My Tour Continues

 Yesterday I wrote about the penultimate multiday tour I've taken.  It was the ride that, more than any other, changed my life. 

Near the end of that tour, I climbed le Col du Galibier (a couple of days after pedaling up l'Alpe d'Huez) and descended into the valley, where I checked into a small hotel in St. Jean de Maurienne.  The town is next to the Italian border and, though you may not have heard of it, you surely have seen the thing for which the town is best known:  Opinel knives.  (Yes, they are still made there and in nearby Chambery, a small city that just oozes with Savoyard charm.) After checking into the hotel, I walked into the town square in search of something to eat.  That is when I saw a woman, who was not distinctive in any way, crossing a street.  She was probably on her way home from work.  For whatever reasons, I saw in the way she occupied space and time, the way I was meant to live. 

After writing the post, I couldn't stop thinking about that day, and more to the point, what has changed since then, for me and the world.

For one thing, when I returned, my then-partner surprised me by meeting me at JFK Airport.  As tears trickled down my cheeks, she embraced me.  I held her--actually, I held on:  To this day, I see that hug as the single most desperate act of my life.  I knew that my life would not continue, at least not for very long, as it had.

Even if I hadn't seen that woman in St. Jean de Maurienne, I would have, eventually, undergone the process of affirming my gender identity.  But, I believe, some things--including the September 11 attacks a few weeks later--accelerated the timeline.  I was home that but my partner was in her office near Rockefeller Center.  Subway and bus service was suspended, so she and thousands of other people had to leave Manhattan on foot.  I met her on the Brooklyn side of the Manhattan Bridge.  All I could think about was how easily she--and any one of the people crossing that bridge--and I--could have been incinerated or crushed in those towers.

Undergoing my affirmation process, which began, gradually, with visits to counselors and therapists a few months later, changed my cycling.  Aging would have done it, but taking hormones probably sped up the process.  I still like to ride aggressively and show off, sometimes, but I now realize that I now ride more for my mental health than to show off any kind of physical prowess.

Oh, and I no longer have the bike or clothes I rode during my 2001 tour.  The Voodoo Wazoo, built for cyclocross, was actually a good bike for the ride I took.  But eventually I found myself wanting to change everything in my life, and I sold it--ironically, to pay the air fare for my next trip to France.  And those clothes--do they scream '' 90s mountain biker," or what?  I was indeed still doing some offroad riding, and still owned a proper mountain bike (a Bontrager Race Lite with Rock Shox Judy forks) but I eventually sold that bike and stuck mainly to road riding because I was starting to notice that I didn't heal as quickly from wounds and injuries as I did when I was younger and--OK, this will show how much gender stereotypes still shaped my thinking--I felt that I could be more dignified, ladylike if you will, on a road or city bike.

Now, I don't expect to return to mountain biking because, really, I prefer to stick to a couple of kind of riding.  Also, mountain bikes seem to "age" more quickly than other kinds of bikes. On the other hand, I can ride one of my Mercians just as easily today as I did (or could have, in the case of my newer ones) five or ten years ago, and barring crashes or inability on my part, I should be able to ride them--while replacing only the parts that normally wear out, like chains and tires-- for years to come.

In other words, I expect my tour to continue--precisely because it changed the day I rode up the Col du Galibier. 

From The Voiture A Petrol To La Velo Electrique

Over the past couple of decades, the Dutch and Danes have gotten things mostly right when it comes to everyday cycling.  Note that I said "mostly":  As I noted a few days ago, the author of "Bicycle Dutch" encountered a newly-constructed bicycle viaduct that, as it turns out, isn't very practical--and, possibly, not very safe--for cyclists. 

Still, the Netherlands, like Denmark, does better than most countries in making the bicycle a practical transportation alternative.  So does France. While the French aren't yet on par with their northern neighbors, cycling infrastructure and regulations are much better thought-out than what we have in the US or other countries.

And French planners are dealing with a reality that I, in my youthful arrogance, would not acknowledge until recently:  Not everyone will forsake four wheels for two, or one pedal for two--or, more important, petrol for muscle.

