biking disaster-part 1
each summer for the last 2 years summer i've gone on a long ass bike ride.
2 years ago i went to france and biked from versailles to chartes.
i had come up with a grand plan - take a few months off from work, fly to london, take the eurostar to calais and bike from calais to the mediterranean. i'd saved money for a year and quit my job to do this.
what actually happened was a bit different from my grand plans.
i flew into heathrow and rented a room in a travel tavern, miles away from any known civilization. it was cheap, by london standards and i needed a night to rest before heading out on my big journey. the next morning, with a 25lb bicycle(more on that later) over one shoulder and a 25-30lb duffel bag over the other, filled to the brim with camping gear, clothes, my short-wave radio, solar battery recharger, cell phone, ipod, lantern, books, extra inner-tubes, tires, tools and other gear to live on for several months in the campgrounds of france, i took the bus back to heathrow, got on the piccadilly line for central london to waterloo station to catch a train for calais.
the calais train was sold out for the day. i couldn't drag all that shit back to heathrow and it was august, so it would have been prohibitively expensive to stay in central london for the night so i said fuck it and got the train to paris. i needed another night to regroup and come up with a new plan, so i rented a room a stone's throw from the gare du nord on boulevard de magenta at a hotel named after the boulevard. it was fairly run down, but i liked it and needed rest after having about 60lbs of gear slung over my shoulder through 2 countries.
i think the old folks who ran the place liked me because i had obviously bothered to learn and attempt to speak only french. this was nice.
i went up to my room, dropped everything and then lay down for a while. i as exhausted, and my shoulders were killing me. my legs have never been so sore and tired.
a while later, i decided i was going to montmarte to have dinner. it was close by. i had dinner at what appeared to be the least touristy restaurant in the neighborhood. i sat at a table with a scotsman and french lady, who didn't speak english. they were artists, or maybe artisans. children of the sixties, with a different aesthetic than what i'm used to in new york. they both worked in montmarte. i can't remember what he did, but her trade was very interesting. with scissors, she would cut your profile out of paper. during the meal, she did my profile and i have to say, she is really good at what she does.
after dinner, i walked around a bit and then went back to my room to plan. i decided that i was going to take a commuter train to versailles and start from there the next morning.
let me say at this point that the 2 days i had been in europe, it had rained a lot.
ok, so the next morning, i got up and went out in search of a croissant, but wasn't having any luck. that was odd, being in paris and having all the boulangeries closed. at the time i didn't put one plus one together, but once i did, later in the trip, it was too late. anyway, went back to the room, put everything together and headed back to the gare du nord to take a subway south of the seine and jump on a commuter train from there. oh, and got a croissant.
i dragged all that gear all the way to the station, through the station and couldn't figure out how to operate one of the ticket machines. a canadian chap was in the same boat as me. we stood there for about 1/2 hour, scratching our collective head and not figuring it out. after a while, someone came to our aid. we thanked them, got our tickets and parted ways.
dragged everything through the station again and onto the subway, which was stuck in the station, completely full of people. the conductor was talking rapidly and i couldn't figure out what he was saying. i had so much gear with me that people had to step around/on/over it all and were visibly annoyed with me. i felt very awkward and apologetic. the conductor would say something and everyone would get off. then he would say something else and they would all rush back on. i decided i was just going to stay on and see where it took me.
good plan. it took me to the station that i needed to get to, somewhere south of the river. i trudged through the station only to learn that the platform where you catch the train to versailles was out of commission and wouldn't be back on line until the following day. i had to take the subway to another station, walk out of the station, go across a busy boulevard and walk through another train station to get the train to get to the train to versailles.
so that's what i did and after another hour or so i finally got there. the train ride was a very short trip and fairly pleasurable, with interesting suburban paris outside the window. they were the nicest suburbs i've seen yet.
i was on the front of the train and the station exit was all the way past the back of the train. i dragged everything out of the station and set it down out front.
i had made it.
to be continued.
more related goodies:
true story about hipsters
a true story about stupid williamsburg hipsters.
critical mass
i'm tired of hearing about bicyclists being arrested and beaten up by cops high on overtime pay.
the bikes of new york - gallery
bikes, bikes everywhere. track bikes, 3 speeds, delivery bikes, messenger bikes. williamsburg, east village, etc.
getting doored
what to do when somebody doors you.
more williamsburg fixed gear attitude
another encounter with a williamsburger
hipsters on track bikes
hipster + track bike = tard
the pine creek trail on bicycle - gallery
pennsylvania's pine creek trail in 2005. a very nice trail, one of my faves.
great allegheny passage on a bicycle - gallery
rode my bicycle from pittsburgh to washington d.c. through some of the worst flooding in pennsylvania in 100 years. all told, a fantastic trail, highly recommended.
