly Hundred and Michigan's Apple Cider Century and Iowa's RAGBRAI and countless others.

I next heard of Siple in the summer of 1976 when he and his wife and the Burdens established a coast-to-coast bicycle route called Bikecentennial to celebrate the nation's Bicentennial. More than 3,000 cyclists, most in groups of ten to fifteen, rode the route. A friend in Chicago was among those. He loaned me his maps and I began my career as a touring cyclist in 1977, the first cyclist across the route the year after the mass migration of cyclists.

I have wanted to meet the Siples and Burdens ever since that National Geographic article and even more so after they established the Bicentennial organization that was renamed Adventure Cycling Association. I was fortunate enough to meet Greg two years ago when I helped move a friend who was hired by Dan to be his assistant running his Walkable Organization, from Orlando to Port Townsend, Washington, where he is based. He was a most affable and easy-going individual with loads of inspiring stories.

Greg Siple has continued with the Bikecentennial/Adventure Cycling Organization, based in Missoula. He wasn't around in 1977 when I passed through on the Bikecentennial Trail and I hadn't been back since. When I learned from fellow touring cyclist Nicolas (http://gypsybytrade.wordpress.com/), who I met while touring in Maryland this past spring, that the Adventure Cycling office had one of Ian Hibbell's bicycles, Missoula immediately became a bicycling pilgrimage site for me. Hibbell too has been one of my inspirations. This English cyclist is a legendary figure--the first cyclist to ride from the tip of South America to Alaska, including the Darien Gap, at least as best he could, and also the first to ride from the northernmost point in Europe to the tip of Africa in the 1970s through the Sahara.

When I walked into the offices of the Adventure Cycling Association's offices this past Friday morning there was Greg talking to the receptionist. He immediately recognized me as a touring cyclist and offered me an ice cream cone from the freezer in the the reception area for touring cyclists, which also included a computer for Internet use. I told him I was most interested in seeing Ian Hibbell's bike. He corrected my pronunciation of Hibbell. It is actually a long i, not a short i. The same goes for Siple's name.

I was happy to see the National Geographic article on the wall alongside the receptionist's desk. There were bicycles mounted on the wall in the large, high-ceilinged main office. The building had formerly been a Christian Science Church, the religion I was raised in. Adventure Cycling purchased the building in 1992. The door handles on the pair of doors of the main entry into the former church were bicycle handlebars with green foam handlebar tape.

Greg said he was under deadline editing the photos for the nine-times a year Adventure Cycling magazine, but he could give me a quick tour. In the touring cyclist receptionist area were photos of touring cyclists who had visited Missoula over the years. The first was Frank Lenz in 1892, the cyclist who disappeared in Turkey on an around the world tour that was the subject of David Herlihy's biography last year, "The Lost Cyclist," and the cyclist that I went in search of in Turkey last fall.

Greg specializes in photographing cyclists and asked if he could take my picture as well, though later in the day would be best when he was done with his work and the lighting was better. I said I was in no hurry and had planned to make the day a rest day in Missoula.

Adventure Cycling is the largest bike membership group in North America, with 45,000 members. It has a staff of 30 and an annual budget of $4 million. Last year 1,l00 touring cyclists stopped by, and this year was on a similar pace. It is a bare trickle compared to that Bicentennial year and what it ought to be, though the organization itself is thriving. Greg said it is hard to imagine that it got its birth in a tent in Mexico.

Greg saved Hibbel's bike to the end of my tour. It is hidden away down in the basement. It was the bike that Hibbell rode through Africa. It was complete with several of the three liter containers that he carried with him. It was a custom built frame with no decals on it. It was a small frame with down handlebars and skinny tires. Greg said he was about his height, feet feet eight inches. Greg said the bike he saw Ian on in Mexico now resides in some bike shop in the mid-west. He said Ian wasn't even sure which one. Greg would like to find it so he could add it to the Adventure Cycling collection.

He said Ian had delivered it to their offices shortly before his death in Greece in 2008. Greg and June had actually met Ian in 1972 in Mexico, after the Burdans had abandoned their trip due to hepatitis. Ian had already crossed the Darien Gap and was still recovering from the ordeal. The Siples were headed that direction. They flew over the Darien Gap as did I when I made the trip in 1989. Neither of us cared to spend several weeks hacking through the jungle for a couple hundred miles.

Greg maintained a close friendship with Ian ever since then. Ian and a girl friend began another trip to South America in the late '70s in Missoula so he could visit the Siples. Ian wrote about that trip, in which he crossed South America at its widest point from Lima, Peru to Recife, Brazil in the book "Into the Remote Places," published in 1984, his only book. The book also included his Cape Horn to Alaska trip as well as the North Cape to Cape Town trip.

I have long been in search of the book and wasn't willing to pay the $150 that Amazon wants. It was among the hundreds of bicycling books in Adventure Cycling's library. I could have spent the rest of the year reading many of its rare cycling books--bios of Hinault and Anquetil and Cadell Evans and Davis Phinney and lots of oddball touring books, many decades old, such as "Elvin's Tales" about Harold Elvin's rides in Thailand, Lapland and Cambodia and "Crackers and Peaches" about bicycling in Georgia by Jane Schnell and "Cycling, Wine and Men" by Nancy Brook about biking in France.

Greg was most happy to let me sit and read all day. He kept checking on me every hour or so, offering more stories and food. He told me that in 1968 when he was touring in Europe he crossed paths with the Tour de France and biked along with Raymond Poulidor for a few miles as he warmed up pedaling from his hotel to the stage start.

After several hours he said, "You're the first person to sit here all day and read a book." It was 204 pages long and riveting, stirring many memories of my own, having traveled many of the miles he wrote about. I stuck with it, resisting all the other temptations the office walls offered. I could have easily spent the day simply looking at all the photographs that Greg had taken of touring cyclists the past couple of decades when he began the National Bicycle Touring Portrait Collection, and reading the brief description the many cyclists offered of themselves. I will most certainly have to return.

It was just before five when Greg was ready to take my photograph. But first he added an appendix to the book. The woman he traveled with through South America until she had to abandon the trip due to hepatitis eventually became his wife, though it didn't last too long. She later returned to Missoula with a second husband and Ian's child as well as a child by her second husband.

Greg told me to bring my bike around back in the alley where he had a white canopy to drop down as an official backdrop for all his touring cyclist photographs. Behind it was a scale that he weighs every bike with its gear. Mine came to 107 pounds, a bit more than I would have guessed. Greg said I needed to send 27 pounds home. I did have a dozen water bottles to donate to the Free Cycle bicycle shop a few blocks away, one of eight bike shops in Missoula, plus REI, which also sells bikes and accessories. He was happy to take my photo with the ten water bottles in a basket atop my tent and sleeping bag that I had scavenged along the way, definitely something he had never photographed before.

He also wanted me to write in my profile that in my US bicycle travels I make Carnegie libraries a quest. Carnegie built 17 libraries in Montana, including one in Missoula. It was right across the street from Adventure Cycling, though it was now an art museum. It had been desecrated by a second floor addition that was less in keeping with its original look than any addition I have ever seen on a Carnegie. Most are quite seamless and virtually undetectable, such as the one in Hamilton, Montana that I had visited the day before.

Greg presented me with a dozen bicycle past cards of his photography before I left. Just like his founding partner Dan he was a wonderfully unassuming, quietly self-assured, decent and considerate gentleman--someone I could have spend hours chatting with. It is one of life's great occasions to meet a person one has always admired and respected and wanted to meet and to discover that person has been worthy of the high esteem one has given them.

Later, George

Salmon, Idaho

2011-09-21T09:55:00.001-07:00

Friends: For the first time since leaving Telluride twelve days and 850 miles ago I was within range of a town when I began my day this morning, so I could stop at a cafe and gorge on a stack of hotcakes for breakfast rather than munching on the usual peanut butter sandwich or two as I break camp and pedal along.

I'll need the high octane fuel as the Lost Trail Pass on the Idaho/Montana border awaits me 35 miles away. I'm presently at 4,000 feet elevation, the lowest I've been since leaving Telluride. It will be a 3,000 foot climb to 6,995 feet, then down hill to Missoula, one hundred miles further.

I camped along the Salmon River last night in a farmer's field hidden behind a stack of bales of hay. It was a gentle twelve mile descent to the town of Salmon following the river, but a cold one with the sun hidden by a ridge of mountains flanking the river. I needed to wear my tights for the second time. I ought to get used to them with the days only getting chillier as I head due north to Missoula and then another couple hundred miles north from there to pick up route two along the Canada border to Minnesota before heading south to Chicago. I passed the 45th parallel shortly before camping last night, putting me closer now to the North Pole than the Equator.

As I head east and begin my descent to lower elevations the mornings ought to be not so cold, but the days are growing shorter and winter is approaching. It takes several hours for the sun to warm the air. At least there is little wind at the start of the day. I've been battling late afternoon winds from the north and west. If the westerlies continue, I'll be gobbling up the miles once I begin heading east from Missoula.

I may not have another chance for food or water all day so I stocked up at the local Safeway. After ringing up my purchases the sales clerk congratulated me, "That's a lot of food for six dollars." I took advantage of what items I saw on sale--a pound of tortilla chips for a dollar, a pound of corn flags for a dollar, three yogurts for a dollar, three ramens for a dollar, two cans of baked beans for a dollar, and a pint of chocolate milk. I still have half a loaf of bread and peanut butter and honey as well as a stash of Luna bars left over from Telluride, rations for two days if necessary.

I made the great discovery a few days ago that I don't need boiling water to soften up ramen noodles. I took the risk of purchasing them even though I don't have a stove when they were one of the few items in stock at a small general store. I knew from my travels in Japan that the even skinnier noodles in cups of soup could be made edible with cold water. Fifteen minutes in my Tupperware bowl with a cup of water makes the Ramon noodles ready for dining. Two or three packs a day has dropped my food expenditures to well below ten dollars a day.

I had another first in these travels yesterday as well--the first dog to give me chase, or at least the first one not tethered to a tree or barricaded by a fence. I wouldn't even have known I was being chased if I hadn't heard the dog's owner shouting "Lacey come back, Lacey come back." I looked back to see a medium sized mutt bounding after me without barking. Usually dogs that don't bark are the most serious, but this one wasn't much of a threat. He put up a feeble chase and hardly looked menacing.

It was just beyond the town of Challlis where I began a 58 mile ride along the Salmon River, a designated scenic route. From one outskirts of Challis to the other there was a series of home made Tea Party signs, almost as much of a joke as the mutt--"Next on their agenda--our guns," "Government Takeover--No states rights, no constitution, no drilling, no logging, no grazing, no border, no mining, no roads. Wake up America," "BLM--friend or foe. Wake up Idaho."

It was the most politicizing I'd come across other than a gigantic billboard in Utah with a burly police officer snarling, "If your parents don't catch you, we will. Zero tolerance for drinking and driving."

The wall of a thrift store in the small town of Moore, Idaho was adorned with a mural featuring a heart with an arrow through it and a crying teen with the warning "Meth breaks up families."

I miss all the church message boards of the Bible Belt with their preachy sermon titles.

Later, George

Arco, Idaho

2011-09-19T11:47:00.000-07:00

Friends: A fabulous Monday morning riding a high desert plain framed by the Tetons to the east and a trio of volcanic buttes to the west through the heart of Idaho. No wind and the flat has had me effortlessly gliding along at sixteen miles per hour.

Though it was only 49 degrees at eight a.m. when I broke camp from behind an FAA tower, ten degrees warmer than yesterday, I didn't need my tights or warm gloves as I did yesterday. Within an hour I shed my wind-breaker and vest and not much later traded my long sleeve Garmin jersey for the short sleeve version. I continue to wear them with great pride, especially after Christian Vande Velde's sterling performance at last month's week-long Colorado race finishing a close second to Levi Leiphimer besting five of the top ten finishers in this year's Tour de France, including the first three--Cadel Evans and the Schleck brothers.

I began my day in the middle of a 67-mile townless stretch between Idaho Springs and Arco. With 50,000 people, Idaho Springs was the largest town by far I had passed through in a week since Grand Junction. It is on the Snake River. I was hoping it was enough of a metropolis for its library to be open on Sunday, but it wasn't. It was a fine recently built facility, replacing its Carnegie, a couple of blocks away along the railroad tracks, the only Carnegie I have come across in 750 miles. The old library is now part of a museum, the old brick building contrasting sharply with the glass-panelled addition.

The only dots of civilization between Arco and Idaho Springs were a few nuclear research operations. There are fifty nuclear reactors in the vicinity, the largest concentration in the world, though they are below ground and not to be seen.

Pedaling along, glorying in the vast, wide-open spaces minimally marred by man, I could rejoice in my bicycle once again for allowing me to be a man in the world while not being of it. Two comments from the Telluride Film Festival by noteworthy figures echoing such sentiments continue to resonate with me.

Tilda Swinton commented in her courthouse conversation that she is happiest when she is tending to her garden. The day before Olivia Harrison, George Harrison's wife of thirty years, said the same was true of George. She said he was always delighted when someone came by their property in Hawaii and would mistake him as the gardener, asking if this was the home of the former Beatle. They affirm the wisdom of the sages that the quiet, simple life is the most satisfying. Lucky is the one who is not consumed by materialistic urges.

Though bike touring isn't gardening, it does allow one a similar closeness to the land, especially if one is wild-camping, and frees one of those acquisitive materialistic urges that corrupt and bankrupt the soul. Appreciating the landscape and the scent of the air and the direction of the wind dominate my thought, not wanting to possess any of them.

In years past after the Telluride Film Festival I have biked across southern Utah and Nevada on my way to visit friends in northern California following the Pony Express Trail. This year taking a more northerly route, I picked up the Oregon Trail for a couple of days in Kemmerer, Wyoming, where J.C. Penny was founded in 1902. The original store is still in business. Just a block away is the modest home of Mr. Penny, not much different from Andy Griffith's childhood home in North Carolina that my travels took me past last April. The traveler never knows what novelty of historical significance one might stumble upon.

After a couple days on the Oregon Trail I veered off on the Lander Cut-Off over the 7,610 foot high Salt River Pass established in 1857 heading north to Jackson and central Idaho. Tens of thousands of settlers took this alternative until the trans-continental railroad was completed in 1869.

Shortly after I departed the Oregon Trail in Geneva on the Idaho-Wyoming border I began seeing discarded bicycle water bottles along the road as if I were following the Tour de France, though the bottles were mostly of Utah bicycle shops rather than of teams. The husband-wife proprietors of a motel-general store along the way explained that 2,500 bicyclists had ridden this route the previous Saturday on the 29th annual one-day 208-mile ride from Logan, Utah to Jackson Hole, the same day as the 18.2 mile Imogene Pass run over the second highest road in North America to Telluride that I had stuck around to see.

Before I had reached the summit of the Salt River Pass I had collected over a dozen bottles and was at my capacity. Ten of the large size bottles fit neatly standing upright in the wire mesh handlebar basket I had found along the road several days ago as if in anticipation of this bounty. Yonder Vittles would surely applaud the site of this water bottle reserve sitting perched atop my sleeping bag and tent behind my seat, as if I were Ian Hibbel setting out for a crossing of the Sahara.

It is a fine collection from various Utah bike shops and assorted companies including a colorful Trek bottle with bands of pastel greens and top that perfectly matches my bike as well as a thermal bottle and a couple of bottles with pro-biking slogans. I've dispersed several of them already to cyclists I've met along the way. The rest I can donate to Free Cycles in Missoula, a bike co-op similar to Working Bikes in Chicago.

The proprietors of the general store warned me that after the pass I would descend into a valley populated by millionaires who had been driven out of Jackson by the new crop of billionaires. I was purposefully bypassing Jackson to avoid that blight of trophy houses, not knowing there was a new crop here. The run-in to Afton, with 2,000 residents the largest town along the stretch to Jackson, was a forest of for sale signs.

I spoke with a 64-year old cyclist from Salt Lake City, 230 miles away, who had a second home in the area. He said property values had plummeted in the past couple of years. It used to be you couldn't buy a piece of property in the vicinity for less than $700,000. Now you can find things for $200,000. He said he was all set to retire, but his half million dollar home in Salt Lake was only worth $300,00 now, so he was going to work for another year or two.

"At least I have a good job," he said. "I'd like to take a long tour on my bike like you're doing, but my wife won't let me. The best I can do is go out for an afternoon ride."

Later, George

Mountain View, Wyoming

2011-09-15T13:55:00.000-07:00

Friends: The first historical marker I came upon in Wyoming just across the border from Utah outside of Burnt Fork paid tribute to a rendezvous in 1825 of 800 trappers and folks who lived in the vicinity. It was an annual event until 1840 when the beaver population had diminished and towns were established.

Burnt Fork is no longer much of a town and had no stores with supplies. It was along a 48 mile stretch from Manila, Utah without services, one of the shorter stretches I've experienced since leaving Telluride six days ago. At least it was relatively flat. The 62 mile stretch from Vernal, Utah to Manila included a long steep climb with eight per cent grades to 8,400 feet. A couple of ranchers in Rangely, Colorado had tried to talk me out of going that way, advising me to take a longer, flatter route that would have added fifty miles to my ride. I asked if it was worse than the 3,700 foot climb I had just come up. They said it was a "baby climb" by comparison, but they couldn't tell me how long or how high it was.

It was indeed a brute of a climb, but not as hard as many of the Tour de France climbs in the Alps and Pyrenees. The worst of it was hitting a hail storm just as I reached the summit. I could see forboding black clouds moving in as I finished off the climb. When they unleashed, blue sky still lay ahead. I quickly put on my rain coat and charged ahead hoping to outrace the hail. It was only a gradual descent so I could keep pedaling and generate some body heat. Still I was pelted for twenty minutes until I escaped.

Though I was able to keep my torso dry, I had cooled off considerably. When I reached a sheltered picnic table ten miles later I was shivering cold and needed to put on a sweater and vest and wool cap and gloves to warm up. It was my first taste of winter. It will be nipping at me for the next month or so as I pedal back to Chicago.

But the cycling gods are looking out for me already. I scavenged a Marmot fleece jacket that fits me perfectly along the road today. It is a prized item that will make for a great pillow if nothing else. I found it shortly after the historical marker. I accepted it as a reward of a sort for an offering I left at the marker. I had picked up a couple of wrestling medallions dangling from red, white and blue ribbons earlier in the day. I could only speculate on what they were doing along the road. Had some wrestler pitched them in disgust or had they inadvertently fallen from a pick-up truck or had some wrestler's girl friend tossed them out of spite. They at one time had to have been some one's prized possessions. So I left the two of them dangling at the historical marker for someone to recover.

I have yet to find a bandanna along the road, but I have also found a top-of-the-line Camelback water bottle and also a Bell wire handlebar basket. The basket has been dangling from my heap of gear behind my seat, awaiting either someone to bequeath it to or perhaps making it all the way back to Chicago. David, the German I cycled the Tour de France with this past summer, had such a basket on his Bianci racing bike. It served him well.