Some, of course, just don't want to exert themselves physically.  But others, particularly those who are elderly or have disabilites (or whose bodies are giving out on them for other reasons), can't.   So how do you get them to give up their cars--which tend to be older and less fuel-efficient because, well, such people also tend to be poorer than those who can afford a Prius or Tesla.

Acting on that realization, l'Assemblee Nationale--France's equivalent to the US House of Representatives or the UK's House of Commons--has just approved a measure that would give people the chance to hand over their old, exhaust-belching voitures for scrap.  In return, they'd receive a 2500 Euro (2975 USD at current exchange rates) grant to buy an electric bicycle.  

The measure is an amendment to a climate bill passing through Parliament that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in by 40 percent from 1990 levels in 2030.  If the measure is adopted, France would become the first country in the world to offer people the chance to trade in their old cars for electric bicycles.  Perhaps most important of all, it is a recognition that "the solution is not to make cars greener, but simply to reduce their number," according to Olivier Schneider of the Federation Francaise des Usagers de la Bicyclette (FUB), an organization dedicated to everyday cycling.

The Queen Of De-Confinement

What does the 1970s Energy Crisis have in common with the 1966. 1980 and 2005 transit strikes in New York?

Each of those events motivated thousands of people to commute by bicycle.  Only the 2005 stoppage, however, seems to have resulted in significant numbers of permanent or even long-term bicycle commuters.  

Commuters on the Queensborough (59th Street) Bridge during the 1980 NYC Transit strike.  Photo by Fred R. Conrad for the New York Times.

The 1970s Oil Embargo affected the entire United States as well as other countries.  Some of those who turned to pedaling two wheels had been driving four wheels and, once gasoline supplies returned and prices leveled off, returned to their cars.

To be fair, many of those temporary bike commuters depended on their automobiles because they lived and worked in areas where mass transit was scant or non-existent.  On the other hand, most situational cyclists returned to their old commuting routines, whether by subway or bus, once the 1966 and 1980 strikes ended. Some didn't care for riding in rain or cold; others just didn't care for cycling.  

But those aren't the only reasons why those service disruptions didn't create many lifetime cyclists, if you will, in the way the 2005 strike did.  In 1966, the North American Bike Boom was a few years on the horizon.   New York City was one of the few places in the United States with significant (if still relatively small) numbers of adult cyclists;  even so, most people still regarded bike riding as a kid's activity and bikes as toys.  

By 1980, the Bike Boom was a few years in the rear-view mirror.  Some people who bought Schwinns and Peugeots and Raleighs continued riding them, so even those whose feet never touched a pedal knew someone who rode to work or for pleasure.  In other words, an adult who rode a bike wasn't as much of an anomaly in New York, or much of the US, as it was a decade and a half earlier.  Never underestimate self-consciousness as a factor in someone's choice to ride--or not.

Someone riding to work in a dress or a suit was even less of an aberration in 2005 than he or she would have been a quarter-century earlier.  That, I believe, is a reason why fewer of them returned to buses and trains than their earlier counterparts did.  In general, the public was more conscious of cycling and cyclists.  It was around that time that the first traces of a cycling infrastructure, such as it is, started to take shape in the Big Apple.  So, some who might have been uneasy about spinning through traffic felt, with or without justification, safer in riding the newly-constructed bike lanes--and more confident about parking their bikes in the dedicated racks that began to appear on city streets.

Even so, the health benefits (mental as well as physical) they derived from cycling to work weren't enough to keep some people from reverting to their old commuting habits.  I would bet some gave up on bike commuting when they got a flat or had some other malfunction en route and couldn't  fix it.  Or they tried to use a bike that hadn't been ridden in years only to discover, well, why it hadn't been ridden in years.

Some French officials seem to understand as much.  They also want to enforce social-distancing mandates that will remain in effect once the country's lockdown (one of the strictest in the world) is lifted on the 11th.  However you define "social distancing," it's impossible on a half-full metro car, let alone one that's packed with rush-hour commuters.  Thus, the French government wants to encourage people to continue (or start) cycling, rather than taking mass transportation.

