The Mountain We Climbed

Two cyclists climbed the mountain.

Image from Tripsite

Their long, arduous pedal strokes channeled their fear, rage and loneliness into jagged thrusts through virages.  They funneled their darkest secret into energy that helped them push against headwinds on deceptively narrow straightaways.  

They would reach the summit but feel no sense of pride or elation about it.  Years later, each of them would say exactly the same thing:  Yeah, I did that.  To this day, others are more impressed than they are with their feats.

Both grew up in working-class enclaves--one in Scotland, the other in Brooklyn and New Jersey.  They have remarkably similar stories about being bullied and ostracized, and how they both felt the need to escape.  It drove both of them to France.

The American stayed for a time and has returned several times since.  The Scot achieved great professional success there and returns for various gigs.  

They both climbed the mountain.  And, after their descents, they realized that they would have traded that experience, and all of the others, for a life they could not have led until they crossed the valley.

As you might have surmised, I am the American.  What you might not have realized until now---I didn't, until a couple of hours ago--is that the Scot in question was the first Anglophone to wear the polka dot jersey (for the King of the Mountains) in the Tour de France.  In one of cycling's more famous photos, this rider is seen descending a mountain in the 1989 Tour, alongside Laurent Fignon, Pedro Delgado and eventual overall winner Greg LeMond.

In the 1984 Tour de France.

I am talking about someone who went by the name of Robert Millar.  Yes, that Robert Millar.  The one who finished fourth overall (then the highest standing for an Anglophone) in the 1984 edition, when Millar won the polka-dot jersey.   The following year, the Glasgow native would have a Vuelta a Espana victory "stolen" by riders who colluded for a Spanish victory.  Two years later, Millar placed second in the Giro d'Italia:  still the best finish in that race for a cyclist from the British Isles.

Millar, even after retiring from the sport, garnered great admiration and respect from former rivals and teammates, not to mention fans.  While my brief racing career brought me no money or fame, my life as a cyclist gave me, if I do say so myself, people who admired and respected me for riding up the mountain.  And another.  And another.  Some of the folks who shouted "Bon courage!" I would never meet again, but others became riding and training partners for periods of my life.

But even though Millar was a better, or at least more accomplished and recognized, cyclist than I ever was or will be, we do have remarkably similar stories.

We are the same age: only two months separate us.  And in addition to our class roots, we have other similarities in our backgrounds.  In particular, each of us had a parallel experience.  For all I know, we might have had it on the same day:  When we were five years old, the boys and girls lined up on opposite sides of the playground.  Robert in Glasgow felt the same way as Nicholas--"Nicky"--in Brooklyn:  different.  "But there was no way to communicate that without the other boys beating me up or picking on me," Millar recalls.

She took the words out of my mouth!

Philippa York

Robert Millar no longer goes by that name.  Today she is known as Philippa York.  While she has a bike with mudguards and a wicker basket for "going to town", her knowledge of the gradients and lengths of climbs around her home on the South Coast of England is "suspiciously accurate," according to a Telegraph article.  "I still like that rush of speed, but that's only downhill," she explains.  "I can't go fast on the flat or uphill anymore and I accept that I am going to need every gear on my bike."

I can relate.

We climbed the mountain.  And we are here, now--female midlife cyclists, both of us.

N.B.:  I want to thank one of my favorite bloggers, "The Retrogrouch", for alerting me to Philippa York's story!

One of my early posts will tell you more about the mountain (actually, one of the mountains) I climbed.

Sound Repairs

If a restaurant doesn't post its prices on its menu, I probably can't afford it.  

I learned that lesson the hard way on my first trip to Europe.  On a wonderful day of riding through the Loire Valley, I was ready for a nice meal.  So I stopped at an utterly charming restaurant where the staff were oh-so-friendly and attractive and the food was even better than I dreamed they'd be.  I would have enjoyed the meal and the ambience, I think, even if I hadn't been hungry and spent the day pedaling.

I was in Nirvana or paradise or whatever you want to call it...until I got the check.  That meal didn't cost much less than my budget for a whole week!  At least I didn't have to worry about a tip:  In France, that's included (service compris). 

Now, I must say that the rule about menu prices doesn't necessarily apply to bicycle shops.  Some post "menus" of repair prices.  Of the shops in which I worked, none followed the practice.  The reason was that, very often, repairs turn out to be more complicated than they seemed at first glance:  The flat tire might have been caused by protruding spokes, which means re-truing or re-building a wheel (or even replacing it) rather than simply installing a new inner tube.  Or that creak or other noise might come from a crack in a frame tube caused by a fall that the rider might not have given a second thought because he or she rode home after it.

