More Nice bike tales
Posted by Edward Re on October 25, 2011 at 7:07am
At the end of day one on a bike, I was hoping to find a better route than the 4 laner I'd taken on the way up. Fine for lunchtime, but not great from 4.30pm until past 7. If you need a hand, grab the first bike rider you can. Mine turned out to be a Canadian, so that made 3 Anglo helpers for the day. Do French people ride? I assume the lady with the stunning black leather bags on the stupendous Peugeot mixte was French. Mixtes just look so stylish, especially with the flat bars that wrap around towards the rider. About once every 2 weeks some of this pure bike porn glides past, too fast to get out the camera, of course.
The Canadian took me almost all the way home, and 2/3 was a separated bike path. What a great ride, and a nice chat too. The next few days I rode the folding bike to work. I hung it in the picturesque trees to tune the gears. I felt very lucky to have such a nice way to go. But, I was banging my knees on handlebars when out of the saddle. It started to screech in the frame, as it wasn't enjoying be powered uphills, so I sold the folder to a guy at work for 200, and bought a 2nd hand racer with shoes for 180 on the internet.
Roundabouts with clip shoes are deadly. You only get a couple of seconds space to jump in, and my foot slips off the pedal, unless you chance onto the click thing. Plus when you get to work, you need to pack some thongs to get from the car park to the building. Walking is impossible. Lucky I had some thongs from Oz. Not sure what other people do in these things. The commute now takes 45-50 minutes. The only sore part of my body is my arse. The Veneto's seat is that bit too sporty.
At this time, work moved, and we found a home. We got a truck to buy 2nd hand furniture (god, the old stuff here is to die for, and costs about 1/4 of the price of the brand new awful chipboard units). Getting smart, I threw the bike into the back of the truck so as to get home after drop off. And of course the tyres are 10 years old, cracked and deflated. Luckily everyone at work drives (or rides a motorbike), so I got a lift to Decathlon for 2 new tyres, and 3 inner tubes.
I told my boss I am happy now. She said great, what do the kids use to get around? At the same time, the higher powers in our household pointed out that it is very difficult at the train station, as you must carry the pram and deal with 2 children, up and down some bad staircase. Then we tried catching the bus out to where the awful chipboard furniture is sold. The bus doors closed as I ran up alongside it, carrying the 21kg child. The next bus was 35 minutes later. The trip would have been about 15 mins. As we waited with our 2 and 4 year old, she said "That's it. We're buying a car". And I knew there was no point in delaying the inevitable, or going through a pointless argument. We now own a Renault Clio Estate, with it's 20cms extra boot space.
Sadly, we accidentally blew our budget right up, so at the moment we can't actually do anything. Further to the standard bike/car story, we could have bought 3 cargo bikes with electric assist. The 4 year old's school is 1km away, and the 2 year old's childcare is 2km away. Easy distances, I know. But the childcare is up a seriously dangerous skinny mountain road, with crazy locals flying around. It makes biking a hard choice for those with kids.
Some of the roads have amazingly good bike paths, but so many don't connect up yet. For example the stunning mountain road to St Jeannet has a path, which simply ends on the bends. There is a sign that seems to say no biking, but we think it means the bike path ends. Otherwise there'd be a lot of stranded riders!
Am riding every day to work now, as per the last 4 or 5 years. My boss has said in about 3 months I'll give up... we'll see.
No comments:
Post a Comment