Orange, France

Friends: L'Alpe d'Huez is such a popular pilgrimage site for cyclists, some enterprising photographer hangs out at the second bend below the summit snapping photos of every passing cyclist for them to purchase. He hands them a card with a number on it and the address of his shop at the summit. He was plenty busy this past Saturday, as there was a non-stop procession of cyclists making the climb, and Jesse and I were among them.

This most hallowed of climbs gains a startling 2,700 feet in less than eight miles up to a sprawling ski village at 6,000 feet. We'd both tackled longer and higher climbs in the past few days, but none of such sudden and sustained steepness and spectacular beauty. It was a brute, but a stunningly beautiful brute, with sensational views of the snow- streaked, chiseled peaks all around, and also back down the valley to the small town of Bourg d'Oisans, where the climb starts.

Part of the climb's fame is due to its 21 sharp bends, each with a sign counting down the number of bends to go and giving the altitude and also a winner of the L'Alpe d'Huez stage of The Tour de France from over the years. It was first introduced to The Tour in 1952 and was won by the Italian great Coppi. It was so demanding that it was not brought back until 1976. Despite its popularity, it is not included every year. It was the first mountain-top finish in The Tour's history, an addition that has dramatically enlivened The Tour ever since. Seeing the names of its winners (Hinault, Hampsten, Pantani, Bugno, Kuiper) at each bend in the road, is a sharp reminder of the frenzied battles that have been fought right there, heightening the majesty of the climb and injecting some needed juice into the legs. No signs were needed to remind any of us that on July 21 the cycling world's attention will be focused on this climb. For the first time ever the L'Alpe d'Huez stage will be a time trial. It could well decide if Lance will become the first to win The Tour six times.

Craig from Chicago, who we visited on this trip, would love the climb, as he would have an endless supply of cyclists to chase down. His tongue would be hanging to his knees if he gave in to all the chasing he could have. Neither Jesse nor I were doing any chasing, as we were the only ones with loaded bikes. I was able to latch on to a trio of Dutch cyclists for a spell before I decided it best to resist my own chasing impulse. It was early in the climb and I feared that if maintained their pace, I could well bonk before reaching the summit.

I humbly dropped off and for the rest of the climb let the non-stop parade of cyclists on their sleek and unencumbered bikes go by without accelerating, giving them just a mere "Bonjour." I was reciprocated with a "Bonjour" from most and quite a few "Bon Courages," as well. Not everyone knew the expression, as there were quite a few nationalities out there, including a strong contingent of Dutch cyclists glaringly decked out in orange or a Rabobank jersey, and, of course, plenty of Germans. There was one group of Germans large enough that their tour leader painted exhortations to them on the road, just as fans do for their favorites. There were still faint

"Lances" and "Jans" painted on the road, left from The Tour's last visit. The Germans even had family members cheering them along the road.

It was largely a male thing. I saw only three women among the several hundred cyclists. And it was mostly cyclists not serious enough to shave their legs. There were a few on mountain bikes and even one fellow rollerblading with ski poles. Most plodded along without pausing, though I did pass a couple of portly sorts on my descent who were walking their bikes. We all had to descend the road we had climbed, as the road ends at a ski resort. There are some dirt jeep paths that lead elsewhere, but not appropriate for the road bikes that most of us were on.

The climb passed through a couple of small towns with churches that rang their bells on the quarter hour. Near the top was a vast meadow full of cows, many with bells of their own. The sprawling ski town at the top was mostly shuttered up, just as at Val d'Isere. I can't report on my time, as I stopped for pictures and also to scout out potential camp and viewing sites when I will be back here in July along with several hundred thousand fans from all over Europe and the world. There aren't a great many wide spots in the road, so I don't know if there will be space for all of us. There are some truly choice vantage points enabling one to look down and see a couple miles of the course and several of the switchbacks, that could well be claimed days ahead of time.