(I can honestly say that, in spite of the fact they didn't post "menus", none of those shops charged more than others in their area for repairs.  Two of them, however, advertised "tune up specials" where, for a fixed price, cables were replaced, bearings and chains lubed and adjustments were made.)

I got to thinking about "menu" pricing after I came across this:

Imagine if we could determine what needed to be done, and what it would cost, simply by listening!   For all I know, at least one mechanic with whom I worked may have been doing that:  He used to work with a stethoscope hanging from his neck!  Then again, he took substances that may or may not have been legal at the time, so he may have heard things I never would have.

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.

Speed Weaponry?

One of the best things about getting older is that the statute of limitations expires.

At least, it's expired for anything I did in my youth.  Now, I wasn't a juvenile crime spree.  Most of my misdeeds, I would say, fall under the category of indiscretions rather than real, hard-core criminality.

Probably the most serious offense I committed was when I crossed the border from Quebec to Vermont more than three decades ago.  I was riding; when the border guard asked where I was going, I said "home".

"Where is that?"

"New York."

He waved me through. Perhaps he thought I was going to ride to Lake Champlain and take the ferry from the Vermont to the Empire State.  Little did he know I was on my way to the Big Apple.

Or what was inside my handlebars.  I'd heard that others had smuggled, uh, medicinal herbs in a similar fashion.  And, in those days, people used to cross the US-Canada border the way people cross the George Washington Bridge on any work day. If anything, I may have been questioned more than the average border-crosser because, not only way I riding a bike, I had long hair and a beard(!).

Of course, that trick wouldn't work today.  But, apparently, that doesn't stop people from trying a new version of it in a place where it has even less chance of working.

Last week, a Transportation Security Administration employee confiscated a disassembled gun someone tried to hide in the tires of a packed bicycle.  I guess the would-be smuggler thought the rubber would somehow render the gun parts and ammo invisible to scanners.   

Or maybe he or she was going to a race and packing heat in the tires is a new form of "mechanical doping".  For all I know, the reaction of the gun firing--even if accidentally--might make the bike go faster.  

Whatever the failed smuggler's motivation, the incident made me think of Zipp, which advertises its carbon fiber wheels, handlebars and other wares as "speed weaponry."

Taking It All With You

Everyone has his or her own idea of what "camping" is.  Most people would agree that it is something done outdoors, or at least outside the confines of one's home.  Beyond that, it's hard to say exactly what it is.

For some, it means being in remote wilderness areas, be they mountains, virgin forests, glaciers or undeveloped coastlines.  To others, it can mean setting up a tent or tarp in a backyard.  Still other people think that camping is anything that deprives you of access to a mall. Someone, I forget whom, described those who "camp" in a trailer or Winnebago-type vehicle with all of the accouterments of modern life--you know, flat-screen TVs, microwave ovens and the like--as "out-of-car-doorsmen".

I'll confess that it's been a while since I've done anything that might be described as camping.  But I've gone on bike trips and slept under the stars (or, in a couple of instances, in rain and even sleet), with and without a tent or a tarp.  I've set up camp under a canopy of branches and on a bed of wildflowers; I've also unrolled my sleeping bag under bridges and in farmers' fields, cemeteries--and a golf course!  Of course, I didn't realize I was in a golf course when I called it a day (night) of cycling!

I'll also admit that I never went on a cycling trip during which open spaces, or even KOA-style campgrounds, served as my lodgings most nights.  I camped  when I was nowhere near (as far as I could tell, anyway) a hostel, hotel or pensione, or couldn't afford one--or, in the days before widespread ATMS, when I was nowhere near a bank or other place where I could cash a traveler's check.  I also sometimes camped simply because the night and landscape were beautiful, or because I wasn't confident enough in my skills in a local language to knock on a stranger's door.  So, I didn't carry what one might think is a full set of camping equipment.  I never toted a stove:  My meals consisted of raw foods purchased at the last market or store I saw that day, or from prepared foods that were lukewarm or even cold by the time I got around to eating them.

I have respect for all of those cycle-campers (perhaps you are, or have been one) who carry everything they need for a wilderness expedition on two wheels, without motorized assistance.  Moreover, I admire those who tow trailers full of equipment (and, in some cases, their child(ren) and pets) across long distances on their bikes, though I have never aspired to be one of them.  