The result is a program--"Coup de Pouce Velo" (Bike Boost)-- that includes, among other things, up to 50 Euros (about $55 at current exchange rates) cyclists can use toward repairs, or on helmets, lights or other safety accessories, at partner bike shops.  Also included in CPV will be funds for temporary bike parking (new permanent facilities are in the works) as well as educational sessions with program-affiliated schools and coaches.

In announcing the program, French Environment Minister Elisabeth Borne tweeted, "Nous voulons que cette periode fasse franchir une etape dans la culture velo, et la bicyclette soit la petite reine du deconfinement."  We want this time, she said, to mark a step forward in bicycle culture, and for the bicycle to be the queen of de-confinement."

The "queen of deconfinement". (All nouns in French are masculine or feminine; the bicycle, whether it's called "velo" or "bicyclette," is feminine.)  I think Ms. Borne understands something else about cycling:  It's freedom for so many of us!

A Ride Inside

One of my most interesting—and gratifying—bike rides took me through a tunnel.

The day before, I’d pedaled up the Alpe d’Huez, with a few hundred other riders, before it was closed for the Tour de France peloton.  I was riding southeast, toward Italy, along a narrow Alpine road.  Ahead of me , I saw a sign:  Route Baree.  A gendarme directed traffic—which, at that moment, consisted of a Citroen and me—away.

I watched the Citroen turn   toward a wider road.  I looked at my Michelin map. (That’s what we used before GPS.). I could see a couple of  roads that trailed off in fields or forests.  So I followed the trail of the Citroen to a road that, according to the map, led to a mountain.  But it didn’t seem to go up or around the col.

After a few minutes of riding, I saw a bottleneck—at the mouth of the tunnel.  There was another sign: that Caution! Caution! Eclairage Interrupte.

The rockslides that blocked the other road caused power outages.  So that tunnel—about half a kilometer long—was very dark. I had a headlight, but it was more for being seen than to see.  

Oh—and the two lanes that passed through that tunnel looked about half as wide as a single American lane.  One of the lanes was closed.  And there was no shoulder.

Traffic stopped at the entrance.  So did I.  A man emerged from the first car.

“Allez,” He motioned to the other drivers. “Nous vous suivrons. Pouvez rouler sur le chemin de nos phares.”

I rode through that tunnel—in the wake of their headlights. None of those drivers honked, and all of them drove behind me all the way through that tunnel.

I thought of that ride  when I heard about the Round and Round the Underground Race. On 29 March, several hundred riders will thrust and twist their way through the Springfield Underground, a limestone mine in Missouri.

As far as I know, none of those riders will have to worry about lighting.



Somehow it seems less daunting than a ride through the subway tunnels of my home town!

Enrigester--ou Laissez-Faire?

Woonsocket, Rhode Island claims it's "la ville plus francaise aux Etats-Unis": the most French city in the United States. In one sense, that's true:  An estimated 46 percent  of its residents  are of French or French-Canadian heritage. It's believed that proportion is higher in Woonsocket (Don't you just love saying that name?) than in any other US municipality.  Moreover, the city is home to the American-French Genealogical Society.

But of all cities in the States, the one with the most French influence is undoubtedly New Orleans.  You can see it in the food, architecture, street names and the pace of life:  Gallic joie de vivre combined with Southern languor.  And while other US states are divided into counties, Louisiana, where New Orleans is located, consists of parishes:  a remnant of the region's French Catholic colonial past.  For that matter, the city's and state's codes bear more semblance to France's (or Quebec's) Civil Codes than to the Common Law-derived jurisprudence found in the rest of America.

Interestingly, it seems that the former colony and the former coloniser could go in opposite directions, at least in one area of bicycle policy.

Yesterday, "N'awlins" (All right, I'm a New Yorker but I don't say "Noo Yawk".  So this is the last time I'll pronounce New Orleans as a contraction!) announced that bicycle registration is no longer mandatory--except for rental bicycles.  The city will still offer registration; however, it will be voluntary and the fee will rise from $3 to $5 on New Year's Day.

