Cycling Around Aix and

Stages One and Two of the Tour de France.

The coverage of the Tour may be very extensive in France, but, so far, it’s pretty hard to find a place in public to watch the race with other fans. The first café-bar I tried was showing Wimbledon, the next, horse racing, the next something that originated from Algeria and was totally inexplicable to me but held twenty or so of the café’s customers in thrall. Finally, I find a café-restaurant that has the Tour on the tube but the people inside don’t seem very interested. I take a table and order a beer and begin to notice the nature of the crowd and it’s comings and goings in between staring at the image of the three “eschappeurs” and the peloton rolling through Luxembourg. I was lacking the necessary gold chains and bracelets to fit in with this group. I felt a bit left out as the only person who entered the café who didn’t share the cheek-to-cheek greeting with the apparent owner. I also didn’t have a shaved head and I didn’t order what appeared to be a whisky which was tossed back without much ceremony. Not your usual cycling crowd. Or, perhaps it was the usual Provencal cycling crowd. Who’s to say. With 50 kilometers to go, it was clear to me that watching the finish in my apartment might be the better thing to do.

Not that I wanted to move around that much having been worked over that morning by some elderly cyclists out for what turned out to be their weekly near-century. I’d been told by one of the local bike shop proprietors that there was a weekly Sunday ride, a “circuit cyclotouristique,” that left from the Rotonde in the middle of town. He pulled out a guide from the local cycling club that showed a ride this Sunday leaving at 7 a.m. with slower groups leaving at 7:15 and 7:30. After the slow creep up Ventoux the day before, I still felt like I could do with a recovery ride and left the apartment at quarter to 7 for the 300 meter ride down to the Rotonde, happy to be riding with a group. There was little traffic around the usually busy circle and it was easy to pick out the small group of five in their bike jerseys, three of which identified them as members of “Cycle Sport Provence Aix.” “This must be them,” I think and ride up and introduce myself asking (I think) if I can join their ride. Two of the group introduce themselves, Jean-Luc and Charles and tell me that the ride is “cent ou cent-cinquante kilos.” Whoa, 150 km is close to a century! “What speed?” I ask, “trente”—30—Charles says. Well this isn’t the group I was looking for but when they say “allons-y” and start rolling, I just clip in and head off with them not sure if I had mumbled something like, “Sure, I do this all the time.”

The group rolled out of Aix and I learned quickly that my prior impression that French cyclists pay attention to stop lights was not applicable to this group, this Sunday morning as they rolled through lights and stop signs and pass cars and busses. This isn’t too shocking in the light traffic of the early morning, but, either bikes get a free pass on Sunday or this group just felt a priority. They pick up speed as they head out of town on the first flat route I’ve been on. A few kilometers outside of town they’re joined by two others with jerseys that match Jean-Luc’s and we roll on at a steady 28-32 kph. I’m thinking if this gets too fast I can bail out and find my way back on my own and make sure to watch the route numbers and road names. That plan gets a crimp in it when they turn off onto what I’d call a side street that turns into what appears to be a service road that ends up following a major road. No problem, I can see the “N-7” signs on the main road so I can just get back to that route and probably stumble onto the side road. Then the group dives into some even more anonymous little roads and around bends and under a highway then out onto a regular two-lane that is headed south. I’m still oriented but the turns keep coming and before too long we’re moving through a village that is on the edge of my mental map of the area. The group has kept to flat roads and I am thankful and explain away the many turns to their wish to keep the ride fast but flat. No problem.

Thirty kilometers on we stop for one of two brief but apparently planned stops. This in a little village called Sainte Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume. A nice place to stop, it rates two Michelin stars in the guide. My fellow riders duck into little corners and alley ways or hunch up to walls and take a pee. It seems as if anytime there’s need for a pee break, it has to be in a populated area. Maybe this is because, as I notice, they hose down the streets and its more hygienic or the country folks have guns. I just chew away at my banana, glad to have brought it, and, not seeing a “poubelle” (trash can), hide the peel in a planter, sure that the potassium in the peel will help. My new “copains” toss the little bits of wrapping paper that hold their snacks onto the street.