I am still up on a high plateau over 7,000 feet in the southwest corner of Wyoming. I will follow the western border for a hundred miles or so before crossing into Idaho, bypassing Jackson and Yellowstone. I have the roads almost to myself. Though I am at high altitude, it is desert terrain. Bears are no worry, just rattlesnakes. Deer do abound, usually in groups of two or three. A solitary one today kept me company for a mile or so bounding along on the other side of a fence, scampering up mounds that he could have easily bypassed, evidently for the fun of it and for a view.

Twice I've had to open a gate to camp down dirt roads that showed no tire tracks. Not all of the terrain is fenced though. There have been stretches of open range with cattle grazing at the road's edge. A cluster of black cows in the distance gave me some concern, as early in my ride I came upon a black bear cub along the road. I let up a bit hoping a vehicle might come along to scare off the bears, but as I neared it was clear they were no threat. It was as if I was back in India where cows are considered sacred creatures and mosey about everywhere.

Just 43 miles to the next supply point in Kemmerer. I'll be passing under interstate 80, but I'm told there is no service station at the intersection, so I need to fill all my water bottles.

Later, George

Dinosaur, Colorado

2011-09-13T11:27:00.000-07:00

Friends: After a month in Telluride it’s back to the bike, a perfect decompression after all the socializing and movies. My twentieth annual visit to Telluride has become as much a family reunion as an immersion into the world of cinema. There are hundreds of us who converge upon Telluride from all over the world year after year for its second to none celebration of cinema, and I count dozens of them as kindred spirits and bosom buddies.

As I've been bicycling through the rugged and largely uninhabited desert scenery of northwestern Colorado the past four days, my mind has been dwelling as much upon the many great friends I have made over the years as upon the great cinema I was treated to. It is always a thrill to renew acquaintances and difficult to say goodbye. Ringmaster Doug, one of my roommates and long-time friend, summed up the great bond many of us feel when he commented as we gave each other a farewell hug, "There are some people I hate to say goodbye to, and you are one of them." There were no more words to say, as our eyes crinkled.

The film festival wins undying loyalty from filmmakers as well as pass holders and staff. Ken Burns has attended the festival for more than two decades and gives an inspiring address to the staff every year. In the past year he said he became a father for the fourth time--another daughter. It occurred to him after he named her that the first initial of his four daughters spell out SLOW. He said he nearly named his second daughter Hannah. If he had, instead of SLOW, their initials would have spelled out SHOW, the slogan of the film festival.

Opera director Peter Sellars, a man of boundless energy and the world's most unrestrained hugger, is also a film festival regular. He too shares a few words with the staff. He fully recognizes the great spirit of those putting on the festival, saying how rare it is in these times to find a group of people who unselfishly give of themselves for a higher cause. "It seems everyone these days is looking for their cut. There is none of that here."

Another of the many noted figures of cinema who are part of the Telluride family is Godfrey Reggio, director of the seminal film Koyaanisqatsi. He is one of the resident curators of the festival overseeing the shorts program. He observed that each of us attending the four day festival is exposed to more images during the festival than everyone in the Middle Ages combined. It is a lot to process. But I have had the perfect tableau to do it, as I pedaled through a fabulous canyon for 44 miles from Gateway to just before Grand Junction on the lightly traveled route 141 climbing 2,500 feet and then 72 miles from Loma to Rangely without any services on Route 139 gaining 3,700 feet with even less traffic.

George Clooney and Tilda Swinton, two of the festival's three tributees, dominated the festival, but there were many other highlights as well. The tribute to Pierre Etaix, a French director and actor from the 1960s and 1970s, was one of those typical Telluride rediscoveries. Etaix was a more subtle and refined Tati. It was a thrill to sit in the Opera House at his tribute sharing in his pride at hearing everyone laugh during the screening of clips from his films.

It was also a most inspiring hour listening to George Harrison's widow, Olivia, talk about the making of the three-and-a-half hour Martin Scorcese documentary "Living in the Material World" on "the quiet Beatle" in the intimacy of the County Courthouse with 80 other devotees. She said that everyone interviewed for the documentary at one point broke into tears talking about George. Watching the film in the outdoor theater with hundreds of others bundled up in winter gear will be one of those great memories of Telluride. Greil Marcus, rock critic and scholar extraordinaire and another Telluride regular, introduced the film and also presided over Olivia's conversation in the courthouse.

I saw quite a few other documentaries on exemplary figures. The most stirring was "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel." Vreeland was fashion editor for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. She was a most outspoken and original figure with an opinion on everything. Though she died a few years ago there is considerable footage of her to draw upon, including interviews with George Plimpton and Dick Cavett.

There was also a fascinating documentary on fashion photographer Bert Stern, "Becoming Bert Stern," by a former model of his. Both were in attendance. He had a several day shoot with Marilyn Monroe just before she committed suicide. He began photographing when it was illegal for women to appear in liquor ads. He caused quite a stir when a photograph of his showing a woman with her mouth open made the cover of a fashion magazine back in the '60s.

My days will be filled with much reminiscing of films and friends as I head to Missoula, about 1,000 miles from Telluride, to pay homage to the bicycle of Ian Hibbel at the Adventure Cycling headquarters. Hibbel was a legendary English touring cyclist who died at the age of 74 riding his bike in Greece in 2008. The Economist gave him a full page obituary. He was the first person I knew of to travel by bicycle.

I am also eager to meet Greg Siple, one of the co-founders of the Bikecentenial Organization that was renamed Adventure Cycling a few years ago. He helped establish the Bikecentennial Trail across the US in 1976 to commemorate the Bicentennial. Two years ago I met the other co-founder, Dan Burden. Siple and his wife June were the first people I knew of to ride the Tour de France route as touring cyclists. I have been aware of them both since they co-authored a May 1973 National Geographic cover story on bicycling from Alaska to Mexico.

Later, George

Thanks Amtrak

2011-08-17T18:05:00.001-07:00

Friends: Not only was my Chicago to Grand Junction, Colorado train eleven hours late in arriving, pulling into the station at three a.m., it arrived without my bicycle. I wasn't going to let the late arrival deter me from setting out on my bike to Telluride, as a near full moon was brightly illuminating the countryside, but without my bicycle I was reduced to throwing down my sleeping bag at the far end of the station platform not far from a couple of legitimate transients. I was granted permission by the Amtrak clerk on duty, who couldn't try to track down the whereabouts of my errant bicycle until later in the morning when he returned to duty at eight a.m.

I'd been napping on the train, but was still able to easily nod off, fortunately not deterred by the disappointment I felt about not being able to recover from 36 hours on the train with a bike ride, nor distracted by the worry that I might never see my bike again and also the concern of how I would get to Telluride, 128 miles away, if it didn't show up on the next train. I would have less than two days to get there in time to open up the shipping office for the Telluride Film Festival.

I'd had a premonition that this might happen. While I boxed my bike in the bowels of Chicago's Amtrak station, a couple of the baggage handlers made sniping remarks at me, thinking I was taking too long rearranging my gear, deciding what to put in my duffel that would go in the baggage car with the bike and what I would take on the train with me. Another reprimanded me for making a quick costume change from my shorts to long pants behind a post. He said there was a rest room nearby where I could have done that. I apologized as obsequiously as I could, knowing full well that my gear was fully at their mercy of getting on the train.

I was surprised though at their reaction, as I have performed this exercise quite a few times at that very spot, and on every other occasion the attendants had been most helpful and courteous and also curious about what it was like to travel by bike. I could only suspect that these rough economic times had frayed their nerves and maybe made them a little resentful of someone going off on a seemingly frivolous adventure when they and everyone they knew had heavy and burdensome worries. Maybe they'd just gotten news that some of them would soon be losing their job. Or perhaps I represented something they resented. Something had clearly made them surly.

I could sense the possibility of some sort of vengeance, such as people of their skin color have often been subjected to in the South. I knew either my bike or my duffel was in danger of being left behind. Before I left, I sincerely thanked the attendant in charge for what help he had given me in boxing my bike, but I still had reservations. When we pulled into Denver nearly 24 hours after we left Chicago for our longest stop of the journey, I made an attempt to check the baggage car, but was told it was off-limits. I had to wait until Grand Junction for the bad news.

At least the attendant in Grand Junction, a young immaculately groomed young man by the name of Byron, was as helpful and kind as could be. I thought I had been transported to a 1950s small town in America where everyone went out of their way to be neighborly to all and sundry. Not only did he say it would be perfectly fine to sleep there at the station, he carried my forty pound duffel to the end of the station platform for me.

The next morning he immediately called Chicago to check if my bike was still there. When it wasn't, he called a conductor on the train that had left the previous afternoon and asked if he could check the baggage car for my bike. He was nearby and had a positive answer within a minute. Hallelujah. And there was also the good news that the train was only six hours behind schedule due to the flooding in the Midwest and was looking at a ten pm arrival.

Then he printed out a small map of downtown Grand Junction showing me where the grocery store was and sites to see and the library. As I left the station, he offered me some yogurt. It wasn't the only food given to me during my Grand Junction lay-over. While I sat in the town park at a picnic table with a couple dozen homeless scattered around on the grass in the shade of the trees, an eight-year old girl accompanied by her parents rushed up to me with a bag lunch and a bottle of water. A while later a young man gave me another bottle of water and an invitation to attend his church the next day.

I spent the majority of the day escaping the near 100 degree heat at the library. It too was crowded with those on the fringes of society. The librarians were most cordial and I was able to spend a couple hours on the computer between browsing the magazines and newspapers and reading the travel book I had brought along, Thurston Clarke's "Searching for Paradise," about various islands he visited scattered around the globe, a follow-up to his book on following the equator.

When I returned to the Amtrak station at six p.m. I was thrilled to see on the chalkboard that the train had made up some time and was due to arrive at nine p.m. now. I was fearing it might have lost even more time and might not arrive until after midnight. The station attendant had said the previous night's three a.m. arrival was the latest it had been in the past two months since the flooding. It made his job difficult, but at least he was earning a lot of over time, as ordinarily he closes down the station at five p.m.

I hadn't had a great amount of sleep the past two nights, but I always feel a surge of energy once I can get back on my bike. I never have any problem knocking off 40 or fifty miles after my transatlantic overnight flights to Paris. Those are at least usually early afternoon arrivals. I've had some sensational full moon rides over the years, most notably in Baja with eerie shadows from the towering multi-armed saguaro cacti and across the Nullarbor Plain in Australia, the world's longest, straightest, flattest road that goes on for 700 miles, so I was looking forward to another moon-lit ride even in my somewhat sleep-deprived state.

The train actually arrived a little before nine and within half an hour I had it assembled and was on the road. Even though it was a Saturday night there wasn't a great amount of traffic. I had the city lights of Grand Junction for some extra illumination the first few miles and then it was out into the somewhat desert terrain of western Colorado with just me and the moon about 45 degrees up in the sky and rising. I was traveling a four-lane highway with a nice shoulder and a white line to help keep me on course. I was gloriously gliding along, my senses extra alive and attentive.

My range of vision wasn't what it would be in the daylight, nor could I see minor flat-causing debris, but I had no qualms whatsoever to be riding in the dark. My light was only adequate to let me be seen by others, rather than allowing me to see much. I was happy to be gobbling up the miles in the relative cool of the night and without the blazing sun baking my brains. The question was do I ride all night or stop for a nap. I wasn't able to ride as hard as I ordinarily would with my limited vision, so I was overly expending energy. I stopped after ninety minutes to eat a bit and rest.

I knew this road well as I had ridden it quite a few times on my yearly commute to the Telluride Film Festival when I hadn't flown out instead. I often would camp just beyond Delta behind a vocational school 43 miles from Grand Junction, leaving me 85 miles and 4,000 feet of elevation gain to Telluride. I arrived there at 1:30 and decided to get a few hours of sleep.

The forecast was for it to be ten degrees cooler on Sunday, promising less scorching conditions. And luck was with me. Not only was it cooler, but it was overcast. I wasn't as desperate at all, as I sometimes can be, for each and every mini-mart service-station oasis with cold drinks and an ice-dispensing machine. The only one I needed to stop at was in Ridgeway after 48 miles the next day, at the turn-off to Telluride 38 miles away, just before a steep 2,000 foot climb that would take me up to 9,000 feet. Its an immediate steep climb out of Ridgeway, a small town with a sign on its outskirts on some one's private property saying "What we lack in wineries we make up for with whiners."

After that climb the road levels off a bit for several miles past Ralph Lauren's Double R ranch with its infamous wooden fence with the cross pieces mounted aesthetically, rather than practically. If they were keeping livestock, they could push their way out. Half-way up the final steep five mile stretch I was beginning to feel the altitude and the minimum of sleep of the past three nights, not as severely as the RAAM riders, but I could relate. I didn't mind at all stopping for a rest and to gaze upon the 360 degree panorama of snow streak peaks.

After the summit I had a 12 mile, 1,500 foot descent to recover before turning at Placerville for the final 16 miles to Telluride, regaining 1300 feet. This time I had the San Miguel Creek as company for a fairly gradual climb until a last hump of 600 feet in two miles. That nearly did me in. From the summit just before Society Turn it was four miles of relative flat on in to Telluride. I didn't learn until I arrived in Telluride that bicyclists are no longer obligated to stick to the bumpy deteriorating bike path from Society Turn and can no ride on the recently repaved road. The signs threatening a $150 fine to bicyclists had yet to be taken down, as it had been just last week that the Town Council gave in to the bicyclist's demands to be able to share the road and not be treated as second class citizens.

I arrived in Telluride an hour before dark twenty-one hours after leaving Grand Junction, thoroughly depleted, but triumphant. I ordinarily take a day-and-a-half to do the ride. I wouldn't have been able to do it though without that full moon. Thanks to those baggage handlers I was spared the blistering heat and was granted another most memorable ride. My lay-over allowed me to gain a greater acquaintance with Grand Junction and also to see the better side of human nature.

As I so often have experienced in my travels, a seeming bad turn is in fact a fortunate break. It was hard to assure myself that that might be the case while I was awaiting my bike, but indeed it was. My recurring refrain as I was biking in the dark and then the next day was "Thank You Amtrak," not only to those baggage handlers with a chip on their shoulders in Chicago, but to the benevolent Byron in Grand Junction.

Later, George

Moret-sur-Loing, France

2011-08-01T07:09:00.000-07:00

Friends: Foiled again, much to my regret, of gaining entrance to the bicycle museum, known as the "Conservatoire du Vélo," in Moret-sur-Loing, fifty miles south of Paris, as it is closed today. I suspected that possibility, so I was hoping to make it by Sunday, but my circuit of the outskirts of Paris taking in the villages where Van Gogh and Monet lived out their lives made too wide a circle delaying my arrival at the museum until Monday afternoon.

Its not the first time I've arrived on a day its been closed. Several years ago I passed through Moret-sur-Loing on a Tuesday on my way back to Paris after The Tour and could only peer in through the windows at its displays. I'll just have to make it my first destination when I return to France next year for Cannes and The Tour and make sure it's not the beginning of the week.

But my circuit beyond the outer-reaches of the Paris metropolis was not without a submergence into the realm of bicycling lore, as Ralph loaned me his copy of his fellow Scot's just published autobiography "Racing Through the Dark, The Fall and Rise of David Millar." Millar, who has won several Tour de France stages over the years, intimately details the pervasiveness of drugs in the peloton when he turned pro in the late '90s. It came as an initial shock to him. He was determined to race clean, but eventually gave in after being wiped out by the fifteen mile climb up the Madeleine in the The Tour.

After The Race he goes to the house of a veteran Italian Cofidis teammate, who he declines to name, in Tuscany for two weeks of EPO-taking and training before the Tour of Spain. It gives him a significant boost and allows him to do things he would not have been able to do otherwise. But he feels great guilt. He can no longer take pride in his victories, not even winning the World Championship Time Trial in 2003. He never failed a drug test, just like Lance, but rather was outed by a teammate he didn't get along with. His accusations were enough for the French police to ransack his house in Biaritz, finding two empty syringes of EPO hidden in a book.

He serves a two-year suspension and then returns with the Spanish Saunier Duval team. He is an outspoken transformed former drug-user and is chagrined to find no one else really supports his stance. He laments that there was no one he could turn to when he was a young pro to help keep him off the drugs. He wants to be that person now, providing support to those who face the temptation, as do those in Alcoholics Anonymous.

After two years with Saunier Duval, a team that was disbanded a year later when two of its riders tested positive for EPO at The Tour after finishing first and second on a mountain stage, he joins with Jonathan Vaughters to found the Garmin team with an ardent anti-drug stance. He helps recruit Christian Vande Velde to the team, who he heaps much praise on throughout the book. He tells of haranguing Lance at a post-Tour party for not being more out-spoken on drug use. He says he doesn't know if Lance was a drug-taker, but it is highly suspicious that three of his chief lieutenants, Landis, Hamilton and Heras, all tested positive after leaving Lance's team and became team leaders of their own.

Millar offers convincing evidence that it is possible to race clean and win, as he did before succumbing to drugs, and as he has since his drug-taking. His spiral downward makes for demoralizing reading, but his transformation as an athlete and as a person as well as the insights into the Garmin team revive the spirit. Tyler Hamilton is said to be working on a similar such book, and Landis should be as well. As in the Cavendish autobiography published a year ago, he confesses to being reduced to tears on quite a few occasions.

Reading this 350 page book somewhat slowed my riding down, but I can't fully blame it for denying me the bike museum. It was a long and convoluted twenty mile ride north through the sprawl of Paris to get to the small village in the country of Auvers-sur-Oise where Van Gogh spent the final three months of his life, after spending a year in a mental institution in the south of France. His brother Theo, living in Paris, thought the village would make a perfect retreat for him. It had a doctor who could look after him, and peace and tranquility and sites to paint. He painted 78 canvases in 70 days, but couldn't overcome his torments and shot himself at the age of 37.

Both he and his brother are buried in the small cemetery on the outskirts of the village, Vincent dying in 1890 and his younger brother a year later. Their matching head stones both read "ici repose." Throughout the village are replicas of his paintings at the site where he painted them--the village cathedral, its town hall, various homes and also portraits by homes of where his subjects lived. The home where Van Gogh lived in the attic is now a museum. The tourist office offered a fifteen minute movie in English or French on Van Gogh's time there that one had to pay a euro to see.

It was forty miles due west on a hodgepodge of tiny rural roads to Giverny, an even smaller village where Monet lived the final much less tormented forty years of his life. Those were a long forty miles, continually have to consult my highly-detailed French atlas, but also quite tranquil riding. It too was swarming with tourists. I couldn't understand why a woman was taking a photo of a plain pink house, until I realized it was Monet's home on the fringe of the couple acres of gardens where he did much of his painting.

Giverny put me so far west of Paris, it was nearly one hundred miles to get to the bike museum. The cycling though was excellent, especially on a Sunday with the roads dominated by bicyclists, many of them in clusters wearing matching club jerseys and sunny smiles and radiating that French spirit of bonhomie. It made for a nice wind-down to the 5,500 miles I have biked around France these past three months.