For six days after returning to France via the dreaded Col de San Bernardo, I've had at least one category one or beyond category climb. Jesse and I didn't meet up again until L'Alpe d'Huez and then got separated again. He's been learning the final great lesson of bike touring, "He who travels alone, travels best." Now it's on to Mont Ventoux for Thursday's time trial in the week-long Dauphine-Libere race, Lance's final tune up for the Tour. Tyler Hamilton and Iban Mayo, who finished fourth and fifth last year, will also be on hand. Ventoux ranks right up there with L'Alpe d'Huez in difficulty and mystique. It will be packed with fans.

I am down out of the Alps, and for the first time in a week I have had a day where I have climbed less than 4,000 feet. Mont Ventoux stands alone, a towering presence that commands so much respect it is often referred to as simply "The Ventoux." When we passed by on our way to Cannes a month ago its top was still snow covered and its three roads to the summit closed. Its summit is just a bit higher than L'Alpe d'Huez, but the climb will be much longer and without such spine-tingling views. Down out of the Alps, summer has arrived, my first 80 degree day. The heat will compound the challenge of the climb. For now I have two days to explore various Roman ruins in the area and give my legs some rest. I also need to decide where to next. I will follow this race to Grenoble, where it ends on Sunday. Then it will be three weeks until what brought me over here in the first place commences. The cycling in France has been so agreeable, I could just spend the time further exploring this country. There is much much more to be seen. But Switzerland and Austria and Germany beckon as well. I'm already plotting a possible circuit, that could include the week-long Tour of Switzerland, another tune-up race for The Tour.

Later, George

Bourg St. Maurice, France

Friends: I called upon my emergency wool cap for the first time two days ago when we climbed the recently reopened 7,000 foot Col de San Bernardo over the Alps back to France in a driving rain storm. The last two miles of this infamous climb were lined with snow banks twice my
height. The rain was softening the snow banks causing them to calve like glaciers, their calvings turning into piles of treacherous slush on the road. The most huge of them blocked two-thirds of the road. One never knew when another might come crashing down. It was brutal.

Even before the long 15-mile, 3,000 foot climb had ended, I had to stop and put on extra layers of clothes to stay warm despite the extreme effort it took to keep climbing. Usually I'm shedding clothes on such a strenuous ascent, but these were extraordinary circumstances. I didn't even bother to put my helmet back on for the bitterly cold descent, as I needed to preserve all the body heat I could with the hood of my jacket pulled tight over my wool hat. We could have avoided this climb if bicycles had only been allowed through the seven-mile long tunnel a few miles away, and might have risked making a run for it if we had known how horrendous these conditions were going to be.

After about 13 miles of descending, with dark closing in, I stopped to camp, leaving one of my water bottles along the road for Jesse to spot. I had no idea how far behind he might be. I was shivering and rushed to put on dry clothes and wrap myself in my sleeping bag. I was above the road in a forest, and as I ate, kept my eye out for Jesse. Unfortunately, he missed the water bottle and my whistle. I suffered an even worse misfortune the next day when I failed to notice a sign warning that the road ahead, over a 9,000 foot pass, was closed, or not open yet. So I got to climb up to the renowned ski resort of Val d'Isere, twelve miles and 2,500 feet higher up the road, and then fly back down. I didn't realize my mistake until after I'd passed through Val d'Isere and some carpenters working on a house shouted the bad news at me. I should have been suspicious that there had been so little traffic coming down the road. I'm under no pressure to be anywhere, so it was no tragedy, other than an unnecessary expenditure of a huge amount of energy.

I camped at 6,000 feet last night, just above the snow line. The pass beyond Val d'Isere will open June 15, the usual opening date, too, for the Road to the Sun in Montana's Glacier National Park. Now its on to L'Alpe d'Huez. I saw a hard-riding cyclist in a U.S. Postal Service uniform fly past in this town, but I didn't recognize him or have a chance to verify he was riding a team issue bike. He could well have been a legitimate Postie, and not just someone wearing their colors, as the team will be competing in the week-long Dauphine-Libere race starting nearby this weekend. I hope to see the time trial stage on Mont Ventoux, about 300 miles from here, a week from today.

