Paris - Monday 06-Aug-2007

As the sun comes up the pilot starts talking about the approach to France. We soon catch site of some small islands off England then we are over France and making our approach into Charles De Gaul airport. With all the time changes it is 7:45AM when we touch down. Let’s just say that being 6’1” spending 8 hours in economy class is not fun but finally arriving in France makes it all worthwhile. Once on the ground we gather our suitcases off the carousel but there is no sign of our bikes. After speaking with several people who spoke English only slightly better then we spoke French, we found our bikes safe and sound. Our biggest fear was to have the bikes lost or damaged but now we could relax and start enjoying ourselves.

We headed up to the lobby to find a taxi. We had landed at Charles De Gaul which is north of Paris and had to make our way to St. Quentin-enYvelines which is south and west of Paris. We found a hatchback taxi and managed to squeeze in the two bike boxes, two suitcases and two carry on bags and were off. It took about 50 minutes to make the drive through Paris rush hour traffic. St. Quentin-enYvelines is not a quaint French village but a small modern business center. A tourist would not normally choose to come here but it is the starting point of PBP and the hotel Campanille is one of the three hotels in town where most of the Americans stay for the event. We were booked for two days now and for the week of PBP. They were going to store all of the luggage we didn’t need while we bicycle toured through Normandy for 10 days. The cab let us off in front of the hotel and we got checked in an hit the sack for a couple hours. We woke up around noon and were hungry. We decided to do our first reconnaissance of town. Across the plaza was a large mall called Carafour. It contained everything we would need for the next couple of day. We managed to order lunch at a small take out and sat outside to take stock of what we needed to do next.

While we were eating we realized it was cool. The temperature was just over 70 degrees at noon in early August. We watched the flow of the local business people as we finished eating and then headed off to find the train station. We located it fairly quickly, got a schedule and took the long way back to the hotel. We note the location of the tourist office and get back to our hotel.

My wife headed back up to our room for another nap and pull the bikes out of their cases and start re-assembling them. After a couple of hours I have two working bicycles and my wife is still sleeping.

I head back to Carafour to forage for dinner. I fill my basket with wine, cheese, bread, fruit and pastry and head for the register. It must be quitting time because the lines are very long. I wait my turn and the cashier starts to ring me out. She picks up a bag of fruit says something I don't understand, shows me the fruit and says something else. She is very pleasant but I can tell she is thinking "Stupid American, can't even buy fruit". Obviously I have broken some protocol and using hand motions make it clear that I will pass on the fruit. When I get back to the room my wife looks at what I brought back and asks where the fruit is. I told her they wouldn't sell any to stupid Americans. We figured out later that in France you weigh and tag the fruit before you get to the register.

We eat, check emails, call home using skype on our Nokia internet device and turn in for the night

Paris - Sun 05-Aug-2007

It is 9:00AM EST and we were on our way to Bradley Airport to start our 3 week trip to France. The plan was hatched 3 year earlier. I had started riding bicycles again in my early 40’s after about a twenty year layoff. I had bought a Rivendell Rambouillet and while researching the bike on the internet I kept reading that it was a good bike for riding brevets. I had no idea what a brevet was but a little more research turned up the fact that a brevet was a timed ride over a specific distance and they were part of a sport called Randonneurring. If a rider completed a series of rides (200k, 300k, 400k and 600k) in a given year he qualified to ride in a grand randonnee of 1200K that had to be completed in 90 hours or less. The most prestigious of these rides was Paris Brest Paris which is held every 4 years. The next time it would be held was in 2007 the same year I would turn 50, what better way to celebrate turning 50 then riding across Brittany with 5,000 cyclists from all over the world. I started training and reading ride reports published by other Randonneurs. In 2005 I attempted to ride my first brevet series, I made it through the 200k and 300k and then blew out my knee with and overuse injury called ITB syndrome. I was down for the year but read up on the injury and how to train properly and was back at it in 2006. I completed a full series of rides and a very grueling 1200k ride called Boston Montreal Boston. This gave me a good feeling about qualifying for PBP. About this time my wife, Lorraine, realized I was serious about going and made it clear that I would not be going to France without her. She also pointed out that travel to France was not cheap so we might as well stay as long as possible. We started planning on a two week bicycle tour before PBP for a total of 3 weeks. Now all that remained was to qualify for PBP. I started training Thanks Giving weekend and completed two brevet series by the time qualifications closed, we were going to France.

After another two months of preparations we were sitting in the airport waiting for our first flight.

We left Bradley for a quick hop to Philadelphia, a long layover and then we were in the air bound for Paris. We left Phili at 6:10PM to start our 8 hour flight to Paris. The early part of the flight was fun, we made it over the East Coast while there was still day light. Many of the places we were familiar with from sailing were now visible from a different vantage point. The Connecticut River, the Thames river, shelter Island, Block Island, Naragansett Bay, Marthas Vineyard and Nantucket rushed by. Soon the sun was setting and for the next couple of hours we catch glimpses of light dotting the east coast and then finally darkness and fitful sleep for the next several hours.