Peddled to the Corner

This is the saga of the bikes.

It must be told. I regret the expenditure greatly, however, I hate to admit that is was a vital part of our journey.

When we landed on French soil we had one mission-to get to Paris. We arrived in Le Havre on a Saturday I think and we need to be to France by the following weekend in order to meet up with Alice. We figured that in the time between we would slowly make our way to Paris, enjoying the towns and cities along the way. For some strange reason, the majority of our group saw the available transportation (trains, buses) an invalid option. They wanted to buy bikes.

Then something terrible happened. They actually found a bike store.

If you ever visit the Le Havre Go Sport branch do me a favor and damn them all for their sales tactics. A seemingly friendly man who spoke little English immediately descended upon us, his ignorant prey. We were idle dolls stuffed with money, the seams of which were his to tear apart. I knew from the beginning that bikes were a horrible idea, but everyone else insisted that they would be perfect. It was quicker than walking and that way we could make our way to Paris at a leisurely pace. I protested endlessly, but it was in vain. The other four were convinced, and I knew that I had no choice but to give in and buy the bikes. I was tired, hungry, and my will was weak. The only thing I could get from them was one hour to walk around the mall and make my decision. I was stalling and I knew it was worthless. We came back to the store and the employees continued to talk up the bikes, assuring us that we could ride them to Paris.

Here I must diverge from the story slightly. When we first presented the idea of riding them to Paris to the man at Go Sport he said something along the lines of "Oh yes, you ride to Paris", and presented us with a promising thumbs up. Every single other person who heard about this idea was convinced that we were idiots. They were right. Now, back to the story.

One by one they tuned up our bikes, which were to costs 160 euros each (roughly 220 USD). And one by one Joel, Brock, Adam, and Glenn wheeled them up to the counter, gladly slapping down their plastic payments and walking out with smiles on their faces. I dragged my feet, stumbled my tired ass into the store and put my hands on the handlebars with a frown on my face. I knew it was a bad idea, but I could do nothing.

The worst purchase of my life

After all was said and done we said goodbye and saluted them with many "merci's". After watching me stumble around the store the salesman felt the need to impart his wisdom to me "no more drink, is bad for stomach". I'm sure his incorrect image of me being drunk was enhanced by my having to carry Joel's newly purchased wine bottle around in a plastic bag. The salesman did not understand the irony of calling me drunk.

By this time we had alerted many people in the mall of our presence, they sat on the benches watching the stupid Americans with their shiny new bikes wondering what the hell we were doing. I wondered the same. We dragged them out of their, clumsily lugging them up the escalators, then finally took off, to Paris apparently.

So naive

I will admit that I was briefly optimistic about the bikes when we began riding them. That feeling was quickly extinguished by the time we made our slow departure from Le Havre. People gawked all along the way, making faces and heckling as we went through the shadier parts of town. One young man yelled at us in French, then quickly switched to English.

Young Man-What are you looking for?

Me-What's that?

Young Man-(mocking tone) What's that?

I hate that Young Man, but it some cliche poetic way his inquisition summed up this odyssey.

My bike chain broke. We(Joel) fixed it. Progress was slow. As the day began to fade we knew we needed to find a place to sleep, but we were still in the outskirts of Le Havre with houses surrounding us. We rode uphill to where the forest was and eventually found a spot that seemed safe. We quickly wheeled our bikes up the hill and hid them behind a tree, then stole off into the thin forest to take our packs off and rest.

We sat for a few minutes until we were startled by the frequent sound of mopeds and four wheelers buzzing around. As it turned out we were right next to some forest road that was obviously frequented by such vehicles, they zoomed by every couple of minutes, each time we would duck right by the road, praying we weren't discovered. At one point while driving by they stopped right by where we were for about thirty seconds, and we were sure we had found.

In order to try to lessen their anger, Joel and Glenn left to go find those who had seemingly captured us, hoping to play the hopeless wanderer role and beg for a place to stay. Apparently though they hadn't actually seen us at all, but they did tell us that was OK for us to camp there, although only for one night. Also, they told us we were crazy for trying to ride bikes to Paris. So we set up camp, tents and all and slept well for our first night in France.

The next morning we woke up at about 11 and didn't get out of there until about 2. We rode in the wrong direction a couple of times until finally making our way down the hill and posting up at a roundabout. Here it was decided that we would wait until night to ride our bikes, as the highways would be way to crowded on the day. I thought that this too was a bad idea, but the majority ruled and there was nothing I could do. We enjoyed the small town all day long until night came (around 9) and we were on our way.

We rode for many kilometers. Five retarded Americans with gigantic backpacks whizzing through the night on their shiny Go Sports. The rain came and went intermittently, mostly sticking to a bearable drizzle. We finally made it out of Le Havre, with hopes of making it to Bolbec, the next non-village, by the next day.