Later, George




__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger.
http://messenger.yahoo.com/

Aosta, Italy

Friends: I set out before Jesse this morning for my first solitary cycling in the 1,300 miles we have biked together, other than on the long climbs. The road ahead didn't seem to require both our navigational skills, as it led directly to a town where we could meet up, though one never knows what puzzlements the Italian road sign-makers might inflict upon us. The evening before, when we turned on to SS26, we were greeted by a sign that announced "Aosta 45 Kilometers." Eight kilometers later a sign said, "Aosta 53 Kilometers." We're all too accustomed to such inconsistency, so all we could do was laugh. And all the way to Aosta the signs continued to be equally erratic. Even Jesse the film-student, who thrives on movies that are woefully deficient in clarity, is frustrated by attempting to solve the unrelenting senselessness of the Italian road signs.

We agreed to meet up at the tourist office, or the nearest Internet outlet to it, in Aosta. How far that might be we could only guess. A sign along the road where we had camped put the latest estimate at 47 kilometers. It had been both our best and worst camping spot in Italy, and the hardest to find, other than the campground in Milan. Usually we can find a place to disappear to for the evening within a mile or two after we decide to call it a day, but in this thickly settled valley, it took us 45 minutes to find a secluded nook for our tents. We were starting to get desperate when we noticed just ahead the road was about to begin its climb out of the valley we had been riding in. But just at that point, the road rose on some risers above the ground and below it was a clump of trees that offered some shelter. It was much too near the road for a quiet night of sleeping, but the campsite offered the bonus of being beside an ancient Roman road dating to the first century BC. The centuries and variety of traffic that had trod its cobble stones provided much to ponder, much as camping along the Pony Express trail has.

After about an hour-and-a-half of cycling this morning a car pulled over in front of me and an older guy hopped out and waved me down. That happened to me regularly in India by people who would say, "Welcome to India," and then invite me to their home. Here, my first reaction was, "Oh my God, has Jesse had another disaster?" Thankfully, the man just wanted to ask me about bicycle touring. He was 63 and had long wanted to do as I was doing. He hoped to tour around Europe next summer. His English wasn't the best, but I was able to tell him about camping and finding roads to cycle and the essentials to bring. He was interested in what it was costing me and how much all my equipment cost, as he didn't even have panniers.

He also wanted to know how old I was, a question I can vividly remember first hearing in Colombia, when I was cycling the length of South America in 1989 back when I was 38 and clearly no longer a spring chicken. People are always heartened to know that one doesn't need to be young to tour, that they needn't give up their longings of doing such a thing just because age is gaining on them. After several minutes this guy shook my hand and said, "Complementi," the closest thing the Italians have to "Bon Courage." I was hoping we'd be greeted by some unique exhortation like the Australian "Good on ya mate,"or the Mexican and Latin American send-off, "Que le viaje bien," but all we hear is "ciao" from the passing cyclists. One shop owner bid us farewell by saying, "Piano," a bicycle insider term meaning, "Take it easy." When Italians decide to have an easy training day they'll say,"We're going to ride piano today."

In many ways Italy is the ultimate place to bicycle despite the erratic road signs, the difficulty of wild-camping, the congested roads, and the paltry variety of easy to prepare supermarket food. Cycling is deeply venerated. It is deeply satisfying, if not uplifting, to be in a land where to be on a bicycle is to be in an exalted position. A cyclist is not regarded as a novelty or a curiosity, nor taken for granted. To be on a bicycle is something commendable. If this were Japan, the bicyclist would continually be bowed to. When an Italian sees a cyclist, it immediately brightens their day. When I'm on or with my bicycle, I'm granted immediate respect. The bicycle is like a badge I've been given, proclaiming that I am a person to be honored. Never before have I been treated with such universal warmth. I was accorded similar, if not greater, regard in Columbia by its corps of cyclists, though not by everyone, as here in Italy.

Even though there is much more traffic than in France, the traffic has given me no frights, as the drivers are so accustomed to cyclists and are likely a cyclist them self, they know enough to give cyclists room despite the narrowness of the roads. The road builders are so stingy with their spread of asphalt, they rarely even provide a shoulder of more than inches. Another of the amenities of Italian cycling is the abundant opportunity of drafting with so many cyclists on the roads. We had a pace line with an English touring cyclist the other day for about an hour. He'd been on the road for ten days. We were the first touring cyclists he had seen. Three minutes after meeting us, he said it was the longest conversation he'd had in English since he left England. Like us, he is always taken for being German. When the guy I talked to along the road earlier today learned I was American, his head actually jerked backwards in surprise, like an audible gasp.

