Paris by Bike – Dave Rigby

Well, yesterday my brother got married and we won the World Cup. The day was quite eventful!  

I’m starting my ride in Swindon, ten gears, lights front and back, two overstuffed panniers and a map. Well two maps – one for England and one for France. I reckon Newhaven is a day and a half away. There are some long, steep hills and of course it’s raining. After days of sunshine and blue skies, the weather has chosen this morning to break. Yellow bike cape, draped over me and the handlebars and a souwester keeping the rain off my head. Shorts are better than long trousers, bare legs quicker to dry than soggy jeans. Head down, I set off slowly uphill, into the wind and rain.  

Marlborough, Andover, Winchester and maybe somewhere just beyond. That’s what I decide and that’s the way it turns out – but only because the wind drops. My cursing and shouting may have diverted the storm. There’s a field off a tiny lane and nobody about, as I remove the tent bag from the left hand pannier. It feels too light. Something is missing. A tent without poles is a waste of space. However the rain stopped some time ago. Sleeping out under the stars – what could be better?

I slot the little gas stove on to its plastic stand, the tin opener does its job on the ready-dinner can and within minutes there’s an instant meal. Too tired to contemplate the beauties of my surroundings, I doze off inside the sleeping bag, the un-erected tent a useful groundsheet.

Three am. How can it be so cold? Isn’t it supposed to be summer? Fitfully sleeping until five, I decide I can’t stand the cold anymore and I’m back on the bike within minutes, suddenly saddle sore.

I’m revived by breakfast in a transport café, everything covered in a greasy sheen, but none the worse for that. Both me and the morning fly by, Newhaven getting ever nearer. But – there’s always a but! The old woman very kindly lends me a bowl of water. The bike is upside down on her front lawn, tyre off, tube out - pumped up slightly and held underwater searching for the hole. Once I find it, a quick dry off, select a patch, a squirt of glue, hold it firm, and keep fingers well crossed. The plate of sandwiches is completely unexpected. Miles later, I just manage to catch the early evening ferry bound for Dieppe, having never cycled so far in a day before. Stretched out on a quiet corner of the deck, I breathe in the magic of a sea crossing, before leaning over the rail to catch my first ever glimpse of the continent.

I reckon it’s less than two hundred k’s to Paris – a day and a half, if I crack on with it. But I find I want to stop at each small village, stick to the back roads, try out my perfectly inadequate schoolboy French. Progress is slow, but enjoyable and I make it to somewhere near Beauvais before nightfall. I’m determined to leave the second ready-dinner in its tin and walk from my second unofficial campsite to the village bar. All eyes are on me as I take a seat at a corner table. As there are only two other customers, I manage to cope with their undisguised scrutiny of the stranger in their midst. But the patron has seen me coming and at the end of the evening I hand over the equivalent of two days’ budget to him, wondering how my simple meal and a few drinks could possibly have cost so much.

Traffic builds up on the final leg of my ride into Paris. I can’t stop looking. It’s all so different and all so French – well like I’d always imagined it. There really are men with berets, they really do smoke like chimneys and the drains really do smell with a sickly sweet pungency. I’m going to be on time - six pm, today, at the Arc De Triomphe, the agreed rendezvous. Will the two of them have made it? I feel smugly satisfied that I’ve come all this way by bike, until I remember I’ve got another two weeks of cycling to come. My legs are sore, hands blistered and I don’t want to be anywhere near another saddle for at least a week.

There must be eight lanes of traffic moving at speed around the Arc. There must also be a subway somewhere, but it would be chicken to use it. I light up my first cigarette, choke on it, place it in the corner of my mouth, Belmondo style and race across the lanes, ignoring the blaring car horns.

They’re sitting on the steps, with matching berets. We wave nonchalantly to each other.  

 

Inspired by the Huddersfield Examiner article of Tuesday January 12^th 2016

“Will to pedal 400 miles from England to Paris.”