The Charles de Gaulle airport to the east of Paris will end my three-quarters circuit of the outer-reaches of the metropolis. The lone site to see is Disney Paris, south of the airport. I won't go in, but will simply give it a circle, and hang out at the entrance and share in the delight and eagerness of all the kids flocking in.

Later, George

Paris

2011-07-30T02:05:00.000-07:00

Friends: I am no stranger to cemeteries. Hardly a day has gone by in my last two months of bicycling around France that I haven't slipped into one or two or three to replenish my water bottles. If it had been warmer, it would have been even more, to give my self a dousing as well.

So I felt right at home as I went strolling through the sprawling Pére Lachaise cemetery in Paris. But rather than in search of a water spigot, I was in search of an actual grave, that of Laurent Fignon. Since he was a recent burial, he wasn't listed on the glass encased directory at the cemetery entrance of the one hundred or so most significant residents-- Baudelaire, Balzac, Chopin, Hugo, Moliere, Morrison, Ophuls, Wilde...

A security guard said I would find his burial site by the crematorium, though she couldn't be more specific than that. It was a good ten minute hike past hundreds of tombstones with hardly any breathing space between to the far side of the cemetery over a bit of an incline following the signs to the crematorium. When I got within site of it, I asked another security guard. He gestured toward an extensive wall two stories high of mini-vaults containing ashes. He said that since it was a relatively new one it would be easy to spot, but not because they were placed in chronological order, but because the stone would be fresh and shiny.

I wished he could have been more specific than that as I began scanning the hundreds of slots with just a name and a pair of dates. I began just focusing on dates. There were few since 2000. I began hoping I would spot a fellow cyclist come to pay his respects as well who might have a better track on Fignon than I, but unlike the steady stream of obvious Doors fans making a pilgrimage to the Jim Morrison grave, no one stood out as a cyclists as I did with my helmet dangling from my backpack and the cleats of my cycling shoes clattering on the cobbled walkways.

But alas, after several minutes I spotted a slot in the bottom row in the corner of one section with three photos of Fignon, one from his prime racing on his bike with his long blond hair flowing, another of him with a set of head phones working as a commentator and the third towards his end with a bald head during his period of chemotherapy. In each his face was lit up with a smile and his characteristic liveliness. There was no room for an epithet, just his name and dates Aug. 12, 1960- Aug. 30, 2010. Below was a pile of flowers, the only ones around. As I was swallowing my emotions, a tour guide came along with twenty people in tow and stopped in front of it for a few words.

I then headed teary-eyed in the general direction of the Morrison grave, not caring how long it took as I recalled the many moments of great pleasure Fignon had given me over the years seeing him race and reading about his exploits and seeing the highlights of his career recounted in books and museums and also reading his commentaries in L'Equipe during The Tour. He was a great who gave his all and truly cared about the sport.

I can never avoid a visit to Jim Morrison's grave when I am in Paris if only to confirm his continued popularity as the most visited grave in the cemetery and the only one with barriers around it identical to the waist-high barriers used at The Tour de France that are no challenge to hop over if one wishes. Morrison's grave was piled with flowers, indicating that many do. There were also notes and photos of him as well as a turquoise alligator.

It was mostly young fans crowding around the grave, but others of all ages too. There was no longer a security guard stationed at the grave as there has been in the past. That has allowed people to graffiti the tree in front of it, mostly with messages rather than names, as well as lyrics from his songs--"Can you show me the way to the next whiskey bar," "This is the end, my only friend," "Welcome to the other side," "The lizard king lives," "Thank you Jimmy," "No haircuts."

I also made a pilgrimage to the headquarters of The Tour de France in Issy-les-Moulineaux, the first suburb beyond Paris along the Seine about three miles south of the Eiffel Tower on Quai Stalingrad. The Asaury Sports Organization takes up an entire modern glass high rise. The lobby has large photos of all the events ASO sponsors along with The Tour--the Paris Marathon, the Dakar car race, some golf tournaments and more. Though there was a large map of this year's Tour route on the wall, there was only one bike racing photo of the peloton in the mountains. It wasn't the full-fledged museum-like tribute to The Race I was anticipating. The two coffee tables in the lobby were cluttered with L'Equipes and a stash more were in slots underneath the map of The Tour, as L'Equipe is also under the ASO umbrella, though its offices are in another building just across the river, as there isn't enough space for it here.

I told the receptionist I had just visited the Fignon memorial put up by The Tour in Créteil and wondered if they had a list of all the memorials they had placed around the country. She didn't know, but called someone who might. She said his line was busy, but if Ralph and I could wait she would try him again. We were happy to take a seat and glace at L'Equpie. Ralph was disappointed that soccer was featured on the cover and not cycling. We had to leaf through to page eleven for a cycling story on the Schlecks being honored in Luxembourg for being the first brothers to share the podium.

Several minutes later the woman came over and said they had no list, but that most of them were in the mountains. I said I had seen a Tour plaque at the start of this year's Race at the Passage de Gois and over the years had seen a handful of others such as one at the small restaurant on the outskirts of Paris where the first Tour departed from and one at the blacksmith shop where Christophe repaired his broken fork, as well as many of those in the mountains, and had been curious if they had all been placed by The Tour or if locals had done it, and how many might be scattered all over the country.

She said they were so busy putting on events that they had never taken the time to compile such a list, but that she would encourage someone to do it. When she realized what a devotee I was, she said that if I returned to The Tour next year I cold stop by and she would give me the official Tour loose-leaf booklet with all the information on the stages that all the teams and press use. We chatted for several minutes. She couldn't have been nicer and was in no hurry whatsoever to get back to her desk. She said on occasion The Tour passes by the headquarters on its final stage into Paris.

With film as a common passion Ralph and I attended a screening at the magnificent outdoor theater at the Parc de la Vilette on the outskirts of Paris along one of its canals. For five weeks it screens a movie every night of the week except for Mondays, a truly eclectic mix of films from all over the world and from all eras--Bonnie and Clyde, West Side Story, La Haine, Happy Together, Paranoid Park, Gomorra, Babel, A Day in New York with Gene Kelly, The Triplettes of Belleville. If I lived in Paris I would be there every night.

With the rainy weather quite a few of the screenings have been cancelled. It was threatening our night, somewhat reducing the crowd, so we didn't have to worry about craning over people's heads for the 2007 remake of 3:10 to Yuma by James Mangold starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. The screening didn't start until 10:30. It was a three mile bike ride from Ralph's apartment near the Plaza du Republic. Ralph wasn't sure at first if he wanted to leave his deluxe carbon fiber bike at the valet parking, but after seeing how secure it was and how responsible the attendants seemed, he did not object at all.

We skipped a Nanni Moretti film the next night as Ralph needed to pack up for his return to Telluride the next day and I opted for the Paris version of Critical Mass departing from its Hotel de Ville, just across the Seine from Notre Dame. Unlike other Critical Masses around the world, Paris holds it every Friday night, rather than just the last Friday of the month and it also delays its ride until ten p.m., well after the rush hour ride of most others that contend with all the commuters. It makes for a most serene ride in the late evening through many districts of Paris. As we passed by the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower and the Moulin Rouge and so many other familiar sites it was almost as if we were in a Woody Allen movie.

The Paris ride is also highly organized with fifteen or so leaders all wearing orange reflective vests saying Staff and Paris Rando Velos. Five of them lead the way and the rest serve as marshals riding alongside the group standing guard at each intersection it passes with a whistle in their mouths and a hand stretched forward halting traffic. When their duty is done they speed alongside the group shouting out "Pass a droite" or "Pass a gauche", whether on the left or right side, along with an "attencion" and then a "merci" or "s'il vous plait." They are as focused and conscientious as eager boy scouts striving to earn a merit badge. They are well-practiced and quite a spectacle. They could handle a cattle drive with ease. They did an amazing job halting all traffic corking the huge round-about of the Arc de Triomph as we entered and exited. It was another great example of the French ability to organize and manage along with the Cannes Film Festival and The Tour de France.

There were about 198 of us, the same as The Tour de France peloton. Most everyone was on a cross bike of some sort. There were no single-speeds, such as are so common now in Chicago Critical Masses. Only about a quarter of the participants wore helmets. There were just a handful on the popular rental bikes that are scattered all over Paris. When the rental bikes were first introduced to Paris three years ago most of the cyclists I saw in Paris were on the rental bikes. There were still many this year, but the rental bikes have reintroduced people to the bike, making them want their own. Its not quite up to Amsterdam levels, but one now sees parked bikes all over the city and many many more people riding their own bikes rather than the rental bikes, despite their cheapness and easy availability. Their lone disadvantage is one can't keep them for very long without it becoming expensive.

With Ralph's departure, I am now back in my tent for the next four nights before my return. It will allow me to explore some surrounding sites of Paris I have never gotten to--Van Gogh's grave, Monet's gardens, Fountainbleau and more.

Later, George

Créteil, Ville Départ Stage 21

2011-07-27T11:29:00.000-07:00

Friends: It took some doing to find the just unveiled Laurent Fignon monument in Créteil, an ugly industrial suburb of Paris, but it was well worth the effort. There was no tourist office in this city to go to for help. I searched out the City Hall instead. On the way there I passed the police department and gave it a try. There was too long of a line for the lone officer in the lobby handling complaints, so it was back in search of City Hall.

The receptionist pulled out a map and showed me about where it was, near the Prefecture about a mile away. I had to ask a couple more people as I closed in on it, but they too were well aware of it, as its unveiling Sunday before the start of the final stage of The Tour must have been widely reported.

The monument was a magnificent three foot oval sculpture with Fignon's profile featuring his trademark headband and long hair protruding from the middle. It rested on a base with a plaque stating it was erected by L'Equipe and The Tour de France and the mayor of Créteil. It was on the edge of a flower garden.

Though I never saw Fignon race in France, I did have the opportunity to see him race in a criterium in Chicago in Grant Park back in the '80s. It was a thrill to see a Tour de France champ in my back yard. His autobiography, "When We Were Young and Carefree," recently translated into English, awaits me upon my return thanks to Amazon.

With my visit to Créteil, I have now ridden all or part of 20 of this year's 21 stages, missing only the Pau to Lourdes stage, though I have passed through both of those cities several times over the years. Only once before have I managed to ride so many of the stages. I can thank the organizers for making a route with several loops in it that allowed me to take short cuts, and also not having a huge rest day transfer of several hundred miles, as happens on occasion.

I have been reveling in the memories on my four-day ride back to Paris. One of the reasons I was able to keep pace with the peloton this year is that it has been a remarkably cool summer. There was only one day with temperatures in the 90s, and otherwise not much more than 70. It was a relief not to have to worry about running out of water as I sat watching the Big Screen.

It was a shock to get snow one day in the Alps. Not only did the cool temperatures not sap as much energy, it allowed great refrigeration for my food. I could buy a yogurt drink or chocolate milk in the evening and have it as my energy drink as I took down my tent. It spared me from having to worry about getting food for several hours at the start of the day.

I was hoping those cool northerly "Glacial Winds," as the French call them, would abate with the end of The Race and switch to the more seasonal southerly breezes for my 400 mile ride back to Paris, but no I've had slight headwinds to contend with all the way. They were gentle enough that I couldn't object to their air-conditioning effect.

Even though The Tour 2011 is now in the past, riding through rural small town La France Profonde I could not escape reminders of The Grand Race. A few camper vans passed with course markers in their rear window and the small town of St. Leger-sous-Bevray had a sign at its entry saying The Tour had passed through it on July 12, 2007. I rode that Tour but couldn't remember the town.

For any townspeople, The Tour passing through is a great event. It will be a life long memory for all its residents. It is not something I take for granted at all. Riding the course seeing all the anticipation and jubilation, there is no ignoring what a monumental event it is in the lives of the French. It is a privilege to be a part of it. With its early June 30 start next year, it is little more than eleven months until the Opening Ceremony introducing all the riders. I can feel the excitement all ready.

Later, George

Post Tour, Day One

2011-07-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

Friends: The Aussie fans ought to be back in great abundance next year after Cadel's dominance of this year's Tour. There were great throngs of them and their flag after his back-to-back second place finishes three years ago, greatly enlivening the roadside, but after he finished 30th and 26th the past two Tours their numbers have diminished to not much more than the Americans, also now hardly seen after being everywhere during Lance's string of seven straight wins.

Young Dave vowed to be back after standing alongside the time trial course for seven hours Saturday awaiting Cadel's arrival. I was there too gazing up at the Big Screen with hundreds of others as the suspense built all day. The suspense didn't last long, though, as soon after Cadel and Andy Schleck took to the course four minutes apart, Cadel immediately began gaining on Schleck's times. The screen regularly posted their time difference, starting at 57 seconds. When it was down to less than thirty seconds, not even a quarter of the way to the finish, all of us Cadel-rooters could start celebrating. He gave the ride of his life, as he did day after day during the entire Tour. He truly earned this victory.

And it was an American victory of a sort too, as he rides for the American-sponsored BMC team with two Americans on the squad, Hincapie and Bookwalter, and an American chief, Jim Ochiewz, who directed the first American team to ride in The Tour, 7-Eleven, back in 1986. Hincapie rode with Lance on every one of his seven victories. This is his 16th Tour. Next year he will set the record for the most ridden. He also holds the record for riding on the most winning teams.

We had a final gathering at the Big Screen of the handful of us touring cyclists who have followed more than a stage or two of this year's Tour. Besides Dave the Australian, David the German was there as well as Shane, a Scottish rider who began following The Tour on stage seven and managed to see eight stages in all. I saw him just two other times at stage finishes, though we had been in email contact along the way trying to reconnect.

I was hoping I might reconnect with David for a final ride together along the time trial route. I had a few trinkets left over for him to toss to bystanders along the route. He did it with great flair and panache, causing quite a spectacle himself responding to the cheers from the crowds by doffing his cap and bowing like a grand showman, arousing even more cheers. He was the only among us not wearing a helmet, allowing for this extravagant gesture. He would get so revved up from the cheers that he would occasionally open a gap on me. One fan along the road chided him calling out "piano," an Italian expression for riding a little slower with a higher cadence. David wasn't familiar with the expression, but he understood its meaning. All part of the good fun that everyone enjoys along The Tour route.

We were also joined at the Big Screen by a cyclist from New Zealand who had spent the past two months cycling around Europe. He had seen the last two stages and would love to return next year for a full dose. He spent his first month in Europe riding with a tour group of forty up many of the famous climbs in France and Italy. He didn't have to carry any gear with the group. It was mostly Australian and men, with only three women, a slightly higher percentage than were among the mobs riding up L'Alpe d'Huez the day before. There the percentage was 99 per cent male. Women know better than to exert themselves for such flimsy glory.

All four of us had been on L'Alpe d'Huez the day before and traded our experiences. The Kiwi had discovered a bar with an English transmission of the broadcast. The Scot had biked half-way back down the mountain to just beyond the rowdy and rambunctious Dutch corner. He said when the "laughing group" of the eighty laggards passed by, many of the riders smiled and acknowledged the crowd's cheers. He said they had discussed beforehand whether to boo Contador or not. They were not among those who did.

I watched the proceedings on the Big Screen sitting on a slight hill among a Woodstock crowd of patrons along the finishing stretch just beyond the last turn. David had biked just three kilometers up the road to the first village the night before. The crowds were too much for him and his kitten, so he left the next morning and headed towards Grenoble watching the day's event in a bar sipping coffee.

The Devil came prancing by before the top riders took to the time trial course. He was besieged all along the way by people who wanted their picture taken with him. He always gladly and kindly obliges everyone. This devil is a true goodwill ambassador, bringing cheer and delight to all. When he noticed me, he charged over and gave me a hearty pat on the back and the "Musée, Musée" chant. Then he startled me by taking out his camera and giving it to someone who had just taken his picture and asked her to take his picture with me, truly a signal honor.

Back in the '50s Eartha Kitt sang a song with the lyrics "Ike likes me" and "A camel would walk a mile for me," spins on popular jingles of the day, "I like Ike" for the Eisenhower presidential campaign, and "I'd walk a mile for a Camel (cigarette)." If The Devil had been around back then, she would have ended the song with the lyric, "And The Tour de France Devil wants a picture with me."

I showed The Devil the Chicago Reader article on me that included a photo of he and I in the Pyrenees. He didn't know I was from Chicago. He said he was there for the World Cup. Then he took a photo of the photo of he and I. I don't know why, as his museum in his home town of Storkow, 50 miles southeast of Berlin, of his many bicycle inventions, also includes hundreds of newspaper and magazines stories and photos of him. But he truly appreciates that I bicycled the length of Germany to visit his museum, and also that I have made my mark on The Tour myself, the most veteran of the many touring cyclists who have attempted to follow The Tour.

Lest I think though that doing so made me a person of any significance, later that evening, as I sat on the ground under a slight overhang at a gas station eating ravioli out of a can, a car that had just gotten some gas pulled up in front of me and a teen-aged girl hopped out and timidly handed me a hunk of bread torn off a loaf, not as a reward for having just followed The Tour for three weeks, but because she and her mother in the front seat mistook me for someone in need. I appreciated their good-heartedness as much as The Devil's respect. I could only revel in Another Great Day on the Bike.

Now its 250 miles back to Paris where I'll get to spend a couple days with my Telluride friend Ralph who I spent two weeks with at Cannes. Then its on to Telluride for the both of us for the Labor Day weekend film festival that is a grand event almost on the par of The Tour and Cannes. I'll pass through the town of Créteil, just outside of Paris, where the peloton began its 21st and final stage yesterday. Fignon raced as an amateur on the Créteil team. A memorial to him was unveiled before the stage start. I will also pay respects to his grave at the Pere Lachais cemetery in Paris, its largest and most famous.

Later, George

Day Twenty-Two Le Tour

2011-07-23T02:15:00.000-07:00

Friends: And it comes down to the time trial just like last year. Instead of having to overcome a deficit, Andy Schleck has to preserve his advantage. It will only be a slightly easier task than last year as he gets to ride last, and will know the time of Evans that he has to beat. Evans is superior at this discipline, but Schleck surprised everyone last year with his great effort to nearly overcome Contador, so he can not be discounted.

Evans has proven himself the stronger rider on stage after stage this year and has had to do a considerable amount of time trialing chasing breakaways and also breaking away himself. It will be an injustice if he does not win The Tour. This could be his last chance. Schleck is much younger and will have many opportunities in the future, so I'll be rooting for Evans as will the Aussies David and Rowan over at the Big Screen as soon as I send this off.

I was able to ride a good portion of the 26 mile time trial route in and out of Grenoble this morning after camping at just beyond the 25 kilometer to go mark. But I also had to walk a few miles of it, as some over zealous gendarmes wouldn't even let me ride on the sidewalk or the bike path along the route. They said the route was closed from eight a.m. to five p.m. and no ifs and or buts about it. I had managed six miles by 8:30 when I was first ordered off my bike, ten miles from the finish.