Later, George




__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Friends.

Biella, Italy

Friends: We just completed a weekend in Milano that would have been a dream two days for any of the Italian tifosi--the most devoted of cycling fans. Saturday we watched the final mountain stage of the Giro through the Dolomites on a pair of over-sized TVs under a tent with a hoard of the faithful in the city's main plaza, and then Sunday we were among the thousands that lined the finishing two-and-a-half mile loop of the course in the heart of Milan. The peloton rode the loop ten times after starting some 80 miles away.

Pink was everywhere, as that is the color of the leader's jersey, and is as synonymous with The Giro as yellow is with The Tour de France. The tent in the main plaza was even pink. Under the tent were various displays documenting the race since its first edition in 1909, five years after the Tour de France was established. Pantani's bike was there complete with his custom Il Pirata saddle, along with many other bikes and photos and front pages of newspapers from over the years. There were scrapbooks of yellow newspaper articles from the race's very beginning to the present. There was a collection of tributes written by school children proclaiming their love for the race and the racers, some quite touching. And there were souvenirs, including replica pink jerseys, for sale.

The place was mobbed. We stood for nearly an hour-and-a-half, crammed shoulder to shoulder with dozens of the devoted, watching raptly and reverently the racers go over one climb and then another. Surprising there was little audible response to the action. Everyone seemed too consumed by the extreme efforts of the racers to react. This was a crowd of cyclists, each and everyone of whom knew how deeply those racers were digging to pedal a bike up such inclines. They knew it took an ultimate, all-out effort. They all had been there and understood what a cathartic experience it was.

The only audible reaction from our mob was a wave of muttered condemnation when our counterparts along the steep mountain roads would get a little too enthusiastic and push or pat the back of a rider as he passed. There was no reaction, however, to the lunatics who would run at fell speed alongside the racers trying to exhort them on. Nor were there cheers or any reaction at the stage's conclusion. But just about everyone immediately dispersed. Only I and a couple of others lingered for the post race-analysis. I couldn't understand much, but I still wanted to see whatever replays there might be and the close-ups of the racers as they were interviewed and fulfilled their podium chores.

It was all most exalting, especially being in the presence of Milan's spectacular cathedral, one of the largest in the world, with dozens of jutting spires that must have been an influence on Gaudi's famed church in Barcelona. For blocks around the plaza there was no motorized traffic. It was a monumental pedestrian mall. It seemed as if a good portion of Milan's 1.3 million inhabitants were milling about these streets. It is a most spectacular city center.

As we biked into Milan Saturday morning, it seemed to be just another big city, but as we neared the center and started seeing one stately, block-long, five or six story building after another, it began taking on a most appealing flavor. The cathedral and plaza and the many traffic free arteries that spoked out from it proved conclusively that this is not just another big city. It has a distinctive character of its own.

Saturday evening we scouted out the course the race would follow just a few blocks from the city center and were surprised to see no evidence that a race would be taking place there the next day. But Sunday morning when we returned, crews were everywhere setting up barriers and stands and sponsorship tents. The racers didn't arrive into the city until after four p.m. for their final hour long promenade, and not too many of the tifosi arrived until an hour before the
racers did. By noon there weren't even 50 people staking out a spot against the fence at the finish line, unlike at Cannes where people were outside the Palais ten hours or more before the stars were to arrive.

I was a little worried about the lack of tifosi, but they came flocking by race time and were thick around the race course. If people didn't have pink to wear they could buy a pink t-shirt and hat for five euros as Jesse did. Jesse and I stood at a point on the course where we could see the racers twice within 30 seconds allowing us to see them a total of 20 times zipping past us at better than 25 miles per hour. There's not much one can distinguish as the racers fly past, so I switched my gaze from time-to-time to the tifosi and their gleeful expressions. We were nowhere near the finish line so we did not know who won the stage, but the victor of the overall race had been decided the day before, a 22-year old, Cunego, who is the latest great Italian hope, one of the youngest winners ever. A headline in the day's paper said "Tifosi is delirious," referring to Cunego's bright future. Pantani is the only Italian to have won the Tour de France in the past several decades. There has rarely even been an Italian threat. They're all hoping Cunego can be the next Armstrong.

