On our first trip to France, I was talking to my friend in Dijon and telling him how much we were enjoying his country. He asked me what it was that we liked most, thinking no doubt that I would mention the cathedrals or the glories of the countryside. He was a bit nonplused when I replied “the French.” “Surely,” he came back,” I did not mean the French people; we the French are not a nice people.” I protested that I did mean the French people and cited several occasions in which people had done just a bit extra to make our visit to their country a bit more enjoyable. My friend was having none of my protestations; apparently I was attacking a basis of French national pride. Finally we reached a compromise. Maybe, he proposed, the French could sometimes be nice but not the Parisians. I was about to bring up a number of examples of Parisians who had done us good turns but decided that diplomacy was going to have to conquer truth. I looked at him and said, “Of course, the Parisians!” Tragically our friend died a few years after that conversation. If only he had lived I would have loved to have brought up the story of Françoise and Didier, a Parisian couple who had retired to the bucolic beauties of Normandy.
That first trip was the only one to France in which we used an automobile. After that it was by bicycle, usually our tandem bicycle. Our longest trip began in Brussels, which of course is not actually in France and our destination was Nantes, just south of Brittany. There would be many meanderings and we hoped to cover about 1,500 kms. At the Brussels airport I was doing a few quick checks of the tandem and I noticed the rear wheel was wobbling a bit from side to side. However the hub was well seated in the frame and the wheel, despite the wobble, cleared the brake pads. I quickly decided that this was the most minor of problems, something to mention at the bike shop once we were home. We set off.
The first week or so was marvelous; westward through the lowlands of Belgium and then, near the coast, a u-turn into France and eastward through Picardy. Perhaps the highlight was a stop at Vimy Ridge, a Canadian national park where a young ranger from Manitoba gave us an excellent talk about the battle. Then westward again, basically following the Seine, into Normandy.
Normandy turned out to be a cyclist’s delight. Thatched cottages, gentle undulating terrain, and large wooded regional parks. We were deep into one of those parks when there was a loud bang from the rear wheel and suddenly the rear tire collapsed. Fortunately the tandem did not tip and we were able to dismount safely. Moreover there was a small parking lot nearby into which we pushed the bike and found a safe place to remove the rear wheel. There was a gash of two or three inches in the side of the tire and, obviously, the tube must have expanded into that gash and exploded. The hole in the tube was a big as the gash and was beyond repair. We had a spare tube but no spare tire. I put the tube into the damaged tire, hoping that it would hold until we could get to the nearest town about 20 kms away. I was on the point of replacing the wheel into the frame when it exploded with a bang that seemed even louder than the first explosion.
Arromanches-les-Bains, Normandie, France