This wasn't the most idiotic of orders though from the gendarmes this year. That came in Gap when Dave, David, Rowan and I tried to slip through a gap in the barriers to go to a supermarket. The cop said we couldn't move the fencing. When we said we would put it back he refused. So we had to bike 100 meters further and then hoist our bikes over the barriers. Mine was too heavy and I was not in need of food anyway, so I just biked a little ways up the road and waited for the others to rejoin me.

As infuriating as this latest order was not being able to ride on the bike path or sidewalk even though they were empty of people and the road was a dead zone, I have suffered such mindlessness over the years I stoically accepted it. After fifteen minutes of walking along a stretch where there were gendarmes all too frequently I came to a long stretch through the woods with no intersections requiring officers. I was able to ride a couple of miles and then walked for another mile until I finally entered the urban sprawl of Grenoble and could ride a parallel street for a bit and then a bike path that was amply separated from the roadway that I could bike with impunity the last four miles.

I was the only one attempting to ride the course. There were already fans gathered along the route even though the first rider wouldn't be coming along for nearly three hours. The Devil was stalking the course at the three kilometer to go mark. I received a pat on the back as I passed and another exuberant chorus of "Musée, musée," now my own personal chant rather than his usual "allez, allez."

The Big Screen was at the 250-meter to go mark and had yet to be turned on at this early hour of 9:30. I hadn't passed any supermarkets so I continued on past the finish line towards another outskirts of Grenoble and found what I needed.

Yesterday was a rare stage where the entire stage was telecast since it was so short, only 70 miles, so short there wasn't even a feed zone. We were able to see the initial breakaway form. That is often the most exciting racing of the day, but today's was short-lived and hardly mattered as the first nine miles of the stage were a slight down hill and then the climb to the Galibier began, first over the Col de Telegraph. Contador did as Schleck did yesterday attacking early.

These stages in the Alps were a sharp contrast to the racing in the Pyrenees which was very safe and conservative with no attacks until the last few kilometers of the final climbs as the leaders felt each other out and didn't wish to over extend themselves. Andy Schleck had no problem going with Contador and stuck on his wheel just as Contador did to him on the Tourmalet last year. Evans had some bike trouble and fell off and was once again forced to chase down a minute gap that endured all the way to the top of the Galibier. They came together on the rocking 30 mile descent from the top of the Galibier to the start of the nine mile climb to the finish at L'Alpe d'Huez.

Contador once again attacked and everyone let him go. If he received the same reaction from the legions of fans packed along the climb as he did on the finishing stretch where I was stationed, he would have been assaulted by boos the entire way. The biggest reaction from the thousands in a rock concert atmosphere watching the Big Screen was a loud cheer when he was caught by two chasers a mile-and-a-half from the finish. This was the first crowd I was a part of that cheered Voeckler, though he fell off the pace on the climb to the Galibier and fell off even further on L'Alpe d'Huez. He was lucky to only lose three minutes. It could have been ten or more and might have fallen behind Danielson and out of the Top Ten.

The Garmin boys once again gave the best team effort. Hesjedal for awhile led the chase after Contador on L'Alpe d'Huez. Danielson was in the main group behind and Christian hung with Voeckler, just nipping him at the line. But the French could go crazy when Voeckler's young teammate, Pierre Rolland, was allowed to race on his own and overcome the 33 second deficit he had for the best young rider category. Not only did he take over the White Jersey but he won the stage, a rare unknown to join the pantheon of all the greats who have won this stage the 27 times it has been included in The Race since 1952 when Coppi won it. Lance won it twice and Pantani and Hinault and Zootemelk and Sastre and the older Schleck brother. And finally the French have won a stage in this race. Last year was an exceptional year when they won six stages. All six stages winners were invited to a visit with President Sarkozy. This year he has invited all 45 French riders who rode in The Race.

Later, George

Day Twenty-One Le Tour

2011-07-22T02:02:00.000-07:00

Friends: The first ever summit finish on the Galibier, one of the highest and most spectacular passes in the Alps, was easily the glamour stage of this yearś Tour attracting tens of thousands of racing fans from all over. I saw my first contingents of American tour groups and for the first time ever at The Tour someone walking around with an Israeli flag draped over his shoulders. There were Poles and Czechs and South Africans and loads of Spaniards.

This year is the hundredth anniversary of the Galibierś first appearance in The Tour, also the year that the Alps were first included after successfully passing over the Pyrenees the year before for the first time.

The camper vans were parked for miles leading up to the Galibier as I biked to within five miles of its summit last night camping just beyond a road block at the Col du Lauret where the road turns up to the Galibier. It was lucky I pushed on so far into the evening as the next day no bicyclists were allowed beyond that point. I was the only bicyclist aside from those in the peloton to bike the Galibier on race day. It seemed quite strange when I set out at eight a.m. that there wasnt a steady flow of cyclists as there would be the next day going up L'Alpe d'Huez, just people on foot. I figured everyone was just getting a late start since it was quite cold and they didn't want to be up at the summit longer than necessary.

With the road blocked to motorized traffic the night before I simply pitched my tent on a narrow strip of grass right along the road rather than pushing up over a steep embankment. I was sharply awoken at one a.m. when the stream of Tour trucks arrived from the stage finish that day in Italy with all the buildings they erect and the barriers and broadcast equipment. There are quite a few eighteen-wheelers as well as buses for the crew who would work through the night. If their roar and bright headlights weren't enough to awaken me, a couple of clowns found it necessary to blast their horns at me.

It was back to sleep until five when the sky began to lighten and then some more snoozing until six when the first of the hikers began trudging past my tent, the French in joyous conversation. I could nap some more between groups until 7:30 and then began bundling up in the sub forty degree temperatures. The wind was blowing more cold air from the north so I only shed two of my four layers on the steep hard climb to the summit past the people in campers parked along the road all bundled up trying to get some warmth from the sun out of the wind. There was also a trickle of hikers taking a short cut up a trail.

The race village was still be assembling a kilometer below the summit in patches of snow from two days before. If I wanted a photo of the huge monument to Henri Desgrange I couldn't have gotten it as it was surrounded by trucks. I ducked into the lone souvenir shop to see if they might have a television for watching the race as there wasn't room for the giant screen usually erected at the stage finish on top of an eighteen-wheeler. The only television was in a tent.

It was too cold to linger up there for seven or eight hours, so I descended back to the main highway where there were mobs of people and many frustrated bicyclists being turned away my a row of gendarmes. I could see the giant screen as I made my descent already broadcast a pre-start show. I wandered around among the throngs all in Lycra and on high-end bikes scouting out the best place to sit and watch The Race on the giant screen out of the wind and with some sun to keep warm. I settled on a spot along the road beside a car with guys wearing white and red wigs. I could lean my bike up against the hood of the car and sit on its cross tube if I wished or on the ground in front of it if the mobs didn't block my view.

There were thousands of us at this intersection and quite a few gendarmes trying to keep order. A Tour truck arrived with extra barriers to hold back the mobs. When people with Tour credentials around their necks gathered in front of the barriers at the turn the racers would take up to the Galibier there were howls of protests from those of us behind the barriers. The officers got them to crouch down not to obstruct our view.

The race action was the usual break up the road until Andy Schleck chased after it when it was half way up the second of the three big climbs in the stage, the Col de Izoard, one of the legendary Tour climbs that isn't all that often included in The Race as it is in a corner of the county near Italy. But it is a favorite of cyclists, so much so that there is a bike lane on it and also a plaque honoring Coppi and Bobet.

A grey-bearded guy with a Luxembourg cycling jersey who was standing on a barrier up above the tried to get an Andy Schleck cheer going but no one responded. He tried several times as he closed down the two minute gap between he and two chasers who were another two minutes behind the leaders up the road, but no one responded. And then when Schleck caught the chasers, which included a teammate, and closed in on the leaders still no one was responding, not even this brilliant strategy, even if they weren't Schleck fans.

Part of the brilliance of the strategy is it allowed Schleck to descend the Izoard with the comfort of a teammate leading him and not dozens of other cyclists to contend with as he has a slight fear of descending. He lost a minute two days before on the category two descent in the rain to Briancon. Last year he had his team director call his mother in the middle of a stage assuring her he wasn't going to take any risks on the descent after he dropped his chain.

When Schleck caught the leader up the road he was nearly four minutes up on the peloton. It was left to second placed Evans to lead the charge as no one else would assist, much to his displeasure. There weren't enough Australians in the crowd to boo when Evans chastised those with him for not helping. But he showed his strength by closing the gap on Schleck which had grown to four minutes and was increasing to just two minutes and fifteen seconds.

The biggest reaction from the crowd came when Contador fell off the pace. There were cheers whenever it showed him falling further and further behind. His fellow Spaniard Sanchez was having a bad day as well. His hops for a podium position fading fast.

But for us Garmin fans there was plenty to be happy about with its three climbers, Christian, Hesjedal and Danielson hanging tough. They finished in the top twelve extending their lead in the team category, with Danielson still ninth overall, moving to within a minute and a half of Sanchez and extending his lead on the man in tenth to over two minutes.

Today will be the final brutal stage, climbing the Galibier from the opposite side, a much tougher climb than from the side they climbed it yesterday. It will be thirty miles downhill to the climb to L'Alpe d'Huez where I'm presently sitting in an internet cafe overlooking the ski village's outdoor swimming pool, right next door to an outdoor ice skating rink that is more popular than the pool. It is sunny but cold.

It was another fabulous climb of L'Alpe d'Huez this morning, the fifth time Ive done it, with hundreds of others. There was worry about it being closed dozen like the Galibier as there is a huge ski village up here unlike the Galibier which is just a narrow pass with no room to accommodate the thousands of cyclists and their bicycles. It is noon. Today's short 70-mile stage doesn't start until 2:35.

I will sign off now and hopefully get my usual spot under an overhang looking at the giant screen just two hundred meters from the stage finish. Then it will be an easy ride to Grenoble tonight where I will camp alongside tomorrow's time trial stage. Now the question is did Andy Schleck and Evans expend too much energy yesterday opening the way for Frank Schleck; Voeckler was totally devastated at the race end. Its doubtful he will retain the yellow jersey today, but his valiant effort to keep it by fifteen seconds yesterday over Andy was the big story in France, with his photo on the cover of L'Equipe and all the newspapers, not Andy for his bold attack.

Later, George

Day Nineteen Le Tour

2011-07-20T02:22:00.000-07:00

Friends: All the Norwegians at The Tour, seemingly more than any other nationality other than the French and the Belgians based upon the flags along the route, are continuing to inspire their countrymen to herculean efforts. The top three finishers yesterday at Gap, well ahead of everyone else, were all of Norwegian heritage, Hushovd winning his second stage of The Tour followed by Edvald Boasson Hagen, who earlier won a stage, and Ryder Hesjedal, a Canadian with Norwegian roots. They didn't wilt in the atrocious conditions, a hard cold rain that left snow on the surrounding peaks. Not only was it a great day for Norway, but anther great day for Garmin, winning their fourth stage of The Tour, tying them with HTC-High Road and having Hesjedal as a lone breakaway brandishing the Garmin jersey.

Whenever I watch a stage in a bar with Dave the Australian, Hushovd wins the stage after chasing down the breakaway. This time he just sat on the wheel of Boasson Hagen as he chased after Hesjedal, as he wouldn't dream of chasing down his teammate, leaving him with the freshest of legs for the final sprint.

While I exalted at this great display of power by the Garmin team, Dave the Aussie and his fellow Aussie Rowan, who had joined him two days ago, were nearly out of their seats as well when their man Cadel was able to hang with Contador when he finally unleashed an attack that everyone has been waiting for since The Tour started on the category two climb near the stage finish. Sanchez was the only other rider to stick with him as they left the Schlecks and Voeckler behind. The twenty seconds they gained moved Evans up to second and was another indicator that his legs are as good as any one's in the peloton. Its into the Alps now for three of the last five stages. Its is turning into a sensational race. The suspense thickens. Any of half a dozen riders could win this thing.

We were a merry band of four leaving Gap three hours before the peloton was due to arrive, preferring to seek out a bar down the road to watch the proceedings rather than lingering at the Big Screen with the weather so abominable. It had actually cleared momentarily when Dave and Rowan and I first connected at the Big Screen and then David the German joined us. We all had been drenched by the ride into Gap.

Rowan had just trained over from Germany to follow the last week of The Tour. He had ridden it in its entirety in 2009, the year with the Ventoux finish, but was riding far enough ahead of the peloton that he and I never connected nor did Skippy spot him either. He's been working in the solar industry in Germany the past two years and was the one who inspired Dave to ride The Tour. He's a strong one too, racing full-fledged Ironman competitions. His next is in Wales next month, the first one ever to be held there. He met Dave at the Tour of Timor, a ultra-endurance mountain bike race, shortly after he had ridden The Tour and was all revved up from the experience.

He and Dave are very knowledgeable bike racing fans. We had a grand time analyzing the final hour of racing. One of the biggest surprises was seeing Cavendish finish just after the leaders, meaning that he is truly serious about winning the green jersey. There was no need for him to push himself over that category two climb, but he did it. He came in on his own without the support of any teammates with his arms resting on his handlebars looking totally spent. It is such efforts that make bike racing so appealing. There have been quite a few to be inspired by this year. Voeckler epitomizes giving one's all. Cadel too never gives up and Hushovd has shown great hunger to excel.

We were all ramped up to get back on our bikes and ride. We lost David in less than a mile when he needed to tend to his kitten. I hung with the Aussie speedsters for an hour until they decided they might want to make an attempt on going into Italy for the next day's stage finish, while I was content to just make it to the feed zone in Briançon before heading over to the Galibier. I had a harder time keeping up with them on the descents than on the climbs, as I have so much more drag from my front panniers. Aerodynamics has more bearing than than weight.

Shortly after I let them speed on ahead more storm clouds appeared from over a mountain ridge with thunder and wind. I didn't care to set up my tent soaking wet from more rain, so when I shortly came upon a cozy pine forest I made that my campgrounds for the night, just 25 miles from Briançon. It was a relief to be sheltered from the wind. About an hour later David showed up, spotting my tent through the trees.

He set out a little earlier than I in the morning so he could enjoy a coffee break, but we linked up and then a while later we were joined by Dave. He elected not to push on to Italy, though Rowan with fresh legs was attempting it. So now David, Dave and I will catch the feed zone action in three hours, watch the rest of the mountainous stage in a bar and then head over to the Galibier for tomorrow's summit finish. Hopefully today's sun will melt the fresh snow on its slopes.

Later, George

Day Eighteen Le Tour

2011-07-19T02:05:00.000-07:00

Friends: While the peloton enjoyed its second and final rest day of its three week race around France, I had a stress-free day of riding my bike, unconcerned about being ordered off my bike as the peloton closed in on me or having to push hard to get to the Big Screen or of having to find a bar with a TV if I didn't have the Big Screen to watch.

Nor did I have to try to find a cyber cafe having filed a report the previous day. I could simply ride at whatever pace I desired, having no pressure of pushing as far down the road as I could as I'd gotten further along the day before than I anticipated. I could just joyously ride my bike, luxuriating in the pre-Alp scenery, letting the miles take care of themselves.

The day before I had ridden one hundred miles without even trying, arriving at the Big Screen in Montpellier before noon and deciding to continue on rather than linger to watch The Race since it was a flat stage that would most likely end in a sprint. I only needed to see the last half hour. A bar would do. Cavendish won for the fourth time. There is just one more flat stage, the final one in Paris, for him to win, giving him five victories, the same as last year and what he has been averaging the previous three years. He is living up to his potential of the greatest sprinter of all time. He will most likely break Merckx's career record of 34 Tour stage wins.

Even though yesterday's ride was a gradual climb towards the Alps past Mont Ventoux, the miles came so easily I had another one hundred mile day, leaving me just twelve miles from the stage finish in Gap. I have had more one hundred mile days this year than in any year's past thanks to the moderate temperatures and generally friendly winds and hard-riding companions.

I've ridden all or part of thirteen of the sixteen stages so far and will ride some of the final five, though the last one into Paris will be several days beyond the peloton after a three hundred mile transfer from the time trial in Grenoble. Two of the three stages I missed were stages five and six in the far north that I rode in June as I scouted The Route. Its been an excellent year.

It was well that I made it so far last night as soon after I began riding this morning it began to rain, cold and hard, the worst rain of The Tour. I was forced to put on my sweater and vest and booties. Just before the rain started Skippy drove by and reported that David the German was thirty kilometers behind me and that he had also seen Dave the Australian for the first time the evening before. If the rain doesn't let up, which it doesn't look like it will, we won't want to linger long by the Big Screen, our meeting point. The best thing is to keep moving and start on tomorrow's stage.

I had a Skippy encounter the day before as well at the tourist office in St. Paul Trois Chateaux, the Ville Départ for today's stage. He was just getting ready to preview the start of the stage as was I. But first we went across the street to join a mob of fans in front of the hotel where the Radio Shack team was staying. There was no hiding their presence what with the huge team bus and even larger team truck parked out in front along with the three team cars, all emblazoned with the bright red team logo. Just as we arrived a couple of team officials began tossing red t-shirts with the team's four leaders (Horner, Leipheimer, Kloden and Brajkovic) on the front and Allez Radio Shack on the back. Leipheimer is the only one still in The Race, and he just barely, having suffered several crashes. He had been a podium possibility, but is now over twenty minutes behind and won't even finish in the Top Ten.

The team is truly cursed this year. They greatly miss Lance. He no doubt is regretting he isn't in this year's Race with Contador and the Schlecks not on top form. That Voeckler can keep up with them is akin to Sastre winning The Race three years ago, part of what inspired Lance to come out of retirement. He told John Wilcockson of the Velo News that if Sastre could win The Race and Christian could finish fourth, he was fully confident he could have won it that year. But that was the year that Contador was kept out of The Race despite winning it the year before. He had switched teams to Astana and Astana was banned from The Race for a year because of Vinokourov's doping.

Skippy managed to grab a t-shirt and had me put it on for a photo in front of the team truck and crowd. He will be posting it at http://tourdafrance.blogspot.com

Skippy and I rode together for half an hour and then he doubled back to get his car. He needed some muffler work. He was going to drive it to the foot of Mont Ventoux, leave it with a mechanic and ride up the Giant of Provence.

It was a nice sunny day. The route was already lined with Tour followers in their campers sitting in lawn chairs enjoying the sun, many of them telling me I was the first. As on just about every stage there was a banner remembering Laurent Fignon, two-time Tour winner in the early '80s who succumbed to cancer earlier this year. He more than anyone would be thrilled by Voeckler in yellow vying for the overall win. He had been an outspoken critic of the French riders lack of success for the past two-and-a-half decades, accusing them of merely being content with stage victories.

He would be congratulating Voeckler for his aggressiveness, but also asking, why didn't you do this before. Voeckler acknowledges that his legs are stronger than in the past, but also that even these legs wouldn't have been strong enough to keep up with Lance and Basso in 2004 when he held the yellow jersey for ten days. Lance has tweeted that he greatly respects Voeckler's tenacity and thinks he can hang on to win The Tour. Back in 2004 in dangled at the back of the lead pack trying to keep up. This year he's at the front in the thick of the action on the climbs.