What would those hardy cycle-campers make of the Bushetrekka Cycle-Camper trailer?




For your next adventure....

It comes with the oversized tent cot you see in the photo. For the modest sum of $849.95, you "can carry anything you need and catch a little bit of shuteye at the end of the day"  on your "overnight adventure", according to its maker's advertising.

According to the advertising copy, the trailer--complete with cot--weighs 55 pounds.  According to people who've actually bought it (Yes, such people exist!), it actually weighs about 10 pounds more.  Worse, according to at least one commmenter, the wheels aren't sturdy enough.  

When I saw it, I had this question:  What, exactly, can that trailer do that even the biggest, heaviest and most expensive tent can't do--at a fraction of the weight and cost?

Worst of all, it could never be used for any of the "stealth" camping of the kind I did in my youth. In other words, I couldn't have set myself down in any of those fields, cemeteries or golf courses--or under the bridges--and scampered off at the crack of dawn if I had to collapse or dismantle or do whatever is necessary to the trailer so I could ride with it.

Being Prepared, Before Uber

As a teenager, I learned bike repair and basic first aid because I wanted to be self-sufficient on the road. 

As a Scout (We were still “Boy Scouts” in those days!), I had to learn first aid to advance from one rank to another, if I recall correctly.  Also, I learned some first aid techniques and lore—some of which contradicted what Scout leaders taught us—in one of my high school Health/Phys Ed classes. 

On the other hand, when it came to bike repair, my education was home-made.  Most of what I learned came from the first edition of the late Tom Cuthbertson’s wonderful Anybody’s Bike Book.  If the “For Dummies” series of books existed in those days, ABB could have been part of it:  It began with the assumption that, before you opened the book, you didn’t know the difference between a flat-bladed and Philips screwdriver, let alone a Schraeder and Presta valve.  But Cuthbertson would not have allowed his book to be called Bike Repair For Dummies; he had too much respect for his readers to do that.

Anyway, I wanted to learn bike repair and first aid, among other things, because I wanted to get on my bike one day and pedal some place far away, never to be seen or heard from again by anyone who knew me.  That fantasy came, in part, from being an adolescent and taking some things I read—from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to A Doll’s House—as well as movies like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid--perhaps a bit too literally.  To be fair, I must say that I wasn’t suffering the fate of some Dickensian character.  Though I butted heads with my parents, teachers and other authority figures in my life, none were abusive.  However, I also knew that I couldn’t live any of the lives my parents and teachers, or any other adults in my life, envisioned for me, even if I didn’t quite know what sort of life I actually wanted to live.

You might say I wanted to run away.  I suppose I could have done that by joining the circus or the French Foreign Legion.  Believe it or not, I actually thought about giving myself over to the Legion one day when I passed by their recruitment office.  But getting on my bike and riding into the sunset, the fog or whatever else was on the horizon was more appealing. 

Even though I wanted to disappear, I didn’t want to get stranded someplace.  I wanted the power to move out, move away, move forward, move on — all on my own terms, in my own way.  I didn’t want to put myself at the mercy of anyone or anything else in an emergency.

That would mean, of course, having certain skills and tools when I was on my bike.  It would also mean carrying dimes (and, later, quarters, or whatever the local coinage was) for pay telephones—at least, for those places where there was a pay telephone!  By the time I took my first long bike tour, I had those things and some textbook knowledge of Spanish and French—and perhaps even less knowledge than I thought I had about a lot of other things!  But that is the topic of another blog post, perhaps another blog.

I am thinking about all of that now, after the bike ride I took today.  Every inch or centimeter of the route on this day’s ride was one I’d ridden numerous times before; my intent was simply to ride vigorously and enjoy myself on a gorgeous day.  And, yes, I planned on getting home:  After all, I have cats (and myself!) to feed.

I was descending the ramp of the Cross Bay-Veterans MemorialBridge (“the bridge to the Rockaways”) on the Beach Channel side.  I’d pedaled about 80 kilometers (50 miles) and had about another 25 (15) ahead of me. The wind blew at my back, so I expected to be home shortly.

There is a fairly sharp turn in the ramp on the Beach Channel side.  I have long since learned not to yield to the temptation of descending faster than Lindsey Vonn on the Super G at Val d’Isere; there isn’t much room if you have to dodge another cyclist—or, worse, a group of riders—coming in the opposite direction. Even a pedestrian, skater or dogwalker who’s “in the zone” and not paying attention to surroundings can lead to your being entangled. 