What spurred the change, according to local advocates, is the $1000 in fines levied against musician Kevin Louis when he rode his "raggedy old" bike to buy a pack of cigarettes in the wee hours of morning.  Others have suggested, though, that the process for registering too often proved to be cumbersome, especially for those who couldn't provide a sales receipt or other proof of purchase for their wheels.  Examples include bikes purchased at yard sales or passed down between family members or friends--or, say, a bike someone gave away when he or she was moving.

But I believe there are also other reasons for the repeal.  One is the laissez-faire Southern attitude.  Remember, the city and state are deep in a part of the nation where the Second Amendment (or, at least a particular interpretation of it) is as sacred a document as the Gospels or the book of Leviticus.  People there really don't like governments telling them what to do; for them, having to register anything reeks of "Big Brother."

A more legitimate argument, however, was raised by other people.  Whenever any jurisdiction implements bike registration, a stated purpose is invariably to combat bike theft.  Registration supposedly deters at least some thieves, and makes it more likely that stolen bikes will be returned to their owners.

While there is no way to verify the first claim, one would expect that registration might deter casual thieves or "crimes of opportunity".  On the other hand, while some bikes in New Orleans and other places have been returned as a result of registration, the chances that you will ever see your bike again if it's nicked is depressingly small.

Yet, another jurisdiction--a nation, in fact--is making the arguments about theft deterrence and returning stolen bikes as it proposes a bike registration program.  It's part of a Plan Velo that, if implemented, would take effect in France in 2020.  Each frame would be marked with a number registered in a national database, much as motor vehicles are.

Other parts of the plan include installing secure bicycle parking facilities at SNCF (the French national rail system) stations, creating more widespread networks of bicycle lanes, offering employer-disbursed incentives for employees who ride their bikes to work.  (Similar subsidies are offered for those who use mass transit.)  It also would provide for bicycle classes in elementary schools.

While few doubt that building infrastructure and offering financial incentives could entice some commuters out of their cars and onto bikes, it's legitimate to question whether bicycle registration will actually help, as its proponents claim, to curb bicycle theft.  In fairness, some people, especially in cities, might be more willing to pedal to work if they felt confident they would still have their bikes at the end of the work day.

It's always interesting to see what happens when nations and their former colonies forge very different solutions to a problem.  Could 64 million French people really not be wrong?  Or do 393,292  folks in The Big Easy have the right idea?

What would they do in Woonsocket?

Why You Need To Read About The Paris Sewer System

So why am I beginning this post with a photo of a house in France most Americans have never seen?

Well, if you've been reading this blog long enough, you know that I'm a bit of a Francophile.  Yes, just a little bit.  One way you know that I'm American is that I am also something of an Anglophile and see no contradiction!

Anyway, the house is in a French city most foreigners (except, perhaps, from neighboring countries) never visit.  That's a shame, really, because it reveals so much about France that people don't experience during the three or four das they spend in Paris as part of their European trips.

You can probably guess one reason I included the photo:  I have cycled to that house.  And to this one:

Now, that's one tourists are more likely to see.  It's in Paris, on one of the city's most elegant squares, the Place des Vosges.  There's a nice little park in the middle of the square where Parisians take lunch breaks or walk their dogs or kids, or just loll around on the grass.  And folks like me ride or walk there, baguette and hunk of cheese in hand.  

One great thing about the Place des Vosges is that it's next to one of the most historic parts of Paris--le Marais--and literally steps from all sorts of interesting museums, galleries and shops.

Anyway, the house in Besancon and the one in Paris share something:  specifically, someone who lived in them.

I'll give you a hint:  He wrote the novel more people know about without actually having read.  In the English-speaking world that has much to do with a musical--a musical!--made out of that novel.  You may have seen it.

That novel is, of course, Les Miserables, written by none other than Victor Hugo.

Just as more people know about Les Miserables than any other novel without having read it, more people lie about having read Moby Dick than any other novel.  Now I'm going to tell you a secret:  If you're ever at a dinner party with a bunch of snotty pseudo-intellectuals, you can more or less bluff your way through a discussion of MD if you've read Old Man and the Sea! 

But I digress.  No, it's not really a digression:  It's part of what I'm going to say, just like all of those hundred-page long asides about the Paris sewer system or whaling in New England are integral to LM and MD, respectively.