Even his team director says his performance has left him speechless. Not only how well he is doing, but several of his teammates as well, who have managed to assist him when the climbing gets steep. It will be a great story if he can pull this off, especially since his team didn't official qualify for The Tour, but was an extra selection.

It is a team with a new sponsor, Europcar, that stepped in at the last moment last year to rescue the Bouygues Telecom team that lost its sponsor and looked like it would be disbanded. It took a great effort from the team director Jean-Rene Bernaudeau to save the team. It is a French team based in the Vendée region where this year's Tour started. All along the first three stages in the Vendée were signs saying "Merci Jean-Rene."

Later, George

Day Sixteen Le Tour

2011-07-17T05:22:00.000-07:00

Friends: Looks like Voeckler is for real. He stuck with the leaders yesterday for the third and final day in the Pyrenees all the way to the finish line. He is now the story of The Tour, not the Schlecks vs Contador nor if Evans can finally win The Tour. And he provided all the drama in yesterday's stage as I watched it in a bar half-way along the next day's stage.

Unlike his ten-days in the yellow jersey seven years ago, this time the jersey has given him the strength to keep up in the mountains. It is a remarkable transformation, almost as amazing a performance as the eight minutes Floyd Landis put on the race leaders several years ago.

Today will be Voeckler's sixth day in yellow. He will surely keep it for the next two transitional stages before three days in the Alps. If he can hang tough there, all he has to do is endure next Saturday's time trial and he will be in yellow on the Champs Elysee one week from today when The Race concludes.

The only one showing any aggression yesterday was Schleck the Younger, with several surges from the bunch of ten contenders as they made the final ten mile climb to Pleateau de Beille. None dropped off nor could he sustain his charge. Unlike the previous mountain top finish two days before there was no finishing salvo from Schleck the Elder, as Andy seemed to be setting up for his brother Frank. It seemed everyone in the bunch had the same tired legs. Voeckler almost looked the strongest, easily responding to each surge.

Less than half-way up the climb the Garmin riders Christian and Danielson could no longer keep up. Christian rode at the front for a couple of kilometers early in the climb with Danielson on his wheel. When Basso forced the pace Christian immediately dropped off and Danielson not long afterwards. Danielson finished 13th and lost just a little more than a minute to Voeckler. He presently stands 9th overall 5:46 back. Christian is 29th overall, twenty-one minutes back.

It was easy to spot the Garmin riders as they were wearing yellow numbers on their jerseys for being the leading team thanks to Hushovd's heroic effort the day before chasing down two guys five minutes up the road to take the stage victory, the third for the Garmin team, tying them with HTC-High Road's three Cavendish sprint wins. Evidently seven days in yellow wasn't enough glory for Hushovd. He could have easily been content to take it easy for the rest of The Tour, but he showed the drive and determination of the World Champion that he is and put in a gallant effort.

I was watching Hushovd's charge in a bar in a town off The Tour route as I closed in on Limoux, today's Ville Départ, when in walked Dave the ultra-endurance Aussie mountain-biker, last seen over a week ago at the Stage Four finish in Mur de Bretagne. He was still going gangbusters, having already ridden 110 miles that day trying to get to Carcassone, 50 miles away by eight that evening for a hotel he had booked two months before and couldn't change. He made the same mistake David the German made last year, booking hotels ahead of time, not realizing it is much preferable to camp. It wasn't the first time a hotel greatly comprised his freedom and flexibility.

He couldn't blame a hotel though for not connecting with Vincent and I in Le Mans. He arrived in time but struggled to find our meeting point at The Stage start. He missed us by fifteen minutes. He could have easily chased us down, but he was so spent, he just collapsed. Plus he took advantage of a Decathlon sporting goods store near The Stage start to buy a sleeping pad and a rain coat. He arrived in Chateauroux, where the Le Mans stage finished, an hour after we did and rather than going to the Big Screen where we were, went and had a meal.

He was still charged with delight at being at The Tour and had had more good fortune than bad. He'd blown out a rear tire the evening of July 13th and miraculously found a bike shop open the next day on The Race route on Bastille Day to replace it, otherwise he would have had no hope of making his Carcasonne hotel.

He had yet to nab a course marker, unlike Vincent, David and I. When Vincent acquired his and was trying to figure out the best way to carry it, it struck him that he might be able to fit in in his spokes. It is just a little too large for that, but with some improvising it might work. That would be a brilliant way to display it, upstaging all the campers following The Tour with their course markers in their windows.

Figuring out how to fashion it to fit in a bicycle wheel will be a project for Vincent when he returns home. Last year it was figuring out how to make a light, practical kickstand. He came up with the ingenious idea of just wedging a metal rod about 18 inches long in the slot behind the bottom bracket whenever he wished to prop up his bike rather than to lay its on its side as he had to do when we camped the previous two years.

One night when the wind was whipping up I asked Vincent if he was sure it would hold. "She'll be all right," he replied. Young Dave laughed and said,"That's a typical Aussie. That means I don't really care or I haven't thought much about it." Vincent didn't dispute him. I was sorry to have had only two days with these two Aussies and their repartee.

As a chef, Vincent also was good at making food discoveries in the supermarket. Our last night together he experimented with cold water in a pack of mashed potato mix. It worked. That will make for good, light-weight emergency rations.

Nestles in the caravan was tossing out small tubes of chocolate powder good for a 200 milliliter class of milk. We'd both been buying one liter containers of chocolate milk as our energy drink. The Nestles powder made for a much tastier drink and also a cheaper one, converting us to its product. The caravan was also tossing out small tubes of a juice mix. They were so small they often went unnoticed, a rare item we could scavenge when biking the race course after the caravan had passed.

Monday is the second and final rest day before the final six stages. I'll be finishing off the 75 mile transfer between Montpellier, today's stage finish, and St. Paul Trois Chateux, Tuesday's stage start and beginning on the stage to Gap where I hope to meet up with David and his kitten and Dave the Aussie Tuesday. Then it will be on to the Galibier and L'Alpe d'Huez for some more high dramatics..

Later, George

Day Fourteen Le Tour

2011-07-15T04:18:00.000-07:00

Friends: The French did not get a Bastille Day winner but almost as good they kept the yellow jersey and also gained the white jersey for the best young rider on the spellbinding twelfth stage, the peloton's first foray into the mountains.

Voeckler had vowed to defend his yellow jersey, though no one expected him to keep it with two beyond category climbs and one category one as he isn't much of a climber. When he was still among the leaders when they passed under the ten kilometers to go arch on the final climb he actually gave a smile in contrast to his usual look of torture when he is giving an all out effort on one of his breakaways. Though he faltered in the final three kilometers he limited his losses to less than a minute and retained the jersey by nearly two minutes. It was a heroic effort that will go into Tour lore. He may be able to keep the jersey on today's stage with only one significant climb if he didn't totally deplete himself. He could barely stand when he dismounted from his bike.

He was the story of the day. When he took the yellow jersey three stages ago the headline on "L'Equipe" was "Voeckler Our Hero." Today's front page was "Voeckler the Lion," with a full page photo of him rather than a photo of the stage winner Samuel Sanchez or of Frank Schleck riding away from the pack of leaders with three kilometers to go or of Contador falling off and finishing eighth just seven seconds ahead of Voeckler. Ordinarily he would finish eight minutes or more ahead of Voeckler.

The French were also thrilled with 25 year old Arnold Jeannesson finishing twelfth and taking the white jersey for the best young rider. Maybe at last they have someone who can contend for the overall, something they have not won since Hinault in 1985. On the rest day "L'Equipe" had a two page spread addressing the issue of why the French can't contend for their national race.

This first mountain stage gave answers to several questions. Contador may not be bluffing when he says his legs are fatigued from the 200 kilometers of climbing in May's very strenuous Tour of Italy that he won. Italians Basso and Cunego passed on their national tour to save them legs for The Tour de France and both finished ahead of Contador yesterday, something they have rarely accomplished. Another question answered was that Frank may be the strongest of the two Schlecks, as he was the one to escape from the leaders on his third attempt gaining another 20 seconds on his younger brother. Evans was the one to finally lead the chase after him, showing he does have the legs to keep up in the high mountains this year. He's a superior time trialist than the Schlecks, so if he can remain within a couple minutes of them until the second to last day time trial, the title may be his after two second place finishes.

And the question of who is the strongest of the three Garmin climbers was also answered. It is Danielson, who hung with the best until the end and moved up to ninth overall. Christian began faltering half way up the Tourmalet, the second of the day's three big climbs. The motorcyclist cameraman hanging behind the lead group pounced on Christian, which immediately invigorated him to spurt back to the group, but then later he fell off, while the camera lingered on him longer than he probably would have liked. He finished ten minutes down and fell to 34th. Ryder Hesjedal, who finished 7th last year and was the surprise of The Tour as Christian had been two years earlier when he finished fourth, only lost four minutes, but he is 38th overall. They will be relegated to domestique duties for Danielson. If he can hang on, he will be the fourth different Garmin rider in four years to finish in the top ten, perhaps something no team has ever accomplished.

Garmin continues to make its mark on The Tour and gain attention. One of the several gendarmes on motorcycles leading the peloton casually commented "Garmin" as he passed me as I stood along the road. Both the Garmin team cars just behind the peloton tooted at me as they passed and director Jonathon Vaughters gave me another wave.

I was stationed two miles before the feed zone half-way through the stage. I had been ordered off the course by a gendarme on a motorcycle fifteen minutes before the caravan was due to pass. I could have walked on to the feed zone, but I knew it was through a decent-sized city and there were mobs of people ahead. I didn't care to contend with that mayhem, so contented myself to have a quiet stretch of road to myself. The only drawback was there was a canal just behind me, so I could possibly lose items tossed from the caravan if they were thrown too hard. As it was I only lost a bottle of Vittel water, though I saw quite a few Credit Lyonnaise yellow hats go streaming by. At my spot I was able to nab almost one of everything--hats, key chains, refrigerator magnets, various snacks and a newspaper. "L'Equipe" is once again one of the 34 sponsors in the caravan, but they aren't giving away papers this year.

There are no real prize items this year, so just about everything I receive I redistribute on the next stage. For me that will be Sunday. I'm skipping today's stage altogether and most of tomorrow's. I rode a short stretch of it last night from its starting point in Saint Gaudens, a frequent enough Ville Départ that the street where it starts from is named Rue des Campagnons du Tour de France, as I head to Sunday's stage departing from Limoux. I ought to arrive there tomorrow afternoon and easily make it to Montpellier for its finish Sunday. Then its a 75 mile transfer on the peloton's rest day to Saint Pauo Trois Chateaux where I have the possibility of meeting up with Yvon, my French friend I manage to connect with most years. It won't be easy, but we'll try.

I sought a bar as soon as the peloton passed, watching the final three hours of the stage sitting in a comfortable wicker chair with a crowd of French. The sprinters Cavendish, Greipel and Farrar, who had finished one-two-three the day before, all got a little air time as they plodded along at the back of the pack before the action at the front heated up and there was no time for the stragglers.

As soon as the stage was completed it was back on the bike for four hours of glorious evening cycling along the fringe of the Pyrenees. There was hardly any traffic until half an hour before dark when people hopped in their cars to head to the nearest town's fireworks. I left the rain fly off my tent to watch them as I ate dinner, but none were in sight though I could hear the blasts.

Later, George

Day Twelve Le Tour

2011-07-13T06:42:00.000-07:00

Friends: Just what I didn't need, I thought, a flat tire with night descending and thunder and lightening lacing the ominously blackening sky, though that flat might have been a stroke of good fortune. I had paused in the small village of Vaour 24 miles into the next day's stage to fill my third water bottle at the public toilet before making camp. Someone had scrawled "Eau Non Potable" over the sink. I filled my bottle anyway not sure if I would need it and also knowing that such warnings are not always to be heeded.

I gave my self a quick wash with my level of grime not as thick as the day before as the temperatures had moderated and then hurried back to my bike as nature's pre-Bastille day pyrotechnics in the sky intensified and discovered a front flat. At least I had the shelter of the toilet as a refuge if the rain came pelting down. If it could hold off just 15 minutes I could quickly slip out of this village and find a field to pitch my tent.

After a quick tire change I was on my bike and back on the road when as the drops starting falling. And just at that instant who comes along? Non other than Skippy with his radar trying to track me down knowing I'd be riding until dark on this road. We both ducked into the open toilet facility hoping the storm would be a quick one. Even if it wasn't, if the clouds went with it we'd have a near full moon to help us find a place to camp.

Almost instantly we noticed across the street in the church parking lot a tent erected for some Tour gathering the next day. We put on our rain jackets to scout it out as a potential campsite. It was 15 feet by 15 feet and inside were about twenty benches and one table. The rain had already formed puddles inside it, so we couldn't put our sleeping pads down on the pavement. Putting three benches together for each of us formed a good enough bed frame. I wheeled my bike over and Skippy collected his bedding from his car. It was past ten o'clock. Skippy was tired enough to conk right out. I needed to do some eating. It took me half an hour to finish off my couscous and cassoulet stew and turned in myself. It wasn't a very restful night though with the storm not relenting and a trio of long-haired teen-aged boys out for an evening of mischief taking a peek in at one a.m., quite surprised to see us seeming vagrants, but then noticing my bike with the panniers still attached recognized we were followers of The Tour, then wishing us a "Bon Nuit." I was glad it wasn't Turkey, though I wasn't sure where I was when they startled me awake.

After one boisterous series of thunderclaps before Skippy had gone to sleep he said, "I know who's going to win tomorrow's stage, Thor," referring to Garmin's Hushovd, as Thor is the god of thunder. Its not an impossibility. He's a very capable sprinter and the next stage would most likely end in a sprint. But Cavendish and his ex-teammate Greipel, who aren't the best of friends, would most likely be going at it with an extreme vengeance, as Greipel beat Cavendish for the first time in the Tour that day. In the previous sprint finish at Chateauroux Cavendish just narrowly beat Greipel. Greipel had been left off The Tour team when he and Cavendish were teammates, so this is the first year they've been able to test each other and not defer to one another. Today's sprint could be epic. It will be the last one for three stages while the peloton spends three days in the Pyrenees.

I won't be watching it on the big screen in Lavaur at the finish as I pushed on to Toulouse, 22 miles away after arriving in Lavaur at noon. I didn't care to linger for five hours in drizzly weather, especially since there was no Internet to be found in Lavaur with its library closed on Tour day. And there will be no Internet tomorrow with it being Bastille Day. I didn't object at all to getting a head start on tomorrow's sage. It is another ten miles to the start. This will allow me to get 30 miles down the stage tonight and then at least to the feed zone tomorrow morning before I'm pulled from the route. The road will be mobbed with spectators if the weather clears since everyone will be on holiday. I'll have to watch the Tourmalet climb and the finishing climb on television. That's okay as three years ago I was on the Tourmalet on Bastille Day. I remember it well as Cavendish brought up the rear, about twenty minutes behind the leader, following the wheel of a teammate. He's gotten stronger in the mountains, but he still won't be pushing it.

I was hoping to see David and his kitten at the end of yesterday's stage as he could now be happy that a German, Greipel, had won a stage. I encountered him near the big screen a couple hours before the peloton was due. He was on his hands and knees peering under a car trying to coax his kitten out. The day before had been an especially trying day with the kitten in the heat. He's about to head back to Germany at any minute, but wanted to get a little more cycling in together.

He prefers to watch The Race in a bar sipping coffee rather than at the big screen amongst all the fans, so we arranged to meet at the public toilet that I had already visited in the town's main square half an hour after the stage finished. He didn't make it so perhaps decided to turn back. If he were on the course he would have caught up to me unless he lost his way, a possibility, as for the first time someone had pilfered a series of key course markers that made following the route guesswork unless one had the route details. I was in a stream of camper vans and just followed them.

Skippy was livid about the stealing of the course markers and promised to send off an email to Tour officials about it. It is an extreme taboo to take down a course marker until after the peloton has passed and remarkably it is largely observed. Earlier in the day Skippy had emailed President Sarkozy about the thugs who force flags on unsuspecting Tour fans and then demand money out of them. Some even include a box of candy with the flag and want ten euros for the combination. There are enough retirees along the route who can be intimidated that it keeps these guys at it.

Later, George

Day Eleven Le Tour

2011-07-12T03:13:00.000-07:00

Friends: For the third time in the first ten stages I was able to get a full 24-hour head start on the peloton with yesterday being a rest day relieving me of any pressure to beat the peloton to the finish line in Carmaux. It helped too that the stage was only 99 miles, considerably shorter than the average of 125 miles.

Now that The Tour has crossed into the southern half of France the temperatures have warmed up. For the first time I overheated enough early in the evening last night on a category three climb that I shed my shirt. I was not alone as just about every male sitting in a camp chair besides his camper van along the route was also shirtless. I though was the exception in not having an over sized gut hanging over my belt.

As seems to be the theme this year, there was more exceptional hay-bale art along the way, perhaps inspired by this year's poster which is "Tous Fous Le Tour" spelled out in a field of hay. Rather than just piling up rectangular and circular bales of hay into some bicycle figure, many farmers have been sculpting hay into figures with arms and legs and facial features. Three deer on bikes whose wheels were giant rolls of hay were today's standout. They could well end up on television as there was also a huge sign written out facing skyward for the helicopters. It was 25 miles from the finish, so has a good chance of making the broadcast unlike art in the first half of the course before the telecast begins.

French producers don't go out of their way though to show such human-interest angles of The Race. Evidently they know their audience craves non-stop bicycle action and steams up when they divert their cameras to show the beautiful and exceptional sites along the route as do the American producers.

Vying for the most original piece of art of this year's Tour is a mannequin of The Devil complete with pitchfork chasing a mannequin on a bicycle wearing the red polka dot jersey. I didn't have my German translator with me today when I passed The Devil to ask him if he had seen it. I saw him on a bicycle for the first time, as it was mid-morning and there wasn't much going on. He had his pitchfork in one hand and was delighting a handful of villagers.

Even those off The Tour route on the roads linking a stage finish to the next day's start get in on the act of celebrating The Tour with bike art. On the way to Aurillac yesterday on N122 I passed a bicycle on a ridge above the road with twelve empty tin cans evenly spaced attached to its rear wheel. The rear wheel was slightly elevated and was slowly spinning as a hose filled a can with the weight of the water moving it downward.

Two miles from today's finish a cyclist in the US Postal Service uniform of ten years ago flew by me. He shouted out "Garmin" as he passed. We had spoken briefly several days ago at the Chataueroux finish line as we watched the big screen. He was a Norwegian of about my vintage following The Tour for the first time. We reconnected in the town plaza here in Carmaux before heading over to the town's cyberbase. He had ridden all of today's route as well and hadn't seen any of the other touring cyclists who I've had contact with earlier in The Race. Evidently they've all dropped out as usually happens.