We were back at the campground, six miles from Milan's center, by 6:30. We quickly took down our tents and packed up and were on our way out of town. One night was enough in a
sanctioned campground. A nearby disco played music until three a.m. Our sleep was also interrupted by a French couple arguing over who was responsible for losing the keys to their car. When we checked into the campground early Saturday afternoon we were harangued by an American ex-pat who claimed the US government had implanted a chip in his head years ago and had been trying to control him ever since. He said the IRS had stolen a million dollars from him and that he was never returning to the land of George Bush and we were insane to do so ourselves. He's been paying fourteen euros a night for months to live in a tent in this campground. We were relieved to get fifteen miles down the road and camp in a wooded area free of such mind-numbing distractions.

Tonight could be our last night in Italy and I won't be sorry to be leaving despite the elevated
regard, if not worship, of the bicycle here. There has been all too much traffic and its roads all too narrow, but by far the biggest headache has been its utterly stupefying road signs. There are far from enough and those that there are are often severely lacking in clarity or consistency, a marked contrast to those of France. There were stretches when we had to haul out Jesse's highly-detailed 150-page atlas of Italy's roads five or six times an hour. I just want to lose myself in the biking, and when its constantly interrupted by trying to figure out where I am or how to get to where I want to go, its not so much fun. We're lucky its been mostly sunny our eight days here, as we've constantly had to rely on the sun to determine which way to go. And the signs giving distance are rare and also woefully inconsistent. In one 40-minute stretch we saw six or seven signs all saying 23 kilometers to Como.

Billboards to stores will say they are five or ten minutes away, rather than the number of kilometers. The supermarket grub has also been frustrating. The supermarkets are as vast as those of France or the US, but there is a minimum of prepared food, just tons of ingredients. The Italians are as fond of eating as the French, but they are equally fond and proud of cooking. Anyone caught buying prepared food would be in danger of being excommunicated by the
Pope, or at least their mother-in-law. Only once have I found a can of spaghetti and it was thick in dust. My tent dinner has been chick peas with olives just about every night. The only other canned prepared food to be found is lentils. Only once have I seen baked beans and they were 1.6 euros. And the deli fare has been equally paltry. Its rare to even find potato salad and it is prohibitively expensive. So I am thrilled to be going back to France and its great variety of canned delicacies. The most direct route into France is through a seven-mile tunnel past Mount Blanc, the tallest mountain in Europe, though we haven't had it confirmed that bicyclists are allowed. The snow-covered Alps are in sight.