You see, such seeming digressions are part of some of the best bike rides.  You might start with a destination in mind or that you are simply going to ride a certain distance or amount of time.  Unless you're riding strictly for training purposes, the parts of the ride you'll remember are the things you encountered along the way.


In the case of Besancon, I found myself there because of a challenge.  In the summer of 1997, I bought a round-trip ticket to Paris--with a return date of a month after my departure--and brought my bicycle, among other things.  I had no particular plan except to visit my friends in Paris and get on my bike. In those days, I used to take trips like that, staying in hostels or pensiones--or simply rolling out my sleeping bag--wherever I found myself when I stopped riding for the day.

I was talking to Jay and Isabelle, whom I've mentioned in other posts, when Isabelle asked, "Ou n'avais pas visite en France?"  As I tried to think of some place in France where I hadn't been, Jay blurted "Alpes"!

"Les Alpes?" Even though I understood perfectly well, I just had to make sure.

They both nodded. So did I.

And so I pedaled south and east from Paris.  That is how I found myself, five days later (spending days in Troyes and Chaumont) in Besancon, on the edge of the Jura mountains, which are a kind of sub-range of the Alps.  A few days after that I was in Chamonix and hiked up part of Mont Blanc.

Anyway, Victor Hugo was born in the house in Besancon.  That house, amazingly enough, is in a square that also contains the houses in which painter Gustave Courbet, writer Charles Nodier and the Lumiere brothers--considered the "fathers" of cinema--were born!

And, of course, I've cycled (and walked) to the Hugo house on Place des Vosges any number of times during my stays in Paris.

So why am I thinking about Victor Hugo now?  Turns out, on this date in 1862, he completed Les Miserables.  It was published soon after and became popular with soldiers on both sides of the US Civil War.  "I've been reading Hugo's account of Waterloo in Les Miserables and preparing my mind for something of the same sort," wrote Wilky James of the Massachusetts Free Black Regiment in 1863.  "God grant the battle may do as much harm to the rebels as Waterloo did to the French."

The funny thing is that the sections about Waterloo--and the Paris sewer system--are what got the novel both praised and lambasted.  But Les Miserables could no more exist without them than Moby Dick could without al the stuff about New England whaling practices--or our favorite ride without whatever you encountered along the way.

Un Coq Citroen Repair Station

When I was living in France, I did a few things--some of them entirely laughable, in retrospect--to make myself feel as if I had "gone native", if you will.

I didn't wear a beret: I soon discovered that, even then (more than three decades ago) only very old men and clochards wore them--or, at least, the kind they sell to tourists. Some farmers, particularly in the central and southwestern parts of the country, still wore the Basque-style beret, which has a larger diameter "crown" than the berets artists and wannabes perched on their crania when they smoked and sipped away their nights in cafes and bars.

Ironically, I wore berets after I returned to the US.  And I continued a few other habits as a way of asserting my Frenchness, or at least my French influences, in the face of the yahoo-ism of the Reagan and Bush I administrations.

While in France, I purchased and wore a few things that were all but unknown in the US at the time.  One was a wool French (Breton) fisherman's sweater.  It was the genuine article, knit from heavy dark navy wool with cream-colored horizontal stripes and buttons on the left shoulder.  Other Gallic accoutrements I acquired and wore included a sweatsuit, bike jersey and shoes from a company called Le Coq Sportif.

Now you can see the tricolore rooster everywhere.  But in those days, you pretty much had to be in France, or perhaps a neighboring country, (Remember:  There was no Amazon or eBay!)  in order to see, let alone wear, that quintessentially French emblem.

Another thing that could mark you as a French person was driving a Citroen.  Renault was still selling cars in the US; so was Peugeot, but their motorized vehicles weren't nearly as ubiquitous as their bicycles.  For a long time, I resolved that if I were to buy a car or van, it would be a Citroen because, well, you couldn't get anything more French than a vehicle with a chevron badge.

Well, Le Coq Sportif and Chevron have joined forces. The occasion is the 70th anniversary of the Type H van.  If you watch old French films, you've seen those boxy mini-trucks driven by farmers and urban delivery couriers.  You still see them in France.