The Norwegian is riding a carbon fiber Trek without any racks, just wearing a small pack on his back and staying at hotels. As we talked a woman wearing a shirt of the Norwegian flag and carrying two Norwegian flags walked by. She is part of a bus tour of Norwegians. Interest in bicycle racing is exploding in popularity in Norway with the Garmin rider Thor Hushovd having won the world championship last year and the green jersey in The Tour in previous years.

Now its over to the Giant Screen to watch the final two hour's of today's stage. It being so short the peloton set out at 1:30 this afternoon and are expected here by five. There were four categorized climbs, but just threes and fours, so it ought to end up with a sprint finish. Then it's just a ten mile transfer to Blaye-les-Mines for the start of tomorrow's stage, the shortest transfer of this year's Tour.

Tomorrow's stage has only one small climb, so Voeckler will be able to keep the yellow jersey until Thursday, Bastille day, when The Tour heads to the Pyrenees and its first of four mountain top finishes. Then we will see who is for real, if Evans has truly improved his form to be able to ride with Schleck and Contador and if the Schleck brothers have it in them to keep up with Contador and if Christian and his teammate Danielson can be factors as well. Its been a great Tour and it will only get better.

Later, George

Day Ten Le Tour

2011-07-11T02:29:00.000-07:00

Friends: As I was half-way up a five mile climb at 9:15 last night on N122 to Aurillac, the next stage start, a 50-year old French cyclist on a racing bike with a pack on his back caught up to me. He was the rare French cyclist who was fluent in English. I figured he must have been exultant with the French cyclist Tom Voeckler having taken over the yellow jersey just hours before. After eight stages the French hadn't won a stage yet and the sports pages were full of fretting stories about their poor performance, especially compared to last year when the French won six stages.

"All of France must be thrilled with Voeckler in yellow," I commented.

"Not me," he replied. "My favorite rider is Cyril Dessel, and he doesn't get along with Voeckler."

"I've read that Voeckler is the most disliked rider in the peloton."

"That's true."

"But he's the favorite of all the French housewives."

"Yes, that's true too."

Its been seven years since Voeckler had a ten-day stint in yellow and won the favor of all of France. He hasn't been in yellow since, though he's won a few stages of The Tour and won the French national championship and assorted other significant races. And he's made two stabs at winning stages already this year in breakaways, so no one can complain about his aggressiveness and giving attention to the new sponsor of his team, Europcar. He'd been the highest placed rider in the race at 19 going into the stage and the only French rider to do anything of significance in the first week of The Race.

After fifteen minutes of conversation we reached the summit of the climb. Patrick had been telling me that he would also be at the Friday L'Alpe d'Huez stage at the end of The Race, as he does whenever The Tour visits it. Its been three years, when ordinarily it visits it every other year. He intends to spend the weekend after the stage in the vicinity climbing cols (passes) that he hasn't climbed. He hopes to reach 500 cols by the end of this year. One can get a certificate for climbing 100 of France's cols in one's lifetime, so Patrick was a true fanatic. Not as much as someone he knows who has climbed 10,000 of them. France has about 8,000, of which 2,500 are on paved roads, the rest on dirt. He has friends who've been to America to add to their list.

As we neared the summit Patrick warned that we might have to continue on up to a ski resort as he thought bicyclists were prohibited from the tunnel that cuts through the top of the mountain. There wasn't an initial no bicycle sign at the side road, but a little further on just before the entrance to the tunnel was that dreaded sign. He suggested we ignore it as it was nearing dark and there wasn't much traffic. The tunnel was well lit and he had a flashing red light on the back of his bike.

It was a great decision, saving us half an hour and considerable effort as the tunnel went on for two miles and began the long descent. When we parted several minutes later we arranged to try to meet at L'Alpe d'Huez where he will be arriving the night before the peloton staying with a bunch of friends half-way up the mountain just beyond the raucous Dutch corner.

I was on my own as Vincent elected to pull the pin on his efforts earlier in the day at Issoire at the start of Stage Nine. He had never done much climbing in all his years of cycling and the day before, as The Tour entered the Massif Central, there had been a lot. His legs were kaput. He persevered tenaciously though like his gritty compatriot Cadel. Holding on for eight stages continued his progression of doubling the number of stages he's ridden year by year. The first year he did two. Last year four. It will be tough for him to get to sixteen though next year and endure the real mountains, the Alps and the Pyrenees.

We lost David and his kitten the day before shortly after taking a two hour break along The Race Route watching the peloton pass at about the eighty kilometer point in the stage. We weren't as far along as I would have liked as we were greatly delayed the night before. A half hour break at seven p.m. in the town of Aigurande, the start of Stage Eight, turned into two hours what with David needing to appease his twin addictions of coffee and nicotine. It took ten minutes just to find a store that sold the tobacco he prefers for rolling his cigarettes.

And then ten minutes out of town his kitten started meowing with fervor as she had shit in her nest. It took half an hour along the road to clean it up and give the kitten some time out of the bag she is imprisoned in. but along came Skippy while we waited for David to take care of the kitten. He said he would stop about ten miles up the road so we could all camp together. David had used up all his water cleaning his kitten's mess. When we saw a camper with German license plates he stopped to ask for water. It turned out to be an Australian couple with two young children who had rented the camper in Germany. They had water to spare.

All the time lost put us 25 miles short of where we needed to be if we were to reach the finish in St. Fleur on Sunday, our next meeting point with the assorted cyclists we've met along The Route. But that allowed Vincent and I to witness all the hoopla of a Stage start with all the riders coming up on a stage to sign in and get a brief introduction from Tour voice Daniel Mangeas who keeps up a truly awesome breathless non-stop ninety minute monologue. Thousands of people from miles around mob the start village and first couple of kilometers of The Race route through the city.

We should have been one hundred or more kilometers down The Race route at this point, but it was nice to enjoy all these festivities as well. As were were talking, I heard a shout of Pou-Pou in the distance, knowing for once it was not directed at me. And there a little ways away was the man himself, 70 year old Raymond Poulidor walking on the other side of the barricade just before the official starting line with an escort of four guys all in matching yellow shirts.

I was able to get in a brief greeting with Christian Vande Velde after his introduction as he took his place in line among the 185 racers still in The Race just prior to setting out. He was in excellent spirits, sitting in the top 25 poised to move into the top ten and higher once The Race reaches the Pyrenees in several days where his climbing legs can take full effect. His team has held the yellow jersey for a week and has won two stages. Things could hardly be better for Garmin.

Contador and Evans and Hushovd were among the last to take their place in line, trying to limit their time in the public eye as they know they would be mobbed by journalists with huge cameras. Even though they were all just an arm's length from Vincent and I we couldn't get a picture ourselves as there was nothing to see except microphones and bulky cameras on guy's shoulders.

After saying farewell to Vincent I was on my way, now down to a gang of one after a group at one point for two days of four of us. I nabbed the only two course markers that hadn't been appropriated yet. Fortunately The Route wasn't complicated at this point and I didn't need them to stay on course until stopping at three to watch the final two-and-a-half hours of The Stage, the first with quite a few passes to climb, though no category ones or beyond category.

It was a welcome relief not to be under any pressure to find a bar with a television with loads of time before the Stage concluded. The last three days it had been a frantic rush, a hard sprint almost equivalent to that of the peloton closing in on the finish line, to find a bar. The day before Vincent and I reached a television just three kilometers before the end of The Stage as the peloton began its climb up to the ski resort of Super Bessy. We had to peer at a television through a doorway into the personal apartment of the proprietors of a restaurant/hotel.

For some reason the man watching the action didn't care to invite us in to join him for the final few minutes of The Stage. But it made for a most memorable viewing experience for the dramatics of this stage with a Spanish breakaway rider holding off the peloton and Vinokourouv in the middle chasing him down. Vincent's man Cadel finished third and appeared to have gapped Hushovd in the yellow, overcoming his one second deficit to take the yellow jersey himself. We didn't learn until ten minutes later when we went into the local supermarket that also sold televisions, five of which were tuned to the post-Tour coverage, that Hushovd hadn't been gapped, and even though he finished several places down to Cadel he was given his same time and retained yellow.

We also learned that earlier in the stage the rookie American Tejay Van Garderen riding for the HTC-High Road team was the first rider over the first category two climb of The Race and had taken over the red polka-dot jersey for the best climber in The Race. He may be the first American to wear it. It was on cloud nine as he was interviewed after the stage by the French announcer who had to ask him how to pronounce his name and then wanted his life story, wondering also if LeMond and Armstrong had been his heroes.

The two previous stages we had been able to watch the end of the race in actual bars, but both times had cut it real close, eight and six kilometers to the finish. But I kept my record in tact of having missed only one stage finish these past eight years of over 150 stages.

There was considerable carnage in yesterday's stage with Vinokouvov crashing out and the Belgain Van Den Broeck, both team leaders and contenders, joining earlier crash victims Horner and Wiggins and Brajovic, all potential Top Ten finishers. The craziest crash of the day was a Eurosport car sideswiping two riders in the five-man breakaway that Voeckler was a part of. There was no waiting up for them to rejoin.

One of the riders from the Dutch team Vacansoleil struggled to finish the race. I would have felt a lot more sympathy for his tragedy if the driver of his team bus that he was riding in on the way to the stage start hadn't nearly blown Vincent and I off the road. He passed within inches of both of us, holding his line on the narrow road without a shoulder even though there was no oncoming traffic. It was the closest call I've had in all my years of following The Tour. And the three team cars with all the team bikes on their roofs passed us nearly as closely as well. I couldn't blame it on my Garmin jersey as I had on my rain jacket. We actually saw the team bus and the driver pull into the area where all the teams congregate before The Stage start and could have given him a piece of our minds if we wished, but we let it go.

Later, George

Day Seven Le Tour

2011-07-08T05:47:00.000-07:00

Friends: It was just Vincent and I enjoying all the day-before preparations along the Stage Seven route from Le Mans to Chateauroux yesterday as we rode the first eighty miles of the course, as Dave the Australian did not make our noon rendezvous point at the start of the course, nor did he come charging up from behind us we expected at any moment.

But David the German did meet up with us less than fifteen miles from the finish just a couple hours ago. He had a mighty surprise for us, something he had hidden in his front basket that he wanted both of us to see at the same time, the most incredible thing imaginable, he said. He being a professional bird watcher I figured it might be some feathered creature. It was indeed a creature, but rather a meowing one, a young kitten. He found her at a rest area two days ago and has been traveling with her since.

She was loving it, nestled up in David's travel bag he carries in his wire mesh handlebar basket. David carried on about how smart and affectionate she was as if he were a proud father. She could well be the first kitten to travel The Tour by bicycle. David said he had become so preoccupied by her that he nearly went a whole day without smoking a cigarette. He thought at last he would be able to quit. But he had another this morning, and he said it was absolutely divine.

We reached the finish of today's route just after two, having to ride the last mile along the sidewalk rather than on the course. No Dave at the big screen but we encountered a young Scottish touring cyclist who had just joined up with The Tour and plans to bike as much of the route from here as he can. So we might have a new recruit. Its his first Tour and had lots of questions, wondering if he'd be able to ride the mountain passes on the day of the race and where the best place to watch the stages was and on and on.

Its great to be reunited with David as besides being a very energetic and frolicsome traveling companion shouting out "Bon Tour" and "Bon Appetite" to the throngs along the road as they greet us, he buys "L'Equipe" every day. He and the nation were deprived on Monday and Tuesday though, as the drivers who deliver "L'Equipe" went on strike. It was a near national catastrophe, timed of course when people most crave this national sporting newspaper that devotes up to eight pages each issue to The Tour.

David had been so preoccupied with his kitten that he hadn't been able to find a bar to watch the last two stage finishes. Vincent and I were lucky yesterday to find a television in the first bar we tried about an hour before the stage finish, unlike the previous two days when we had to try at least six or seven and were getting quite desperate. Two days ago a woman helped us out and led us as she drove her car to a bar. But yesterday, since we were on The Tour route it was a snap. When we came to the town center of Montoire-sur-le-Loir there was a bar right at the corner with a "Vive Le Tour" banner. We didn't even have to ask to turn the television to The Tour as we had to to the day before. The bar was plastered with all the team rosters and the route and the course profile of the mountain stages. And as with all but the first stage, the winner came from an English speaking team, Team Sky, joining Garmin and HTC-Highroad.

Earlier in the day we had stopped for lunch in one of those typical small quiet French towns. Vincent asked," How long would it take before you were bored shitless living here. It might be nice for a month, but I don't think I could last much longer." Vincent once owned a bakery back in Australia. He would like to introduce meat pies to France. He may miss them more than Vegemite. He drives a taxi one day a week back in Melbourne and it is easy for him to stop and grab a meat pie from any number of outlets that have them in a warming box on a counter.

While we were keeping our eyes peeled for Dave, a car pulled up and two young men hoped out with boxes of small flags and began ringing doorbells. I'd seen such an operation along the Tour route before, but they had always preyed upon fans along the course or people in cars. This year they are much more aggressive.

They have always been the scourge of The Tour, racing at people, thrusting the small cellophane French flags into someone's hands who think this is something affiliated with the Tour caravan and is free. But they want a euro for their flags. And they are surprising successful, especially when a small child already has one and starts waving it.

This year there are several bands of these entrepreneurs/con artists. Some are wearing reflective vests and stand in the road stopping traffic. The two Vincent and I were watching had cards dangling around their neck as if they were official credentials and bright yellow Tour wrist bands.

Many people know the scam and immediately send them on their way. But these guys aren't deterred. They are hustlers of the highest order, literally and figuratively. They just sprint on to the next prospect. I've nearly been knocked off my bike as they swerve in front of me to park and then fling open the car doors, sometimes with three or four guys flying out and then sprinting to fans along the route. It is always a delight to see the flag handed back to them. Occasionally the gendarmes will run them off, but they are always back the next day in the next region where there is a fresh crops of gendarmes and potential victims.

Skippy too is more infuriated than ever by how blatant they are this year. When he's driving his car he just blasts his horn and charges them. Skippy is campaigning to have something down about this blight on The Tour. You can read about his strong feelings at http://tourdafrance.blogspot.com He came along in his car after we'd been on the road for two hours this morning and said he'd pull over up ahead for a chat, as we'd missed each other the past few days. When we arrived he had his cooker out and was boiling water for coffee or tea. He said he had spoken to a three star general in the police force about the flag sellers and hoped he might take some action. Its a good thing there is no market value for the course markers otherwise these characters would strip the course of them in the night, such is their character.

Now its back to the Giant Screen for today's most likely sprint finish. Hopefully Dave will have joined us and we'll be up to five in our touring cyclist entourage.

Later, George

Day Six Le Tour

2011-07-07T02:06:00.001-07:00

Friends: Day six of The Tour and Vincent and I are right on schedule, in fact a bit ahead, allowing me time for the Internet. We've arrived in Le Mans, the start of tomorrow's Stage Seven, awaiting Dave the Australian. We had arranged to meet at the start of the stage at noon today and then set out, trying to get at least 75 miles down the course, leaving us 60 miles to get to the finish by two tomorrow.

Dave left us at the end of stage four in Mur de Bretagne, as he'd reserved a hotel ahead of time nearby and he wanted to ride some of stage five to Cape Frehel. He's got the legs for the extra miles, as he modestly left slip the other day that he finished ninth at the latest 24 hour mountain bike world championships. He is an elite endurance athlete who can gobble up the miles and ride for hours and hours. He might have finished even higher at the world championships but he had to curtail his riding with 45 minutes to go when he started hallucinating.

David the German accompanied Vincent and I until noon yesterday when he decided to take a more direct route to tomorrow's stage finish and give his legs a rest, though he too has strong legs despite riding in sandals and taking regular cigarette breaks. After the bicycle, his two favorite things are coffee and cigarettes, the title of a most entertaining Jim Jarmusch movie. He knew the movie and very much likes Jarmusch, but generally doesn't like movies, so hasn't seen it. David can't remember the last movie he saw and says that he walks out on at least half that the does go to see. Such behaviour does not sit well with girl friends, but he is a very strong-minded individual with very strong opinions who is fairly set in his ways. He makes for a very entertaining travel companion. Dogs particularly irk him, as he says they have a Hitler-complex, all wanting a leader. He prefers cats and their independent ways. We hope to be rendezvousing with David at two tomorrow under the jumbo screen at the finish line in Chateauroux.

Vincent and I were disappointed not to see the finish of stage four, even though we arrived at it four hours ahead of the peloton. It was drizzling, so instead of finding cover and lingering, we pushed on and had to watch Cadel Evans, Vincent's fellow Australian, just barely nip Contador at the line in a bar. It was a steep one mile climb to the finish that was as dramatic as could be with all the strongmen up there fighting it out. Vincent is even more of an Evans fan after meeting him last Thursday at the team introductions thanks to Skippy. Vincent heard from friends back home that their handshake was caught on Australian television, making Vincent even more of a celebrity among his mates.

Vincent and I might have opted for the short cut that David is taking along the Loire River, but a strong westerly wind picked up with Tuesday's rain, blowing directly towards Le Mans. Back to back days of 105 and 112 days didn't take much effort. Now we're about to head due south for the next 250 miles. It is cloudy and cool and we've had to put on our rain jackets a couple times already today.

I was particularly disappointed to have to wear my rain jacket hiding my Garmin jersey riding the final ten miles of stage four past the hundreds of fans, as the day before Garmin's sprinter Tyler Farrar took his first career Tour de France win in Redon. I was there at the finish line and was immediately getting many hand claps and bravos as I rode past all the fans after the race. I've only seen a couple of other fans wearing the Garmin jersey, and those seem to be Thor Hushovd fans wearing this year's jersey, which is distinctly different. I get extra respect for being a veteran fan wearing last year's team jersey. I always get some response from fans riding my loaded bike, so now I don't know if the cheers are for me as a touring cyclist or me representing the Garmin team.

The Le Mans start is right along side the famed car racing track where the 24 Hour race is held. Vincent is presently there awaiting Dave. The course markers are already in place and some barriers are up, but otherwise none of the construction of the many many buildings of the Tour Départ Village have gone up. They are still in place over 100 miles away in Dinan where today's stage is about to start.

Later, George

Stage Two

2011-07-04T05:56:00.000-07:00

Friends: And now we are four. A couple hours after the scintillating team trial which Vincent, David and I watched on the jumbo screen just 200 meters from the finish line won by Garmin putting the Garmin rider Thor Hushovd from Norway into the yellow jersey, as the three of us were riding the Stage Three route we were passed by a hard-riding young cyclist with rear panniers. We latched onto his wheel and quickly learned he was an Australian also intending to ride the entire route.

Two years ago I met Vincent trying to do the same and then David last year, so I was wondering who it might be this year. In year's past I usually happen upon some rookie trying to ride the course before stage one or on stage one. I was concerned there would be no one new this year, so we were all delighted to have a new recruit for our touring team.

He is another David, though we'll distinguish him from David the German by calling him Dave. He is a quite gung-ho 21-year old thrilled to be at The Tour. He races back in Australia so is plenty fit. He has shaved legs and a few bruises from crashes that haven't entirely healed. He immediately won our favor when he said he sold his car so he could afford this trip. David was just slightly disappoint that instead of selling his car he hadn't put a torch to it. David has never owned a car in his 42 years and is easily irritated by the exhaust they spew and the noise they make and the hurry they are in and the toots they give us. He was particularly appalled when a camper in The Tour entourage passed us pulling a car. Vincent commented, "You know how it is David, most people can't have enough cars."