The pace stays the same on the other side of town but then there’s a long, steady climb up a major road but no one is pushing it and when we hit the top and there’s “no-pedalling” race down the other side for a couple of kilometers, I slide past the group and end up in front at the bottom—when you weigh in at just under 200, that happens fairly often on slow rides. We make a couple of turns then slow and duck down a decidedly small side road that has no benefit of signage. Now I am lost and am slowly coming to accept that I’m going to be out there with these guys for quite a while. “At least it’s flat,” I think to myself, these guys do look a little gray around the temples.

We have, as it turns out, just entered the Forest de la Sainte Baume, otherwise known as the “place-filled-with-steep-roads-up-mountains.” The first bit is beautiful, a deserted, one lane road through a flatland near a small river. “Tres Beau” I mumble to one of the guys; “tranquille” he replies, and then says, “avant c’est une montagne,” and I look up and can believe him since there isn’t much of a horizon anywhere below eleven-O’clock high. “Crap” I say, and I think Jean-Luc explains that this isn’t the “col des Claps,” which is a real place near Mount Victoire. Anyway, he agreed that it was going to be like that climb and seemed impressed that I knew about other local nightmares of ascent.

The start of this climb, like most awful ones, was benign and beautiful, the road gently sloping up into the pine and cedar forest. I took on a false sense of power and security and stayed in the middle of the group, only noticing my loud and labored breathing when it got too late to control my pulse and maintain a steady climbing rate. I wasn’t alone, one then two dropped behind me as the climb steepened, and, again, I took on a false sense of security, thinking I was under control. The slower ones were just pacing themselves and they passed me with ease a kilometer from the plateau of the Massif Sainte Baume.

As we climbed I got a better sense of who I was riding with. It was clear they were no spring chickens. During the approach into the forest, one of the guys, David, I think, allowed as how he was 58 as he motioned up to the three on the front, calling them “jeunes”—young ones. It turned out he was the young one. I made it to the plateau at the rear but in contact with the group and there the fun began.

Not having seen all that many cyclists over the week I had been in France I was a bit unprepared for the numbers of bikes I began to see. Groups like ours, 7-8 and up to 10, usually outfitted in matched uniforms that read “Cyclos de Aubagne” or something colorful like that and charging along on the flat plateau. They were either passing us the other way, getting passed by us or mixing briefly with our group then moving ahead or falling back. If I wondered where the French cyclists were, now it was clear—they’re in the Mountains and they come out in force on Sunday mornings to race along the smooth but narrow roads next to the “Massif de la Sainte Baume.” The roads on the plateau are 800 meters above sea level and a perfect cycling venue—the Mediterranean is just 15 kilometers due south but hidden by the peaks of the Massif. Hundreds were taking advantage of the spot including rather portly elderly men pushing single gear racing bikes to young couples on tandems. Our group seemed to feel that this was the place to “rouler avec puissance” and cranked it up to 35-37 kph, pretty fast for a roads with lots of other cyclists. This was a thrilling echelon (pace-line) that wound it’s way across the plateau and past the local monument, an old “hostellerie” for monks toward the little town of Plan-d’Aups.” I was hoping this would be the place for nice café stop and a bit of banter about cycling in the US as we sipped café-au-laits. Not to be, we turned off just before the village and headed down a side road. One of the group put his hand on my shoulder and said that the coming descent was “tres dangereuse.” No doubt about it, it was hairy—tres hairy. Twisting, narrow, no guard rails, no signs and through it ran a gorge where the sound of the advancing small trucks was muffled until we were right on them. My buddies had no problems and I stayed as close as I could but on the back, not wanting my mistakes to foul up one of them. The descent made it into a little village called Sainte Zachary; I was glad for the spiritual solace of the biblical names and to be out of the steep parts and back to the plains. Magically, we came to stop in the center of the village. David explained that we were stopping for water at the town fountain and that’s just what we did, re-filling our bottles with water spouting from the 19^th century, ornate fountain, dedicated to someone I knew not. A clot of other riders were there doing the same, this was apparently a regular watering stop on the main cycling route.