Later, George





__________________________________

Lecco, Italy

Friends: The road along Lake Como is as perilous a road as I've biked and among the most scenic too, though I hardly had a moment to divert my attention from the road and traffic to appreciate its beauty. The road is largely carved into the mountainsides that plunge to the lake's shoreline. It has no shoulder for bicyclists and at times narrows to just one lane wide with minimal warning. The road is thronged with speeding sports cars, tour buses and trucks of near 18-wheeler proportions. There are small villages and villas of all sizes wall-to-wall around the lake, as high up as the terrain will allow. For centuries it was acclaimed the most beautiful lake in the world. Aldous Huxley offered one of the first dissenting opinions back in the '30s when he ventured to Guatemala and laid eyes on Lake Atitlan. He declared it, "The most beautiful lake in the world, even more beautiful than Lake Como." It is an opinion I cannot dispute, having biked its shores as well a couple of times. Lake Atitlan too is surrounded by mountains, though they are conical and of the erupting variety. It is much less thickly populated than Lake Como, with just a handful of small villages dotting its shore. The women of each village wear colorful, matching, intricately embroidered blouses unique to their village. Lake Como is much narrower than Atitlan, a y-shaped sliver that one could practically skip a stone across, not unlike the fjords of Norway. I'm almost surprised that a book on cycling Italy recommends biking its road, or at least without warning of the hazardous traffic. For me it was more dangerous than Bolivia's "Most Dangerous Road in the World." If I hadn't just replaced my front brake pads after wearing them out descending the 14% grade road from the chapel of the Madonna de Ghisallo, the Patron Saint of Bicyclists overlooking the lake, Jesse might be writing this email to you rather than me. I had to slam on my brakes, as my heart rocketed into my throat, on a descent, when a truck that had just passed me, slammed on his brakes to avoid an over-sized bus that had just come around a bend blocking the road. My front wheel just nudged the bumper of the truck as I came to a screeching stop, and as I cringed hoping there wasn't a vehicle behind me not paying attention. As beautiful as the vistas of the lake have been, I'm glad the thirty miles we cycled along its shores from the city of Como to Lecco are behind us, and we can continue on to Milan, thirty miles away. But tonight we will camp at what the local tourist office advertises as a free campground just a mile out of town along the lake. That is almost too good to be true, as it would be a challenge to camp wild tonight in this highly congested area. We were lucky to have found a forest last night ten miles before Como. With luck tonight we'll enjoy our first shower since Cannes. Yesterday, Jesse had his baptismal bathing-in-a- river experience, or near baptism, as he could only force himself to go thigh deep into the cold river, doing his bathing by splashing water on his upper body. It was a legitimate swimming area on a gravel beach with a couple of hundred sun-bathers, though no one was wading more than ankle deep into the river. I've had plenty of experience with much colder water than this, and though I wasn't overly desperate for a washing, I still took a full plunge and felt most invigorated. It was nice not to be so sticky in the tent last night. Another highlight for the day was for the first time coming upon a restaurant/bar with a television to watch the conclusion of that day's stage of the Giro d'Italia. It wasn't the religious experience I thought it might be, joined by a throng of exuberant fans breathlessly glued to the proceedings. Shockingly, the place we stopped at late in the afternoon didn't have the race on its television--rather some music video that none of its patrons were paying any attention to. The bartender had to go in search of the remote control to change the station. When he finally switched the station to the race, hardly anyone in the place seemed to notice. This clearly was not a den of the tifosi--cycling fanatics. But I was thrilled to be watching the Giro even though I could understand not a word of the commentary other than the names of the racers. The 35-year old Russian veteran, Pavel Tonkov, former winner of the Giro, had broken away from his two breakaway companions and held everyone off for a dramatic win. At his age, every win could be his last. It will be hard to experience a greater highlight though than our visit to the tiny Madonna de Ghisallo chapel--a storied shrine that every devotee of the bicycle owes it to himself to visit. It may be no larger than a hut, but it is a vast reservoir of cycling lore, tangible and not. Perched upon a small clearing some 1500 feet over Lake Como, it offers spectacular views of the lake and the snow-dappled Dolomites in the distance. It is a most demanding 5.4 mile climb from the lake, with two of those miles relatively flat. The year end classic Tour of Lombardy passes by it, a race that has drawn most of the cycling legends over the years. Centuries ago in medieval times travelers adopted the Madonna as their patron saint after a traveler sought refuge in the small chapel when he was attacked by bandits. He saw the image of a saintly woman in the chapel and gave her credit for saving him. Later, cyclists took her as their guardian saint as well. Finally, in 1949 Pope Pius XII officially consecrated the Madonna de Ghisalla. A photo of his visit is among the many photographs in the small chapel adorned with a museum's worth of bicycling mementos--bikes ridden by Coppi and Merckx and Moser, autographed yellow jerseys from the Tour de France and pink ones from the leader of the Giro, some rainbow-striped world championship jerseys and others of note. Prominently displayed on an altar behind a locked gate was a photo of the recently deceased Marco Pantani in pink with arms upraised in a Christ-like pose. Sculptures of Gino Bartoli and Fausto Coppi, the most revered of Italian cyclists, flank the entrance to the chapel. There was a steady trickle of others paying homage to this shrine, though we were the only ones who arrived by bike in the hour-and-a-half we lingered on the premises. There is a vast cycling museum under construction on the grounds that will make this an even more alluring draw. A nearby shop sells postcards and drinks and snacks. I was surprised not to have received a single horn toot as I climbed up to the Madonna, as a couple days before, nearly every car that passed me, on a much longer and equally challenging climb, recognized my efforts with a friendly toot, the most I have ever been accorded. It was another sign of the Italians' great fanaticism and fondness for the cyclist. It could be that since that climb was less twisty than the one to Ghisallo, my appearance didn't suddenly catch them by surprise, and seeing me well ahead, watching me spin my way up with vigor, clearly having the upper hand in my battle with the mountain, they had ample time to trigger their horn. Jesse, who is still trying to find his climbing legs, was lagging far, far behind on both climbs. He reported he did not receive a single toot. He will in time be floating up these mountains himself. He's still in his infancy as a touring cyclist, but he's already well beyond the stage of dreading climbs, unlike others I've toured with. He's actually eager to test himself on the most demanding of the Tour de France climbs before this trip is done. Me too. Later, George