Dave is riding a carbon fiber bike and carrying four water bottles, two behind his saddle and two on his frame. Like David he only has rear panniers, while Vincent and I have our gear spread out over front and rear bags. Dave is still learning the in the ways of France. He inadvertently ended up on an expressway his first day out of Paris and was pulled over by the police with a few minutes. Rather than a warning, they put him and his bike in the car and took him to the police station to collect a 22 euro fine. He didn't know that most grocery stores are closed on Sundays in France so had to leave the time trial before it ended to go to a larger city twelve miles away to get food. If he hadn't had to make that detour we might not have met.

We galloped along at nearly twenty miles per hour alternating between being a four man pace line and riding two abreast to chat until ten p.m. camping in a freshly cut field of hay, perfect for Dave as he didn't bring along a sleeping pad. "Anybody have a rake?" he asked. I offered one of the PMU green hands I had picked up from the caravan to help gather the hay for a mattress; He easily had his best sleep of his ten days so far in France. But he hadn't bought enough food for dinner.

Us three vets had food to spare, Vincent a pack of potato soup, David some noodles that he just cooked up and me some corn flakes and three packs of candy from the caravan that I had planned on tossing out to people along the route the next day. , But I had plenty of other stuff, even after a gave Vincent five of the red polka dots hats I nabbed and one to Dave, his first. David likewise had a good haul of caravan goodies. Initially he scorned all the useless junk they give away, but when I told him how much satisfaction we give to people along the route ahead of the caravan dispersing goodies ahead of time, he became as exuberant as anyone in trying to grab stuff. He has a perfect set up with a wire basket on the front of his classic Bianchi racing bike. He says these baskets have become popular among messengers in his home down of Bremen. He worked as a messenger himself for a couple of year before he became a professional bird-watcher in 2003.

Twenty miles into our sixty mile ride to today's Stage Three finish in Redon we managed to lose Dave. We waited for 20 minutes on the huge bridge over the Loire waiting for him, but to no avail. The bridge rose high enough over the river to qualify as a category four climb for the riders. But we met up at the stage finish under the giant screen, as was our backup. The biggest loss in getting separated was that Dave missed out on meeting The Devil. David got the opportunity for the first time and was able to do some translating, as The Devil only speaks German. He warmly greeted me saying "musée, musée" as he identifies me as one of the rare people following The Tour to have visited his museum of bikes he has built and all his memorabilia in a small town south of Berlin.

Now we have a couple hours of enjoyment of watching Garmin on the front of the pack defending the yellow jersey. With luck they ought to keep it for five or six stages. People today along the route were responding to my Garmin jersey shouting out "Garmeen." Once today's stage is done we will try to match last night's 50 post-race miles heading to the Stage Four finish in Mur de Bretange. If its as nice as last night we'll feel as if we could go all the way to the finish.

Later, George

Stage One

2011-07-03T01:16:00.001-07:00

Friends: It was just David and I riding Stage One as Vincent headed straight to the end of the stage to join us there. David was awaiting me precisely at the appointed picnic table a kilometer from the Passage de Gois well ahead of out noon starting time. We began our Tour almost 24 hours ahead of the peloton, riding until ten p.m. getting 75 miles into stage one. Though there weren't many fans yet occupying their spots along the route there was a fair amount of road graffiti already, most of it cheering on the Europcar Team and its leader Thomas Voeckler who are from this Vendée region.

The other most prominent writing on the road was directed at Contador and not encouraging him other than to leave the race. Someone gave him the red card (the soccer symbol for ejection from a game) not only writing it out in French but also painting a large red block on the road. There were other Contador writings with a syringe periodically along the road. The headline on the front page of the local newspaper was that he had been booed the day before at the team presentation. As feared his lingering drug case is becoming an all too dominant story. He has a fragile temperament and said he had been considering dropping out of the race except for the encouragement from his fans and teammates and fellow riders in the peloton. David is typically German in having no tolerance for drug use in the peloton and is unequivocal in his opinion that Contador is guilty and should not be allowed to race.

The further we got into the course and the later in the evening it got the more campers we began to see parked along the route. We knew we could park out tents anywhere and not need be discreet about it. We chose a grassy area with a handful of trees that already had one camper parked nearby. As we were setting up our tents a French gentleman came over to greet. He said he lived 60 kilometers away but was thrilled to spend the night in his camper and secure his preferred spot along the course.

We were back on our bikes by eight the next morning for the final 45 miles of the Stage. We finished it off by noon, plenty, plenty early, five and a half hours before the peloton was due. And there at the finish line Vincent was awaiting us along with five English cyclists he'd met who were all staying at the campground where he was. They were already all great friends, one of whom was riding Skippy's 1998 Tour de France bike. All but one of them had attended previous tours. But no Skippy as he was off riding the course having ridden from Les Essarts to the start and then riding the course until Les Herbiers, almost 300 kilometers, a normal day for Skippy . They all were devoted fans of the big screen for watching the race, so we headed over to it for the next four hours. We were lucky to find a sliver of shade.

There was an inconsequential three man breakaway until the final 30 kilometers and then the racing started. A crash caught Contador and quite a few others throwing havoc into the final placings. Gilbert, the Belgian, won as expected on the steep two-kilometer finishing climb, beating Evans by three seconds and Garmin's Husovd. It places Hushovd in great position to take the yellow jersey today if the Garmin team can win the team time trial. They will be riding with vengeance as its three hopes, Vande Velde, Hesjedal and Danielson were all caught behind the crash and lost nearly two minutes, but only thirty seconds to Contador.

It is now four hours until the start of the time trail. The town is swarming and alive with great enthusiasm. Once again this is the ultimate place to be today. Now I turn the computer in the tourist office over to Skippy for his report: http://www.tourdafrance.blogspot.com

Later, George

On the Route

2011-07-01T07:44:00.000-07:00

Friends: Tom Danielson, riding The Tour for the first time at the age of 33 for the Garmin team, commented after previewing the first stage after a training ride with his team that he was amazed by all the decorated bikes along the route. He's ridden the Tour of Italy and the Tour of Spain, the two other major three-week races, as well as the week-long Tour of Switzerland and countless others races in Europe and America, and he's never seen anything like it.

Welcome to THE Tour Tom.. It truly is in a class until itself beyond anything one can describe. It has to be experienced to believed. And he ain't seen nothing yet. Wait until he sees the throngs along the road and their fervor with signs and flags and road graffiti and cheers. They've already been parking their campers along Sunday's time trial course four days ahead of time. I passed several dozen of them in the six mile segment I biked last night on my way back to the Stage One start after watching the team presentations on a large screen at the Tour Village of sponsors in Les Herbiers, finish of Stage One.

There were throngs there as well. It seemed as if everyone in the vicinity and their poodle were milling around the vast area of sponsors in a large hall and outside it. I encountered Skippy an hour and a half before the presentation was to start. He suggested we head over to Tour central and see if we might find someone who could get us into the presentation at the Puy du Fou park seven miles away. He noticed Christian Prudhomme's car parked outside, the director of the festival who Skippy knows. After half an hour waiting for him to come out we learned that he had already gone in another vehicle. Then we tried the press center near by. Though Skippy knew quite a few of the journalists and others, none could help us.

So it was back to the large screen at the Sponsor's Village. That was a fine enough setting for me sharing the experience with dozens of others. It was held in the replica Roman Coliseum with the teams ushered out with gladiators in costume and some in chariots. The big story was Contador being booed, not once but twice. His Spanish teammates took such offense to the booing they refused to wave to the crowd when they were introduced, unlike the other 190 plus racers. On the telecast afterwards former racers Jacky Durand and Richard Virenque said it was terrible and a shame. It will be interesting to see if that is the story throughout the three weeks of The Tour.

Later, George

Les Herbiers 2

2011-06-30T04:14:00.000-07:00

Friends: Less than 48 hours now until 198 of the best bicycle racers in the world will be unleashed upon France for the 98th race around the country--the world's most watched annual sporting event beamed into 190 countries. My build-up to this monumental sporting and cultural event seems to have been longer than in years past as for the first time of my eight years of tagging along with the peloton I've confined my five weeks of pre-Tour training to biking exclusively in France.

Previously a good portion of my training has been a long ride starting from Cannes after the film festival to another country and then back to France. One year it was a ride to Scotland. Others have been to Eastern Europe, the length of Italy, the Camino de Santiago across the top of Spain, to Berlin and on up to Denmark.

Even though I remained in France this year, I still put the same number of miles on my legs, about 2,500, while more thoroughly scouting the race route than I ever have. I checked out 23 of the 38 cities hosting a stage start or finish. Of the fifteen I neglected, I know eight of them from previous visits. I've learned it is invaluable to have some familiarity with a city, helping my escape immeasurably after a stage finish when it is clogged with traffic and also making a huge difference when I arrive in a city knowing where the peloton will depart from and where I will find the course markers to guide me for the next one hundred plus miles.

Once The Tour starts, every minute is precious trying to get as far down the route each day as I can, especially in the evening getting a head start on the peloton riding until dark and then pitching my tent along the road. It is not an easy task. It is a most demanding 23 days of biking. It is also good to know where I can find grocery stores and Internet and water and toilets and not have to waste time searching for them.

Also scouting out the race route has allowed me time to give more than a glance to the many Tour decorations already mounted by race fanatics. I was happy to have the time to stop and fully appreciate a mural in Le Champ Saint-Pére on the first stage that I otherwise would have had to speed past. It had considerable detail with fans hanging out of windows and planes and helicopters flying overhead and even a tribute to Laurent Fignon who died earlier this year.

Many hay bail sculptures have already been erected. I saw a husband and wife and young son in front of one of a racer with his arms aloft wearing a red polka jersey that was big enough to have been a table cloth for a village picnic. They were taking turns posing in front of it for a photo. It was so gigantic it had a monster-size milk bucket as a nose. That was an original touch.

A Tour exhibition in Noirmoutier also had a version of bike art I had never seen before--framed bike saddles pointed downwards turned into faces with a pair of eyes and eyebrows painted where one places their buttocks and the tip of the saddle turned into a nose. They were stunning, especially one draped with a nun's vestments.

Several towns had displays of drawings by school children of their impression of The Tour hanging in its tourist office. Many Ville Etapes have concerts the night before or the night of The Tour's arrival. Lisiux had a free screening of "The Triplettes of Belleville" in its town park, something that every town along The Tour route should offer.

Of the many things I've learn about France following The Tour is the pride people have in their department. Rather than states, France is divided into departments, over 90 of them. One always knows the department one is in as all the license plates end with the two digits of the department. The tourist office here in Les Herbiers is giving out stickers of "Je heart 85"--I love 85, the number of its department. A huge bike in a roundabout leading to Ville Etape Redon had a number 44 on it, the number of its department.

Even if The Tour de France didn't offer up such spectacular racing and provide for heroics of the highest order, it would still be a supremely satisfying experience following The Tour for the many bike tributes and insights it provides into the French culture and character. They truly honor and revere The Tour. There is a plaque on the island side of the Passage de Gois, the five mile long road that is submerged by high tide but drivable during low tide, saying The Tour de France first rode across it July 5, 1993. The Tour honors it once again making it this year's official start.

The Race promises to be another spectacular event. The course offers up some great challenges and great beauty. The two early favorites, Albert Contador and Andy Schleck, both are looking vulnerable, giving extra motivation to a dozen or more contenders. Contador admits to fatigue after a very tough Tour of Italy and Schleck wasn't impressing anybody with his performance at the Tour of Switzerland.

A trio of Americans who have finished in the Top Ten in previous years, Levi Lepheimer, Chris Horner and Christian Vande Velde, can all legitimately motivate themselves for a Top Three or better placing. And Tom Danielson, at one time heralded as the next Lance, is finally making his Tour debut at the age of 32 after strong showings in the Tour of California and the Tour of Switzerland. He is one of three Garmin riders who could all finish in the Top Ten along with Vande Velde and Ryder Hesjedal, who finished seventh last year and is known as "Weight of the Nation" for being Canada's great hope. I will be extra proud to be wearing a Garmin jersey this year with those three figuring to be among the leaders of the diminished and strung out pack in the mountains.

Now I just need to meet up with my cycling pals from years past. David the German has arrived at The Tour start in Noirmoutier. We will rendezvous at noon tomorrow. Skippy the Australian, back for his 1fourteenth Tour, has just reported in from the time trial course ten miles away. He could walk in on this cyber outlet at any moment. No word though from Vincent the Australian. Hopefully he will be there with David tomorrow.

Now I have the team presentations to look forward to in just a few hours, the introduction of all 198 riders, with a brief interview of the team captain of each of the 22 team. It doesn't get any better than this.

Later, George

Les Essarts, Ville de Contre le Montre, Stage Two

2011-06-29T01:29:00.000-07:00

Friends: The Tour's second stage team time trial, a loop of fourteen miles starting and finishing in the town of Les Essarts, is conveniently located just twelve miles from the first stage finish in Les Herbiers. The press center for the more than 2,000 journalists covering The Race as well as the hub for fan activities for the Grand Départ is based in Les Herbiers, one of the few stage cities large enough to support a MacDonald's.

Les Herbiers would be the place to hang out these few days before The Tour start on Saturday, but I was drawn back to Les Essarts to peruse a display of over twenty books at the local library on The Tour. I'd only been able to give them a cursory look when I passed through town a few days ago, checking out the town's preparations and also to ride the time trial loop.

I also knew there would be a chance that I might see teams previewing the time trial course. With the possibility of encountering Christian Vande Velde and his Garmin team I put on for the first time his hand-me-down jersey from last year's kit that I'd promised him I'd wear at this year's Tour. It had warmed up just enough into the 70s that I didn't need a t-shirt under it.

And lo and behold when I arrived in Les Essarts yesterday afternoon, there sitting in the parking lot a block from the library and at the start of the time trial course were the team buses for Radio Shack and Garmin. There was no one around the Radio Shack bus, but the Garmin team was gathered in front of theirs preparing to set out.

Twenty or so camera-toting fans stood at a respectful distance watching the proceedings. As I joined them, my jersey caught the eye of Jonathan Vaughters,former Tour de France rider and team founder and director. Delighted to see someone sporting his team jersey, his face brightened with a smile and he gave me a wave. Before I had a chance to put my foot down, Christian noticed me and pushed away from his teammates and glided over to me on his bike.

"Fancy meeting you here," I said. "Have you had a chance to check out the time trial course yet?"

"We drove it yesterday, but this will be the first time we've ridden it."

"What do you think of the down hill finish? Will you guys stay in formation or will it be every man for himself at that point?"

"I just hope David Millar doesn't rip my legs off."

Millar is his Scottish teammate and former world time trial champion that Christian was implying would be hard to keep up with. Christian was clearly much more relaxed and at ease than he'd been at Monaco two years ago and Rotterdam last year when I'd had chats with him before the Tour starts, as both years he was recovering from broken ribs suffered at the Tour of Italy. This year he's in fine health and is coming off excellent performances at the Tour of California and the Tour of Switzerland. He has a good chance to improve on his fourth place finish at The Tour three years ago.

But as always he deferred attention from himself and wondered how I was. I told him I'd ridden 2,500 miles in the past month checking out the course and was mildly concerned that I might be overtrained, not giving my legs enough rest. I was looking forward to taking it easy the next two days.

"Is there anything you need?" he asked. I was mildly tempted to ask if I could avail myself of the shower in his team's bus while they were off riding, if only to have a look inside, but didn't have the nerve. "No, I'm jut fine," I said.

"Are you sure?" he persisted.

"Well, I could always use an energy bar or two," I admitted, remembering the box full he had once given me. He unhesistantly reached into the rear pocket of his jersey and handed me two packets of Clif shot blocks energy chews, both margarita flavoured and uncaffeinated. "Have these," he said. "If you'd like more just ask Andre, the bald-headed guy over there, our bus driver, and he'll give you some more." He glanced over his shoulder and said, "I better get back to the team. We're about to go. See you back in Chicago." I wished him good luck and told him I expected to see him on the podium in Paris.

A young man, who had sidled over during our conversation, as had several others, asked if I was a friend of Christian's. "Yes, we're both from Chicago," I said. He asked if I was following The Tour and if I'd ever done it before. After I gave him my story I asked him, "How about you?"

"I'm covering it for L'Equipe," he said.

"That's my favorite paper," I said. "You guys are sensational. We don't have anything like it in America. For a short spell about twenty years ago we had a national daily sports newspaper but it didn't even last a year."

He asked my age and then quickly said, "I've got to go," as he was accompanying Vaughters in the his car for the team ride. As the nine riders pedaled past on their time trial bikes, wearing their time trial helmets, team character David Zabriskie, wearing his US National Champion Time Trial jersey gave me a thumbs up.

Then I got to spend the next two hours until the library closed continuing my Tour de France immersion paging through the collection of books on The Tour it had mounted on a rack overlooking a bicycle draped in yellow. Many were coffee table sized books largely of photos, several by Jean Paul Olliver, the premier authority on The Tour and commentator for the Eurosport television station that covers The Tour. He gives lectures on the history of The Tour at many of the Ville Etapes in the weeks before The Tour visits them. I missed his appearance in Dinan by one day a couple of weeks ago. I would gladly attend even if I wouldn't be able to understand much, just to hear the holy names of Tour legends and iconic mountains roll off his tongue.

The books were like a mini-museum visit reliving its many storied moments. Though I knew well many of the photos, I never tire of seeing them, just as one is always happy to see paintings or works of art by a favorite artist. They are akin to masterpieces that never fail to evoke emotions or lift the spirit and often give a glimpse of something I hadn't noticed or felt before. It would not be easy to rank the Top Ten photos of Tour lore as there are many contenders--Poulidor and Anquetil battling it out on the Puy de Dome in 1967, Italian rivals Coppi and Bartoli sharing a water bottle on the col d'Izoard in 1949, a medic trying to revive Tom Simpson on Mount Venoux in 196, René Vietto looking as forlorn as a young girl who has lost her kitten sitting beside his bike minus the front wheel he has had to give to his team leader Antonin Magne in 1934, the Swiss matinee idol Hugo Koblet combing his hair, one-time Spanish winner Federico Bahamontes sitting on his suitcase at a train station after abandoning the 1960 Tour, the diminutive climber Jean Robic the lone rider wearing a leather helmet fearful of crashing in the 1940s, Albert Londres interviewing the three Pelissier brothers in a cafe after quitting the 1924 Tour in protest of Henri Desgrange's draconian measures confessing that it required cocaine and other forms of "dynamite" to survive The Tour.

Every exhibition on The Tour and every Tour book also has photos of Laurent Fignon and Greg LeMond at the finish of the 1989 Tour that LeMond won by eight seconds, overcoming a near minute disadvantage on the last stage, a time trial from Versailles to Paris. They wear the ultimate expressions of sheer delight and supreme agony. The most touching and revealing of the many photos is LeMond consoling Fignon on the podium, his smile gone, feeling some of Fignon's devastation.