Off we soon went, but David and Charles explained that there was “une montagne ensuite” having taken a bit of a paternal tone toward me seeing as how I’d struggled to get up onto the Massif. We’d talked a bit at the fountain and Jean-Luc allowed as to how he was 68 and his brother was 64. Jean-Luc still has shaved legs, raced in the local criteriums and wasn’t slowed by the top-tube shifters on his bike, which carried no brand-name. His brother sported a Colnago, but that was but one of two bikes that were made by companies I could recognize. The other being a Decathlon, which I knew was a chain of sporting-goods stores, not known for its high-end bikes. They weren’t at all impressed by my Litespeed. I was, however, happy to have the triple on it and had used it going up the road to the plateau of the Massif. When Christophe passed me on the way up, he snorted “a la Grecque” which is a general French slang term for ‘taking the easy way.’

I didn’t care if it was easy or not; only easier. We were 85 kilometers into the ride and somewhere out there was this other mountain. Soon enough we began to head up Mount Sainte Jean-du-Puy and I was dropped off the back right away; but one of the guys was back there with me. Turned out he wanted to pee while there was still something more or less urban other than a field or a stand of trees. When he passed me two kilometers into the 5 kilometer climb I mumbled that I was having “un petit bonk” and that no one should wait for me, I could manage to get back. Clearly my gasped Franglais convinced him and the group that they might want to check out whether the Americaine was going to foul up a beautiful forest so pristine you wouldn’t even want to take a piss in it. Jen-Luc and David were coming back for me as I rounded a turn with 50 meters to the summit. A place steep enough to have a name, the Pas de la Couelle, and a monument or two. I managed to form the idea that it was a very pretty place in my few seconds there, trying to explain to the group that they were not “oblige” to hold up for me. They regaled me with lots of “riens” (it’s nothing) and “pas de problems” and left the col and the growing number of other cyclists who had managed the climb.

The descent was part two of the movie, “Downhill to Hell” that was interrupted by the even longer saga, “Up a Long-Long-Long Very Winding Narrow Road” but Part Two was not as long as Part One. The second part of the movie featured its own special effects with a straight part that saw my cyclometer hit 72 kph as the rest of the group rolled almost out of sight. We screamed (literally, Paul, who had been quiet up to then was sort of “rebel-yelling” on the way down) into the little town of Trets and thankfully slowed as we went through the medium sized town, dodging in and out of traffic.. I was going to keep contact no matter what;I was too tired to figure where I was or how to get back and was talking myself into pedal stroke after pedal stroke. Then we drifted across a main road and turned onto a bicycle path alongside a super-highway. The three younger (40s) guys decide to crank it up and move up to 42-45 kph on the long, uninterrupted straight, I guess to match their age. I fall in with that group drafting shamelessly hoping that this will get me back faster. The tempo is interrupted every three kilometers or so by the need to pass over a crossroad but the pace line barely slows. We’d charge past other riders and the occasional roller-blader and after 15-20minutes the group begins to break up. By the time we reach the end of this protected road and turn off onto a bumpy side road that, miraculously, I recognize as part of the route outward, we have to wait for some of the group to catch up. In that strange imbalance of cycling abilities, the climbers in the group didn’t like to pace-ride on the flat. Whether I did or not, I don’t know, I was only aware of survival riding and not getting left alongside the A-8 headed for Marseille. I could pick up signs for Aix and home and, as the roads became more crowded, we slowed a bit more and 10 km from Aix one of the group called out “ciao” and peeled off. By the time we hit the inner circular road around the old city of Aix there were just four of us and when the three French guys moved to the right apparently headed for the suburbs and a vigorous day in the garden, I shouted “Merci” and “au revoir” then carried on until they were out of sight. I then slowed to a crawl behind a bus, happy to have made it at least close enough to home for a policemen to recognize the address I’d scribbled on the back of my language school student identity card I carried in my pocket. I made it back to the apartment after four and a half hours and 140 kilometers. The lesson from this: if you’re out for a ride and see a group of middle-aged French guys getting ready for a roll through the countryside—don’t try to keep up unless you’re race-fit.