Here I must stop again. As we left Le Havre, every sign we saw still insisted on pointing us to Le Havre. I am fairly certain that some French ordinance mandates that every road sign in France must point to Le Havre. No matter where you go, for many miles you will see signs to Le Havre. Do not follow them.

After much riding, and uphill pushing we finally arrived at the next town, a medium sized village called St. Romain. We were exhausted. We coasted down the hills until we found a church that we deemed a proper resting place. Everyone collapsed, setting up shop in front of the church. They rolled out pads and sleeping bags while Glenn and I walked around to have a look at St. Romain. After our short walk Glenn went to sleep in front of the church and I stayed up. We agreed that in one hour we would awake the others to continue our journey.

We rousted them, they slowly collected their gatherings and we once again rode. Joel was tired from the beginning and pessimistic about further riding during the night, but I was convinced we could do it. I was wrong. I was full of shit. Bolbec was "only" 8 kilometres away.

We peddled in the drizzle for about two kilometres when we all realized how tired we were. We pushed our bikes further and further until we found a "good place to camp". It was where a road diverged from the highway and there was a large arrangement of flowers and bushes that we could sleep behind.

This was the worst night of my life.

Earlier that evening, Satan struck a deal with Neptune. They agreed to collaborate in relocating all of the water from the seven seas to the skies, and dumping it upon us in one night. The rain was unbearable. It did not stop. There are only so many ways I can describe it. I did not sleep at all that night. I sat up straight on top of my backpack with my rain jacket on, watching the entire country of France become soaked. The night was also incredibly long, it stretched on as I prayed to see some hint of daylight. This night was not like a night of camping when you get soaked, because you know even then that you will hike back down and get in a car, go home and take a hot shower and wash your clothes. We were thousands of miles away from home, on the side of the highway in France.

Please kill me

By the grace of God morning came. Everything was soaked. We had to make the decision between moving on to the next town or going back the short distance to St. Romain. Thankfully, we chose the latter. We pushed our bikes all the way back, our sopping backpacks weighing us down; confused locals staring at us. Finally we posted up at the same church, absolutely drenched and unsure of what to do next.

All we knew was that we needed a hotel room. One needs such a thing after such a night. There was only one in town and it was booked for the next fifty days. Funny now, but terrible news at the time.

It was at this moment that we all knew what had to be done. We needed to get rid of the bikes. I wasn't even interested in gloating about the blunder they had pushed upon me, I just knew that I never wanted to see that hellish machine again. So there at the church we heckled passersby, Glenn utilizing his limited French to offer new bikes for sale at the low low price of ten euros. That is how desperate we were.

Nobody wanted to buy them. They just wanted to know why we were selling them for ten euros. Why did we try to ride to Paris? I didn't know why. While we sat at the church with our pitiful sales pitch a man, presumably a priest, arrived on his way to work there. Glenn pleaded with him, but he was confused and not in the least bit interested in the bikes. This young man seemed fairly amused and kept looking around like the whole thing was some practical joke.

He left us, he had to go work, and we sat there with the five bikes around us. We all knew what was next. We had to leave them there. 160 euros down the drain. One of the bikes was the brunt of our rage as a couple of us smashed the tire and threw it on the ground. We said goodbye to the bikes and left them in the alley, hoping to never see them again. We walked to a bar, sat our stuff down, and Glenn began to inquire about how to get to the next town along the road. A helpful man gave us a ride to the bus stop where we sat, shivering, glad to have the bikes safely in our past. Glenn walked around some more, returning with the familiar shit eating grin on his face, riding one of those bikes. He said that when he walked down to fetch it the priest was looking at the bikes, Glenn told him we would be back in five minutes to pick them up.

Of course, we never went back.

A new home

Glenn parked the bike, trying once again to sell it at a hot price, but his efforts were useless. A couple of minutes later, some city workers came by and asked if the bike belonged to any of us. We said no, and they carted it off on their truck. After much waiting the bus finally came and we rode to the next town, Bolbec, where we immediately found a hotel and got two rooms for the night. All of our clothes smelled horrible, one shirt of mine so gross that I threw it away days later due to the mold that had grown on it. Sitting in the hotel room we were sure that the saga of the bikes was complete.

A funny thing happened the next day.

We were slowly figuring out how to make our way to the next town, sitting on a bench and procrastinating about walking to the bus stop, which was half a block away. There we sat as a car drove up across the street and parked. Out of this car appeared the priest from the day before. He had clearly come to the bigger city to utilize the post office, and by bizarre coincidence saw his friends who abandoned the bikes a day before. He smiled and flashed us the thumbs up, apparently happy with his new found gifts. May he make better use of them than we did. And thus, the saga of the bikes was complete.