Looking at hundreds of photos in one go also reveals the great aging process the racers undergo, as dramatic as a US President, from fresh-faced boys to hardened veterans, not only from the strain, but the great pressure to maintain their success.

When I left the library the Radio Shack bus was gone, but the Garmin bus remained. I headed out on the time trial course going in the opposite direction that the racers will follow hoping to catch the Gamin team in action. Evidently they had gone off on another route after riding the course once or twice, something they could do in less than half an hour. I did encounter team cars from Sky and HTC-Highroad driving the course. They weren't the first team cars I had seen.

Even before I came upon the Garmin and Radio Shack buses I encountered a couple of Liquigas team cars of Ivan Basso's Italian team in the large city of La Roche-sur-Yon where a few of the teams are staying ten miles before Les Essarts. But that wasn't my biggest thrill of La Roche-sur-Yon. Rather it was seeing a sign Henri Desgrange Stade, as the city's large football stadium had been named in honor of the founder of The Tour de France. There was no statue or bust of him on the outside and it was locked up so I couldn't check to see if he had been further honored in its interior.

One never knows when one might come upon a Tour memorial in France. I passed through the small village of Calorguen just south of Dinan where Bernard Hinault's wife is the mayor. There was a penny farthing bicycle at an intersection near the town center, but otherwise no indication that the five time winner of The Tour now lived there. The only business in town was the bakery and it was closed the afternoon I was there and no one was about to ask about the Hinaults. I had inquired in Dinan if there were any monuments to Hinualt in the area. I was told, "Not yet, as he is still alive." That's not a defining criteria, as the town he grew up in less than 100 miles away has a large mural of him on a wall and a display honoring him at its City Hall.

Later, George

Les Herbiers, Ville Arrivée Stage 1

2011-06-27T08:17:00.000-07:00

Friends: Among the many sub-cultures of The Tour-obsessed is a strain of men who are a cross between American baseball card collectors and Civil War buffs, men who amass such vast archives of Tour de France memorabilia that they could open a museum. Some do and others periodically mount exhibitions.

I encountered a couple more of the exhibition types in Les Herbiers, as I frequently have over the years at Tour Ville Etapes. Such towns are happy to honor The Tour in any way they can, not only with decorations and banners but with presentations tracing the history and the culture of The Tour. These two men called their display "Journey to the Heart of The Tour." It filled a large warehouse of a space with over 200 photos and 2,000 artefact's. It was just a small portion of their collections.

Both men were on hand when I gave it a look. As others of their tribe I have met, they were most enthusiastic, but in a professorial sense, unlike their American obsessive counterparts who often are geeky social misfits blighted with the fervor and single-mindedness of a conspiracy theorist. They make one want to flee rather than spend any time with. One of the contributors brought out several portfolios of posters and photos from a back room that didn't make the cut to share with a couple of his friends. I joined in, feeling as if I were enjoying a special encore. He was proud to point out unique features to each of his bonus items.

There were several display cabinets going back to their youth when they collected models of racers and built mini-race courses complete with models of gendarmes and sponsors. The back wall of the space was covered with general interest magazines featuring many of the greats, some on their bikes in the heat of battle and others posed with a heroic expression. The only one that didn't have a racer gracing its cover was a 1986 French Playboy with a naked woman bent over a bike in its Tour de France issue.

That wasn't the only photo of a prurient nature. In the section of fans of The Tour, which of course included a photo of The Devil in full fury, was a photo of a woman in a bikini along the road holding a sign "Le bidon s'il vous plait," hoping for a water bottle. Another photo showed six bikini-clad woman sprawled along the road nestled together like spoons waving at the passing peloton. Not all the women fans were skimpily clad. There were also a couple of photos of nuns in full regalia with expressions of sublime delight as if their savior were passing as the riders swept pass.

In the tribute to L'Alpe d'Huez there were several photos of the 2004 time trial when Lance clinched his sixth Tour title. I scanned the photos closely for a glimpse of myself, as I was among the estimated million fans along the ten mile climb, its largest gathering ever by far. It was obvious how packed it was comparing photos from other years. It was surprising to see so many American flags and fans wearing the US Postal team uniform, as American fans now are hardly ever seen.

A particularly fascinating exhibit was a series of photos taken from identical places on the race course several decades apart, comparing the racers, the fans and the background. This exhibition didn't include any video footage, so I was able to thoroughly cover it in less than an hour.

In contrast to previous years, the team introductions will be Thursday afternoon rather than Thursday evening and not at the Tour start location but rather at the Puy du Fou theme park about 75 miles away just a few miles from Les Herbiers, the arrival city for the first stage. Puy du Fou is one of France's four theme parks along with Futuroscope, Disney Paris and Park Asterix. I'll have to watch the televised version on a giant screen in Les Herbiers as one can only attend this year's presentation by invitation only.

The team presentation was to be my meeting point with my fellow Tour followers David and Vincent, thinking it would be at the Tour start. David is presently biking over from Germany and Vincent from the Paris airport. Hopefully they will receive my email notification of the different location. If not, we'll just meet up Friday afternoon at the stage start, sixty miles via a short cut from Les Herbiers. Then we'll get a day's head start on the peloton's first stage of 120 miles back to Les Herbiers. I've already ridden much of it, but it will be a much different experience doing it with the course markers up and the fans gathering along the road.

Later, George

Olonne-sur-Mer, Ville Départ Stage 3

2011-06-24T05:23:00.000-07:00

Friends: Alas, sunny skies for the first time in a week now that I'm out of Brittany and in the Vendée. Still long sleeve and vest weather though with a chilly wind off the North Atlantic. Despite the cold, wet , wind and perpetual low overcast, Brittany was still thoroughly satisfying, as it is a region that greatly honors and respects the bike and bike racing.

The harsh weather makes for a hardy people and it takes a certain hardiness to ride the bike under any circumstances except as a mere weekend, casual, recreational activity, as most people treat the bicycle. The hardiness of those in Brittany makes riding the bike an ordinary activity. I always see more people getting about on bikes in Brittany than anywhere else in France. It also has more bike lanes through the towns.

Cyclists riding hard in the latest of Lycra were a common site, especially on Sunday when there was a slight break in the weather and cyclists could not neglect their weekly group outing. So too were older grizzled men in everyday clothes riding along on 30-year old ten-speeds, that were no doubt their pride and joy, men who if the weather forced them into a car would feel obligated to make it the lead item at their weekly confession, just as should every one.

I wasn't surprised at all to see a random bicycling monument along the road. It was a marble slab in the shape of France with three cyclists etched into it, non-racers, each with a handlebar bag. It was a memorial to cyclists in general who had been killed on the road, and to three in specific who had been run down at the very spot of the monument.

I stopped to watch elementary kids in gym class playing bicycle dodge ball. Three kids on bikes tried to race fifty meters past two kids with balls. If they managed to hit one of the bicyclists, the bicyclist had to give up his bike and wait his turn to be a ball thrower. There were some pretty quick and wily sprinters in the class.

In another town I saw a bicycle symposium in the town plaza sponsored by McDonald's. Kids were provided with bikes and helmets and also a plastic hair net to put under the helmet for cleanliness sake, and rode an obstacle course with a couple of instructors providing help. They were loving it.

The bike consciousness of Brittany was further evident when I happened upon a bicycle museum in the small town of Le Fresnaye-sur-Chedouet, ten miles east of Alençon, birth place of St. Thérese. I've visited half a dozen bike museums in France over the years and others in Italy, Belgium, England, Wales and Germany and am always happy to visit another. I know I will come away learning something new and have my appreciation for the further elevated. This was no exception.

It was largely devoted to The Tour de France. Along a wall after one enters are framed portraits of every winner of The Tour, many autographed. Another room featured cloth banners with the face of most of the winners as well as other noteworthy cyclists. There were hours and hours of Tour highlights playing constantly on more than a dozen television monitors. There was one set in each section honoring The Tour decade by decade from its inception in 1903. There were bikes from each epoch that had been ridden in The Tour and also other memorabilia. That first section included a poster from 1910 promoting Peugeot's rival Tour de France, an effort it aborted after two attempts.

I spent four hours in the museum, the longest I've spent in any, and still didn't see it all. As it was I kept the proprietor past his lunch break, though he showed no impatience in trying to hurry me on my way. The museum was established ten year's ago by a local who had a collection of 150 bicycles and considerable amount of memorabilia.

One room was devoted to the caravan of sponsors who precede The Race tossing out souvenirs and trinkets. It trace its evolution from its inception when the giveaways were more basic than now. Visors were tossed rather than hats. Tribute was paid to Yvette Horner, the famed accordionist who rode the entire Tour route for years playing the accordion all the way. There was a miniature model of her and the car she rode atop as well as a copy of her biography.

Redon, the final Ville Etape I scouted in Brittany, was fully in Tour spirit with placards all over town with photos of cyclists from Brittany and general Tour stars. There were also classic photos enlarged and put on billboards and newspaper stories from decades ago. Many of the stores had Tour and bicycle themes in their windows, even fabric stores and hair salons. I have no time during The Tour to stroll about towns and appreciate all their bike art and tributes, fully justifying these scouting efforts.

A yellow banner hung over the finish line on the outskirts of Redon by its sports complex. The peloton will charge into town along the Rouen-Best canal Napoleon built and then make a hard right and follow one of the two rivers that merge in the town before making a short climb and then a mile more to the stadium making a final turn in front of a Buffalo Grill with a large set of buffalo horns on its roof, a popular restaurant chain all over France.

A few miles out of town at a round-about the peloton will be greeted by a pyramid of 21 bikes stacked six high in rows of six, five, four, three, two and one with a yellow bike on top and red-polka dot painted bikes just below and green ones below them. When I spotted it in the distance I registered another heart-warming moment such as I only experience at The Tour de France, and as I experience upon seeing all the tributes large and small that someone or some group has made the effort to place.

Later, George

Lorient, Ville Arrivée

2011-06-21T08:29:00.000-07:00

Friends: France continues to provide one superlative campsite after another in forests and orchards and meadows and invariably within a mile or two after I've reached whatever time or mileage goal I've set for myself. As I set up my tent I can often do nothing but marvel at my continued good fortune of having such an idyllic place to spend the night. At times I'll catch myself comparing it to my previous campsite. When I recollect it, so much has happened in the twelve hours since I left it, I have to think twice to confirm it was the campsite I left earlier in the morning and not several days ago.

Each campsite has been so noteworthy after a long day on the bike, it would be impossible to rank them. None though will be more memorable than my campsite of two nights ago just a few feet from the finish line for the fifth stage of The Tour at Cape Fréhel right on the English Channel. It is another incredibly inspired choice of a finish line, honoring another of France's truly countless noteworthy landmarks. A towering lighthouse, still in use, will beckon the peloton its last few miles as it barrels pell mell to this land's end. Its not a guaranteed sprint finish as the brisk winds could cause drafting havoc.

It was barely fifty degrees even in mid-June. The harsh weather only allows the hardiest of vegetation to survive. It was a mostly low-lying scruff that had me thinking I was once again battling the cold, misty winds of the moors of Scotland or along the coast of Iceland. I was fortunate to find a corner in the car park blocked on two sides by shoulder high bushes to pitch my tent. Still, the strong, gusting winds buffeted my rain fly into my tent all night long.

All the English stations I could pick up on my radio for the first time furthered my impression that I was somewhere other than France. On one station a US State Department official acknowledged the US government was in secret negotiations with the Taliban. Wimbledon was underway. A sports talk program was devoted its entire show to asking why England has failed to produce a contender in decades. The host bemoaned, "We can produce champions in other minor sports like golf and boxing and cycling, but not tennis." The Brits to like golf. Another station was covering the US Open golf tournament with two announcers providing stroke by stroke coverage. Unlike television, they did not have to speak in whispers. Their enthusiasm, especially with an Irish golfer in first place, actually made the sport sound exciting.

The wind had diminished in the morning allowing me to fully enjoy the coastal route the peloton will follow to the finish past rugged cliffs and small bays with beaches. There were surfers wearing wet suits and fishermen on the rocks. Yellow cardboard cut-outs with a racer's arms held aloft dotted the route. The many bus stop shelters had large posters of The Tour. I took advantage of them when I needed to rest or eat in the rain.

The woman at the tourist office in Carhaix, the Ville Départ for the Cape Fréhel stage, said the rain was most welcome as even Brittany had been experiencing the drought that has afflicted the entire country. It was so bad that for the first time in her town's history people could not water their lawns two weeks ago. She was the most conscientious tourist official I've ever met. Many of the store windows in Carhaix were painted with a Tour de France theme featuring racers with bulging muscles and women with bulging breasts.

I had seen this art in year's past, but not in any other Ville Etape this year until Carhaix. Each piece of art was signed by the artist Teddy Botiel. I asked the tourist lady what she knew about him. She said I was the second person to ask her that. "Let's go across the street to the Tobacco shop and ask them," she said. She didn't bother to lock the office as she could keep her eye on it. The husband and wife in the tobacco, magazine stand said that Botiel charged them 100 euros for a mini-mural of their choice.

The town is known for its plows, so they asked if he could paint a racer pulling a plow. The pizza parlor next door had pizzas as wheels. I had a good casual meander around town searching them out. Although Carhaix is a first-tile Ville Etape it is one the Paris-Brest-Paris route held every four years that attracts several thousand cyclists. It was the only Ville Etape I've visited so far that had a giant yellow jersey hung on a prominent wall in the middle of town.

Mur de Bretagne, thirty miles away is also a first time Ville Etape, the arrival city for the fourth stage. It was smaller and quieter than Carhaix. Evidently one of its citizens noticed all the painted shop window in Carhaix and said they ought to do it as well. Rather than hiring Botiel though they had a local painter with talent paint Tour winners on shop windows. They too were a treat to see, some of legendary moments, such as Robic kissing is wife at the finish line and Bobet with a tire wrapped around his shoulders and Fignon with shaggy hair and spectacles. Bikes adorned many rooftops and ledges. The finish line here is at the summit of a climb on the outskirts of town.

The peloton will set out for Mur de Bretagne from the large port of Lorient at a port-side location on the outskirts of town near a working class district with seamen bars and union halls. A couple of maritime museums including a submarine are near the start line, another most fitting spot paying tribute to an aspect of French life.

I had thought of continuing on to Brest myself, the Grand Depart for The Tour several years ago, as there was a bike shop there that I was able to find Continental Touring tires. It would have been fifty miles out of my way. With this wet nasty weather I am eager to head south out of Brittany, so will just have to trust I can find tires to my liking elsewhere.

Later, George

Dinan, Ville Départ

2011-06-18T05:21:00.000-07:00

Friends: The stage six finish in Lisieux could well win the award for the most jaw-droppingly picturesque of this year's Tour. There are always a handful of contenders, mostly those in the Alps and the Pyrenees. Its hard to upstage a backdrop of spectacular snow-streaked peaks.

But the monumental Basilica of St. Thérése half-way up a one-mile ten-per cent climb to the finish will be hard to beat. The TV producers of the many networks covering The Tour will be shouting their lungs out at their helicopter camera crews to give them more and more of this grand monument and its sprawling grounds.

I unfortunately won't be at the finish line for this stage, as it ends one hundred miles from the next stage, way too much of a transfer for me to handle. But I wanted to visit it anyway just to have a first hand feel what it will be like and also to see how Lisieux was responding to the honor of hosting a stage finish. Seeing the Basilica certainly justified my efforts.

Had I known about the Basilica I would have visited the home St Thérése lived in the first four years of her life in Alençon when I passed through the day before and gone inside its grand Notre Dame Cathedral where she was baptized. I noticed them, but I didn't realize how revered she is in France, second to Joan of Arc, the number one patron saint of France. Her Basilica is the second most visited religious site in France after Lourdes, also a Ville Etape this year.

St. Therese was born in 1873 and is considered the most important saint of modern times. She became a Carmelite nun at the age of 15 and died ten years later. Her book "The Story of a Soul," professing her devotion to Jesus and God, was published a year later and became widely known and translated. She was canonized in 1925 by Pope Pius XI.

She is buried at her sprawling and towering Basilica. The visitor center and church were full of pilgrims, many delivered in tour buses. Almost as much of the visitor center was devoted to a visit by Pope John Paul as to Saint Thérésa.

The finishing straight for the racers was already adorned with Tour banners hanging from light poles. The round-about half-way up the climb at the turn-in to the Basilica was lined with four steel figures on steel bikes welded from scrap metal, including hub caps, that might have been designed by Picasso, each painted a different color. The one bringing up the rear was holding an aerosol can meant to be a water bottle to his mouth.

Another round-about the peloton will pass featured a penny-farthing and another a bike covered in flowers. Lisiuex is primed and ready for The Tour. There were billboards scattered about town proclaiming the event. There was an exhibition celebrating the history of cycling in the region since the 1860s. The first great race in history was in 1869 from Paris to neighboring Rouen, home town of Jacques Anquetil. The 80 mile race drew 323 competitors, including two women. Only 120 finished. The winning time was ten hours and forty minutes.

The exhibit gave a lengthy biography of Anquetil and also gave the career highlights of two other notable local cyclists who distinguished themselves in The Tour de France. Its history of The Tour mentioned the usual significant events in the Tour's evolution since the first race in 1903 and also some oddities, such as the first year The Race went counter-clockwise around the country in 1913, allowing the Pyrenees to precede the Alps. It also made mention that 1958 was the first time the racers were not given a rest day. That lasted until 1968, two years after doping tests were instituted and the year after Tom Simpson died on Mont Ventoux.

From Lisieux I traced the stage route back to its start in Dinan, 140 miles away, the longest stage in this year's Race. It included a second "Wow" feature, passing by Mont St. Michel. This grand cathedral sits almost like an apparition out in the English Channel. Its the second time I've biked past it, the first with Craig, my friend from Chicago who spends half the year in the Cevannes in southern France. This time was even more dramatic coming from the east rather than the south, allowing my eyes more time to linger on it and shake my head at the wonder of it. I also had flocks of sheep in the foreground coming from this direction, sheep famous for their unique taste feasting on the supposedly salt flavored grass from the winds blowing across the Channel.

I was able to give my legs their first genuine test to see if they are race ready as I battled a strong head wind and rain and big steep hills much of the way. I've had rain nearly every day the past ten days, but nothing like this, a non-stop steady cold rain for five hours. It didn't look like it was ever going to stop. I was tempted to make camp in the first forest I came upon in mid-afternoon, setting my tent up sheltered from the wind and also on ground that allowed the rain to soak in, unlike the fields along the way. But I continued on and the rain finally did abate and all was wonderful with the world. But it resumed and stopped and resumed several more times before I finally made camp at 8:30 after nearly nine hours on the bike just barely managing 90 miles. But I felt no fatigue and could have continued on until dark at 10:30, as it is this far north as the the longest day of the year approaches.

Just two weeks until the action begins.

Later, George