Three hours later, two of which were in the tub, I was conscious enough to turn on the tee-vee when le Tour started and saw things I’d never seen before in coverage of the Tour, like the rolling start, and lots of coverage of the warm-ups and a bit of history of Charly Gaul, the Luxembourgeois who won the tour in the fifties. The opening cartoon for the race called this the “stage for ambushes” and featured cowboys and Indians going at it.

They do cover the French riders very closely and we get lots of video of team talks and interviews with directeurs-sportifs of Bonjour, Francaise de Jeux, and Jean Delatour. They also cover the crashes like they do in stock car races, in somewhat embarrassing but fascinating details. Lots of too-intimate pictures of scratched asses and elbows and discussions of body parts “derangee.” The crashes are called “chutes” (pronounced ‘shoots’ and normally the word for ‘waterfalls’) and there were a lot of them Sunday. The coverage in L’Equipe on Monday had a headline “Chutes, Chutes, Chutes.” The big story being about how Christophe Moreau was having a day from hell. One newspaper cartoon depicted him as Christ carrying a giant cross labeled “chutes.” The little event where the leaders got tangled up with the motorcycles and the press toward the end was called a “bouche” meaning ‘traffic-jam-that’s-stopped’ or, more often, the cork in a wine bottle. We got full coverage of Francoise Simon’s flat tire while L. A. was leading a group past the three eschappes. It wasn’t clear what the commentators thought was more important.

The ending brought a lot of excitement as the young Swiss, what’s-his-name-but it-sounds-Italian, rider wins the stage and Jalabert stays close. The tour has started with some news and a good deal of excitement. The first stage is “nervouse” as usual but also “combatif.” The commentators like to emphasize the “combativite” to the point where one rider interviewed before the second stage made fun of the term when asked what it meant to him. He got on his bike and pedaled grimly and furiously side to side, not really making progress.

The interesting part of the coverage comes after the main show when “Velo Club” cranks up. This is an interview-cum-review show that brings in 8 or so riders and some other big-wigs and talks the day’s stage to death. They do show some interesting things, like running through what Stuart O’Grady’s cyclometer and heart rate monitor read after the race. They clicked through the readings and reported his top speed, top heart rate and some other numbers I think only made sense to Stuart. They’re interviewing the Bonjour team and showing the scratched up bike of one of the riders who fell in a “chute.” The French teams allow the Canal 2 cameras at their pre-race and post-race meetings and you get to hear and see what they were planning and what they are doing to de-brief the stage. For Bonjour and AG2R the commentators seemed to say that it didn’t make much difference want they planned, the teevee people seem to be pretty aggressive.

The coverage gets a little too silly at times. L’Equipe reported the weight and height of the tallest, shortest, heaviest and lightest riders; then they reported on the height, weight and normal meals of the race doctor—there was a bit of tongue in cheek in this, I hope.

The victory for the young Swiss rider is “Enormament”—the final cartoon shows the Formula-One racer, Schumacher, saying he’s not afraid of “Michael Armstrong—and Richard Virenque is telling the interviewer he’s happy with his new life and marriage—then there’s a picture that someone painted in a very realistic style, like a photograph, of Oscar Sevilla dressed in white with angel wings, looking up to heaven. The final, “coup” is the coverage in L’Equipe on Monday of the US Postal team: “Pas des bobos pour les postiers”—which, L’Equipe explained, they often experience. Bobos? I look it up in the dictionary—just what you thought, kids’ talk.