However, someone else hadn’t learned those lessons.  Or she simply lost control of her bike; from what I could see, she’d probably never before ridden so fast—or much at all.  When I saw her, she was flat on her back, crying in pain. 

Her boyfriend confirmed my suspicions.  He said she “couldn’t steer out” of the path of the retaining wall she crashed into.  She gasped, “It hurts to breathe”. I immediately suspected a fractured rib—or, judging from the scrapes and bruises on and around her left shoulder, a broken collarbone.  I also feared a possible concussion:  Neither she nor her boyfriend was wearing a helmet.  However, she said she didn’t feel dizzy and, after a few minutes, was able to stand up.  And, from what her boyfriend said, her shoulder, but not her head, hit that wall.

This is not the accident about which I've written today. 

I offered to help:  Call an ambulance, get ice from the bagel shop at the foot of the bridge, whatever else they needed.  “We’re OK,” he said.  I offered her my water bottle, which was about half full.  She drank from it. 

I then glanced at her bike.  The front wheel was a “pretzel”, but there didn’t appear to be any damage to the rest of the bike.  I opened up the front V-brake, which made it possible to move the bike, albeit with some difficulty.  I then apologized for not having a spoke wrench:  Although the wheel couldn’t be salvaged, I explained, at least it would make it easier to push the bike.    I also apologized for not having a wound dressing or other things the bagel shop probably wouldn’t have.  “Oh, don’t worry,” he said.  “We’re glad you stopped”.

They live about halfway between that bridge and my place. I asked if they had a way of getting home.  “We called a friend but he wasn’t home,” he explained.  “But don’t worry—we’ll just call Uber.”

Uber.  Nobody had even thought of such a service back when I was plotting my Great Bike Escape.  The only time I had seen the word “uber” was in one of those books I didn’t understand as well as I thought I did—or, more precisely, understood in the way only an adolescent, with no guidance, can understand it.  For all I know, that just might have been the way Nietzsche wanted it to be understood.

But I digress again.  I told the young man to be sure to remind the Uber-man (or woman) that he and his girlfriend have bikes.  Turns out, the Uber person was driving an SUV.  But he had no idea of where we were; he claimed his GPS couldn’t find it.

If he couldn’t find that, I don’t think any Uber driver—had such a person existed in my youth—could have found the places I thought I might ride to when I left home, my head full of the stuff I’d been taught and the bike repairs I’d learned on my own.  And, even if the driver could find them, he (who almost surely would have been male in those days) would not have wanted to go there, any more than many New York taxi drivers would want to take a big black man who wanted to go to Brownsville.

Finally, the young man called a local car service the girl at the bagel shop counter knew about.  They indeed had a van and said it would be “no problem” to go to the young couple’s apartment.

In some of the places where I’ve ridden, there aren’t car services.  Or bagel shops.  Or, for that matter, bike shops.  Perhaps I wasn’t as ready for them as I thought it was. But I survived and had fun, and I had a great bike ride today.

The Burn Without The Climb

Tomorrow or some time after, I'll tell you about the ride I did today.  It's another 100K ride, though to a different destination from the one I did the other day.

So, in three days, I've probably done more riding-for-the-sake-of-riding than I'd done a couple of months.  My legs have been holding up surprisingly well.  Maybe I had more "money in the bank", as an old riding partner used to say, than I realized.  

Whatever fatigue I've felt has come from all of the sun I've absorbed on my skin.  Even though I've used lots of sunscreen, I now see--and feel--redness on skin that had been the color of Wonder bread for weeks.

All right, so that last description was a bit of an exaggeration.  Still, I feel as if the past few days have been a new beginning, at least in terms of my cycling--and writing. Yes, I've been doing some of the latter, and it's not related (at least not obviously so) to this or my other blog.

The only complaint I have is the one I have about cycling here generally:  It's flat.  Now, it's probably the reason I've been able to do the rides I've done with relative ease. But to really get back into shape, I'll have to start going vertical.  And about the only climbs around here are the bridge ramps. Even places with "hill" in their names don't require much more of a change in elevation than the floor of one place in which I lived during my youth.

Speaking of my youth:  Yes, I did a fair amount of climbing on my bike.  In fact, during my last two tours in France, I pedaled up a few of the fabled Tour de France climbs.  One day I will write about them, after I sift through my photos and journals of those rides, the most recent of which I did in 2001.

But for now, I'll share this wry image about the difficulty of such climbs:

From Imgkid

Of the peaks mentioned, I have done all except Port de Bales.  Perhaps one day I will do them again, or find others.