Since both companies have long associations with bicycle racing in France and other countries, it makes sense that their collaboration would produce this:

It's something else I saw for the first time in France:  a mobile bicycle workshop.  

Vive la France!  I just hope they don't elect their own version of Trump.

A Menage A Trois Of Wolves?

Every culture has its odd and interesting ways of describing natural phenomena.  One of my favorites is the "mariage du loup".  The first time I heard it, I wondered what a wolf's wedding had to do with the weather I'd just experienced.  For that matter, I wondered whether wolves indeed had weddings:  Was there something I missed?

I was cycling near Chenonceau, which alone made me a very privileged individual at that moment. (Really, there are very few better places to ride!)  The weather that day created the sort of picture that every agence du tourisme likes to post on its websites or brochures:  a sea of sunflowers softly undulating a reflection of the sunlight that filled the clear blue sky.  

At least, that's what I saw until the early afternoon.  Then, I felt a couple of drops plip onto my arms.  For a moment, I thought it was sweat, as the air had warmed up.  But then I felt a few more drops on my legs, and on top of my head.  Those drops were falling from the sky--but the sun shone as brightly as it had earlier in the day!

That night, I described my ride to a hostel-keeper.  "Une mariage du loup," he said.  

Most of you,  I am sure, have experienced a "sunshower", perhaps during a ride.  Although I've experienced them here in New York, I think they're more common in more open areas, like the countryside I was touring when I experienced the "mariage du loup".

I encountered it again, sort of, yesterday afternoon:

My first ride since last week's snow took me to Randall's Island, where rain fell on me as the sun shone.  Well, actually, it wasn't rain:  The snow was melting from the railroad viaduct over my head.  

Now, if a train had rumbled overhead, I would have had a sun-thunder shower.  Would that be a menage a trois des loups?

Riding On Paths Through History

During my first European bike tour, I pedaled along la Cote Opale:  the French shore of the English Channel.  It was difficult not to think about all of the wars that ravaged Calais, from Edward III's siege in 1347 to the Nazi invasion of 1940.   But even when I wended along the coast through more bucolic towns like Montreuil-sur-Mer and villages like Neufchatel-Hardelot, it was difficult not to remember that, as the sea lapped on their shores, blood once ran through their streets and mortar shells strafed the air where breezes flickered leaves and flowers.

I got to thinking about that today, on the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  I have never been to Hawaii, but I can only imagine what I might feel if I were to ride the Pearl Harbor Bike Path--especially if I were to see this:

Actually, there are sights other than those mothballed warships along the path.  From what I've read, though, it's far from the most scenic bike route on the islands, even if parts of it look pleasant:

Delizy & Poiret: Keeping Riders En Suspens

It seems that the moment the first bicycle--however you define it--was created, someone was looking for a way to insulate the bike, and rider, from shock.  When you look the Draisienne's wooden seat and the iron wheels of subsequent machines, you can understand why someone wanted to make them more comfortable to ride.  And if you know anything about the conditions of roads at that time, it's not hard (pun intended) to see the need for a shock absorber to make bicycles (and bicycle-like contraptions) more stable.

If we define "suspension" as anything that insulates ("suspends") the bike or rider from shock, one could argue that pneumatic tires, invented by John Boyd Dunlop in 1888, were the first form of suspension for two-wheelers.  In fact, one could even say that when, a decade earlier, John Boultbee Brooks stretched a piece of leather between two rails, he was the first to achieve the goals of every suspension system created since.

So, really, it's not such a surprise to see a suspension bicycle gracing an advertising poster early in the first worldwide Bike Boom:

I could find very little information about Delizy and Poiret.   All of it was in French--which, fortunately, I can read.

 Apparently, D et P started making bikes around 1890 and weren't in production for very long:  I saw an announcement for the dissolution of the company dated 17 July 1892.  Their bikes were made and sold at 22,rue Duret in Paris.  This factory and showroom stood  just off the Avenue de la Grande Armee, which streams into Place Charles de Gaulle Etoile (the location of the Arc de Triomphe) and was, until 15 or so years ago, lined with the boutiques of the major French (and a few foreign) bike makers.