Alba, Italy

Friends: Not every town in Italy has a bicycle store, though it certainly seemed so at first. We saw more in our first forty miles bicycling along the Mediterranean than we saw in 800 miles through France. And there were hoards of guys decked out in full racing attire pedaling the roads like they meant it, in pace lines and on their own. The Italians are known as the most passionate of bicycle racing fans. There was ample evidence to verify it.

It wasn't until we went searching for a bike store in the small town of Chiusauecchia did we learn that bike shops weren't as ubiquitous as we thought. We needed a bike shop to replace Jesse's front wheel. It had been bent beyond repair when a car coming around a blind corner at forty miles per hour slammed into it. Jesse was on the bike, but was miraculously spared injury. We were just starting our day, crossing an exit ramp from a highway. There were high bushes to our left, preventing us from seeing cars that might be preparing to exit. There wasn't much traffic on this road up from the coast. I went first, looking and listening. Jesse followed a few seconds later without pausing to verify that it was safe to proceed. The driver was evidently momentarily distracted by the odd sight of me on my loaded touring bike returning to the highway and was suddenly upon Jesse plowing into the front part of his bike without even braking, narrowly missing Jesse himself, very well sparing his life. The damage to the wheel and the bike would have been much more severe if it hadn't been protected by a pannier.

I was lucky not to have witnessed the horror of the collision. I just heard the thud of car into pannier. I slowly turned, not eager at all to see the likely sight of a fast spreading pool of blood and a comatose body. Instead, I was shocked to see Jesse arising from the pavement without a spot of blood or even a bruise. The driver came rushing over apologizing, but pointing out that we shouldn't have been entering the highway there. He was right, and we apologized ourselves. We were all in such a state of shock that we didn't take time to assess the damage to the bike and enlist the driver in getting us to a bike shop, before he had sped off. We were all simply relieved that Jesse was OK. His wheel was severely pretzeled, but after jumping on it and taking a truing wrench to it, we straightened it just enough so that it could spin unimpeded if we released the brakes and removed one of the brake pads.

As long as we didn't ride too fast, Jesse's rear brake provided enough braking power for us to safely putter to Chiusauecchia, two miles up the road. It was a slight climb, so we didn't have to worry about a descent generating unsafe speed. Though Chiusauecchia didn't have a bicycle shop, it had bicyclists. A kindly soul most graciously offered to lend us his front wheel so we could more safely bike back to Imperia, a large city six miles away. It was an astoundingly generous offer, but since we had hobbled two miles already without much difficulty, we knew we could manage a few more and wouldn't have the complication of returning his wheel. We were under no severe deadline to be anywhere, so the only stress we felt was recovering from the trauma of this near disaster. It didn't take us long to find a bike store in Imperia, and it had a comparable wheel to Jesse's old one.

