Today is, of course, le jour de Bastille. Three times in my life, I've been in France on this date: Twice I was cycling in the countryside; the other time I was just barely keeping myself out of trouble in Paris.
Possibly the most interesting of those quatorziemes was the one I spent in a town called Foix. I ridden from Toulouse through the Pyrenees into Spain and had just come back into France when I came to Foix. If you are in that part of the world, I definitely recommend going there. It's not a big city at all, but it has played significant roles in the history of France and the region. I won't get into it here, for much more than a blog post would be needed to do it justice. But it's also worth going simply for the spectacular views. friendly people and the castle:
According to a local song, El castels es tant fortz qu’el mezis se defent: The castle is so strong it can defend itself. Indeed, since it was built around the year 1000 C.E., it has never been captured. Within its walls resided the counts of Foix, who were considered l'ame of the Occitan resistance against the Albigensians in the 13th Century.
Most people think that some particularly clever Marine came up with the slogan Kill 'em all. Let God sort 'em out. Actually, it was Arnaud Amaury, the Abbot of Citeaux and the Papal Legate to the Crusaders, who said Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet ("Kill them all; God will know His own.") when Simon de Montfort, the Commander of the Crusade, pointed out that not everyone in Beziers, a town he was ordered to sack and burn, was a heretic.
No matter how many people they killed, they couldn't touch the Foix castle. I have no idea of what the Bastille was like. But I imagine they would have had a much, much more difficult time storming the Foix castle than they did with the Bastille. How would history be different if the Foix castle had been built in Paris or the Bastille in Foix?
Anyway...When I showed up at the castle on my bike, people--all of them strangers--applauded. Do people applaud during revolutions?
Today, as each drop of rain pelted the streets, sidewalk and window, you could practically feel the steam rising. I didn't ride to work, or at all. That meant, of course, that I took mass transit.
It amazes me, even after all of these years of living in New York and having used the subways and buses, to see just how grimy the stations and other facilities can be. Having had the opportunity to ride to work again only makes some of the stations seem even more squalid than they were before. It only makes me want to ride to work all the more.
As you've seen in previous postings, I've added rear baskets to the Le Tour. Soon I'm going to install a small (just enough for my pocketbook) front basket. I've also attached lights to the bike: a Planet Bike "Blinky" on the rear and two headlights on the front. One is also from Planet Bike: an LED light that can be used as a regular light or as a stobe.
But I also added something almost nostalgic and whimsical:
Cyclists of my generation will recognize it: the Schwinn-approved "bloc" generator, which was made by Soubitez of France. I had one on my Schwinn Continental when I was fourteen years old.
One thing I liked about it was that using it with a battery-operated tail light eliminated the need for long wires to connect the generator with the light. Plus, for such a small lamp, the light output was good, at least by the standards of that time.
I tried it the other night. It's pretty good: It will help me to see road obstructions and make me more visible to oncoming motorists. But there still is a lot of drag, and the conventional tungsten bulb will never be as bright as a halogen, much less an LED, light. Still, I've always liked its style. And that's what really counts. Right?
Today I did another ride to Point Lookout. This is the third time in the last four weeks I've done that ride. So, as you might imagine, I'm starting to feel like my physical condition is returning, and I am therefore gaining some more confidence.
The ride offers so much that I like: seaside vistas, a laid-back feel and the opportunity to ride from city to small town and back again. In that sense, it reminds me a bit of touring in Europe: Because that continent and its countries are smaller than North America and the United States, city and country are closer to each other in the "Old World" than they are here. So I could indulge my passions for art and architecture as well as for sunshine and fresh air and food.
In a way, you can say that today I channeled my Inner European in one small way: the way I made my bike stand when I got to Point Lookout:
Obviously, I'm not doing a track stand. And there's no kickstand on my bike. So what's my secret? It's one of those many tricks I learned in Europe:
If you lean the bike on the left pedal, make sure it's slightly behind the 90 degree position. Otherwise, the bike will topple--unless, of course, it has a fixed gear.
I've done this ride at least a hundred times before, and I'll probably do it that many more times, as long as I'm living within a morning's ride of it. According to Bike Snob, I'm in the same league as babies, dogs and designers. Like them, I can be fascinated by everyday objects, or at least by the everyday. So, when I got to Point Lookout, I watched the tide going out.
People who live there can tell you when the tide comes in or leaves. They remind me, in a way, of a rather old couple I met in Liborune, France. The town is about 30 kilometres from Bordeaux and is situated at the point at which the Garonne river bends and begins to open to the sea. I'd cycled from Paris via the Loire Valley and Aquitaine; my intention was to cycle to and along the sea. It was late in the afternoon; I'd stopped by a riverside grove. The couple were taking a walk, as they did every day, he told me. They'd asked about my ride and what brought me to their part of the world. "J'aime ces pays," I said.
"D'accord," they replied in unison. Then, suddenly, the woman tapped me on the shoulder. "Regardez! Regardez!"
I turned to look at the river, which was swelling like a small tide. The man explained, "Les marees vienent deux fois chaque jour": The tides come in twice every day. He took pride, not simply in knowing that fact, but in his intimacy with a place and life he clearly loved, and with a woman who shared his passion.
The tide left, and I did some time later. Just a little way down the road from that grove, I picked up a bike path that paralleled a route departmentale to Bordeaux city line.
(Note: I'm looking for a scanner I can use on some of the photos I took during that, and other bike trips.)
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