All right.  You know that I find stuff like this interesting.  So do you:  Otherwise, why would you have read this post?  But you also know that writing this post was just an excuse to put another cool vintage bike ad on this blog!

Into The Fold On Being And Nothingness

Handing over a bank note is enough to make a bicycle belong to me, but my entire life is needed to realize this possession.

That insight came from none other than Jean-Paul Sartre.  Yesterday, I made a reference to him.  Well, wouldn't you know it?:  Today I came across the above quote, and this photo:


Here he is riding "Le Petit Bi":

This bike has been all but lost to the mists of time or, more precisely, the ashes of World War II.  Andre Jules Marcelin, a French Nobel Laureate (1926) physicist, invented it and received his first patent for it in Luxembourg in October 1939.  The following year, he received patents for it in France and Switzerland.

No one seems to know who manufactured the bike or how many were made.  All that is certain is that only a few exist.  Did the war severely curtail their production?  Or were many destroyed in bombing raids and such?

Professor Marcelin did his research at the Laboratoire de Chimie Physique (Chemical Physics Lab) of the Sorbonne-University of Paris.  He and other Sorbonne scientists held seminars on Monday nights where writers, poets, painters and other artists to speak.  It's possible that Marcelin met Sartre there, as well as Francois Picabia, seen here on a Bi:

Interestingly, that photo and the one of Sartre ended up in a Nazi propaganda magazine called Signal, which tried to show that life was normal for the French people under the German occupation.  

That Marcelin went to the trouble of filing for patents in multiple countries shows that he saw some sort of commercial potential in the Bi.  He even had plans for a foldable tandem and a motorized Bi:

Perhaps most intriguing of Marcelin's designs is the one he patented in 1935, four years before the Bi, for what looks like a foldable recumbent bicycle.

Whatever its history, the Bi did have something of a legacy.  One of the first lightweight folding bicycles, the Bickerton, came out during the 1970s.  The first prototype of it borrowed heavily from Le Petit Bi:

The Bickerton that finally came to market had a significantly different design, most likely because Harry Bickerton (who was an engineer) saw that he couldn't make the bike out of aluminum (as he did to achieve his bike's light weight) if he were to use the Petit Bi design.

So, although Andre Jules Marcelin patented Le Petit Bi, perhaps no one will realize its possession--or, more precisely, it.

What Do I Miss? Mes Chats et Mes Velos

In 1992, I did a bike tour from Paris to Chartres, and from there to the Loire Valley and Burgundy to Dijon, before heading back to Paris--and, from there, taking a train, boat and train to England to visit my aunt.  

As I was about to head to Blighty, I was away from home for nearly a month.  I spent time with one of my friends, who lived near Paris at that time.  She asked what I missed most about home.

"Ma chat":  my cat.

Charlie I:  The cat who brought me back home.

Now, it  wasn't as if I didn't have friends in New York or anywhere else in the US.  Ditto for family: An aunt, uncle and cousin were still in Brooklyn, and my parents and one of my brothers were still living on the (New) Jersey Shore.  But the previous year had been a very difficult--though, in many ways, fruitful--time for me.  I wrote a lot.  How could I not?:  I was in graduate school, studying poetry.  My marriage had officially ended that year (though, in reality, it was dead long before that), and from Memorial Day until Christmas of 1991, I lost five friends to AIDS-related illnesses and the brother of someone I dated was murdered in the hallway of the building in which I was living.

Max

I was tempted not to go back, even though I had only to take a couple more courses, complete my dissertation (a book of poems) and take my comprehensive exam (which wasn't as difficult as I expected) to complete my degree.  After experiencing the losses I've mentioned, I had a kind of crisis from that happened much earlier in my life.  In retrospect, I realize that dealing with it--in part, by taking the trip I've mentioned--led me, if as indirectly as the route that took me from and to Paris, to the transition I would start a decade later.  

Marlee

Anyway, aside from the pain of past experience, I wanted to leave the United States behind, or so I believed.  Oh--I should mention that an acquaintance of mine was killed during our first invasion of Iraq.  I really believed that the country in which I'd spent most of my life was not, and could not be, a force for good in this world (I still feel that way, often) and it looked like Daddy Bush would be re-elected.  Him!--after eight years of Reagan!  I simply did not want to be associated with such things.  