The accident occurred on our first morning in Italy, two days ago. If not for that incident we would say that Italy has been perfection. Despite his ill-luck Jesse is loving Italy so much, he is expressing regret that he chose to learn French rather than Italian. The Italians are responding to us and our bikes with even greater fervor than I could have imagined. This morning when we came out of a grocery store two guys were huddled over our bikes, closely examining their every feature. They expressed a level of curiosity way beyond anything we had encountered in France. We are on our way to Milan for the final stage of Italy's version of the Tour de France, likewise a three-week grand tour of the country. But before that we will visit a chapel overlooking Lake Como devoted to bicycling's patron saint, the Madonna de Ghisallo. Could be she has already been looking out for us.

Later, George

Cannes #11

Friends: The films are done, and I'm sorry to report I was denied seeing "Fahrenheit 911" for lack of formal attire. Since it won the Palm d'Or, its final screening was at prime time today, rescheduled from its original five p.m. slot, and as eager as I was to see it, I wasn't so desperate as to go scrambling for a penguin suit. All the men parading around at night as if they are headed to a state dinner is quite hilarious. May I never be one of them.

Moore has clearly been the star of this festival receiving hearty applause at his every appearance. He was the only dignitary to receive applause as he walked up the red carpet to the Awards Ceremony from the audience in the theater I was seated in watching the proceedings on a big screen. It was actually more applause than he received when he won the Palm d'Or, as it was such a surprise and not considered worthy of the Palm d'Or. Everyone is delighted to laud him for his anti-Bush politics, but few are willing to acknowledge his polemic as a film for the ages or to anoint him as an auteur. There was quite a huddle of us afterward trying to figure out how it could have happened. The jury had quite a time defending itself in today`s press conference.

Rumors had been rampant that Tarantino loved the Korean film "Old Boy", which won second prize, that also had few enthusiastic supporters. Tarantino would have loved to have given it the top prize, but his jury stood up to him on that one. Since they could get no consensus on anything else, they just copped out and decided to thumb their nose at Bush. The headline in Sunday's newspaper agreed--"Cannes: la Palme d'Or qui defie Bush." There were no great quarrels with any of the other awards except for the special mention that the Thai film "Tropical Malady" received. It was the only award that the audience booed. In the jury press conference Tarantino admitted there wasn't consensus on the jury for it, but that there had been a couple of people on the jury who had great passion for it, and the rest of the jury decided that if anyone could so enthusiastically embrace such a film, especially when it is the jury president, they'd go along with it. Then Tarantino looked around at his fellow jurists and asked, "Isn't that so." It was several moments before anyone else would speak and acknowledge himself to be the other consenting member of this unpopular choice.

Even though I maxed out at 60 films, the most I've ever managed to see at a film festival, this is one of the rare festivals I've attended where there hasn't been at least one film that I'm going home wildly enthusiast about, that I will be telling everyone they must see. I saw plenty of good films that I'm very happy to have seen and can highly recommend, but unfortunately, for your sake as well as my own, I do not have an ultimate film to exalt over. The closest I came to such exaltation was the American "Tarnation". "The Edukators" started out as such a film, but it lapsed into just a very good film, rather than a great film. Close behind were "Clean"
and "Moolaade." "Whisky" and "In Casablanca the Angels Don't Fly" were a cut below. The best of the young-women-in-distress movies were "Brodeuses" and "Or". And then a pair of French movies by established directors--"Look at Me" and "Right Now." I'll also fondly recall the French thriller "Hook" and the Mexican "Duck Season".

It was a surprise not to have seen something truly great, but an even bigger surprise to discover how easy it was to navigate this mammoth festival that dwarfs all others. I feared it would be something to endure like Sundance, battling the hoards desperate to get into the next "must see." But there was none of that frenzy and mania here. The film-goers were very orderly and professional. I had been warned that cell phones would be constantly going off in screenings and that I'd be distracted by people leaving prematurely. There was a minimum of phone ringing and those walking out generally were justified. Even before the festival was half over I began looking forward to returning, knowing that I'd learned many tricks and short cuts to make it even more enjoyable the next time. I nodded off in fewer films here than in any week or longer festival I have attended, further testimony to the quality of films and the minimum of hassle I had to endure.

And now I am thrilled to have the open road ahead of me so I can return to my true passion--that of the bike.

Later, George