(Would that I could have seen the future!)

Anyway, it seemed as if the only answer to my friend's question was, indeed, "ma chat".  (I had one at the time.)  She was convinced there had to be something else waiting for me:  she pointed out the family, friends, studies and writing I've mentioned.  And, of course, there were my bikes, although the one I was riding during that trip was quite nice.

The funny thing is I felt almost exactly the same way a couple of days ago, as I was leaving Paris.  In so many ways, my home country, and even my home town, are less tenable than they were nearly a quarter-century ago.  We have had non-stop war for the past fifteen years, and Donald Trump makes Bush The Elder seem like Nelson Mandela.  The idea of leaving is even more tempting than it was then, though I know it will be more difficult than I realized it could be in those days.

Arielle

I am back, for now.  And what did I miss, aside from some people?  Well, Max and Marlee--yes, I have one more cat than I did in those days.  And, today, I realized, I missed my bikes.  After spending more than a week riding a rental--which, as rentals go, was actually pretty good--taking Arielle, my Mercian Audax, for a ride today, with its perfect weather, seemed heavenly.  

So I missed my cats, my bikes and....

Although I Couldn't See All Of The Statues, The Ride Wasn't A Bust

Today I cycled to a place where I shed tears whenever I visit.  Yes, on purpose.





 

 

For those of you who have never met me in person, I'm going to share a little secret:  I cry, sometimes in embarrassing, if not inappropriate, situations.  More than once, tears have rolled down my cheeks when I've shared a particularly beautiful piece of writing--like Caliban's "The Isle Is Full of Noises" soliloquy in The Tempest--or when some sense-memory overtakes me.  I can also cry with and for another person, as well as for myself. 

 

So where, you may ask, is this place in Paris that opens up my lacrimal duct?





 

He's at the "gate", so to speak.



That bust, and the statue before it, are studies that became part of Porte d'Enfer by Auguste Rodin.  I went to the museum that houses most of his work.

 The only problem was, the main collection was closed.  So was most  of the rest of the museum.  To be fair, the Hotel Biron, at 77 rue Varenne, has been in need of repairs.  And, as with any museum, ventilation systems and other infrastructure need to be repaired and replaced in order to keep the artist's works from deterioration and other damage.

 

 C'est une injustice! I exclaimed to the guide when she explained the situation.  "J'ai venue d'amerique", I told her, to see Le Baiser, Le Penseur and--my favorite objet d' art--Je suis belle. 

 

 

Thinking about....?

From the day I first encountered photos of those works in an art history class I took as an undergraduate, Rodin has spoken to me, moved me, in ways that only three or four other artists, in any medium, ever have.  For me, seeing the ways he could draw out despair, courage, empathy, isolation, inspiration and so much more--sometimes all in the same work--in such static materials as stone and metal has been a sort of guidebook to the soul.  He doesn't merely  render, express or depict emotions; he makes his materials a conduit for la force vitale.  To me, the only other Western sculptor who did anything like that is Michelangelo.

Sometimes, in museums, I see.  Or I might think, or feel, or simply enjoy.  When I am in the presence of Rodin's works, in his milieu, I live.  You might say it's like  at least for me.

Anyway, the museum is apparently building a new wing as they renovate the old space, and are going to exhibit the works in new ways.  I hope that the newly-restored museum doesn't sacrifice too much of the intimacy of the old one and become another big building full of glass boxes that hermetically seal the artist's works away from the people, from the world, as too many other museums do.

 As the renovations proceed, there is an exhibit of some of the castings Rodin made as studies for his masterworks as photographs taken of them, and him as he made them.  Most of the figures you see in his completed works are clothed, but he made nude studies for all of them to get, not only the proportions, but the ways in which they moved and interacted with their environments, before he created the "final product", so to speak.

 And the gardens are still open.  Even if you aren't a fan of his work, or art generally, it's a great place to unwind--after or before a bike ride in Paris.

 After I left the Rodin and had a picnic lunch by the Seine, I rode some more, spent some time in the Musee d'Orsay and rode some more.  I'll talk about those later.