September 2010
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Nic's open house
Once a year, this guy I know named Nic has an open house and invites everyone to come by and check out his place. It’s a big draw and the line is huge. Even with my connections I spent 4 hours watching the sun rise and shuffling slowly with the crowd. Here’s the last ~90 minutes’ worth of the queue of Nic’s friends.
Finally we got to the garden entrance and baggage scan....
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Adieu, mon ami
Today I said goodbye to my faithful friend and companion for the last 650 miles.
To the Mondia: Some other lucky person has been able to see potential in your 1980s brown paint, your stretched chain, and your tires smothered in rim glue. I will miss you and think fondly of the many intimate hours we spent together on roads and freeways, over gravel trails and cowpaths. You treated me well.
And...
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Now that's a peloton
Day 7 (bonus!): Paris to Honfleur
My good luck continued for one more day of cycling, as the annual Levallois-Honfleur bicycle tour took place during my trip. This was the 25th edition of the event, a big one on the calendars of French cyclists. I heard about it through a triathlon training group called the expaTRIes that I started running with last week. And with their generous help, everything...
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The Paris office
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Paris le fin
Day 6: Epernay to Paris
Epernay hasn’t figured out that a wine growing region should keep its wineries open on the weekends. Some would open later in the day, but many would be closed. So I left the town without seeing inside any of the famous chateaux and caves. The exteriors were very impressive, for example:
This year’s tour de france went through Epernay, and I followed along...
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Early Champagne
Day 5: From Neufchateau to Epernay
Yesterday’s long session got me thinking that I could get all the way to the champagne region today (a day early) if I rode quickly and didn’t make any big wrong turns. It was a pleasure to leave uninspired Neufchateau after a quick breakfast and start the route along the country roads. The weather was hot and sunny, and the roads were reasonably...
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As West as possible
Day 4: from the Vosges to Neufchateau
If yesterday’s goal was adventure, today’s goal was to travel as far westward as possible through the French farmland. In the Michelin maps, they use stars to designate interesting places, and if a place is really great it gets 2 or even 3 stars. As an example, Riquewihr was given 3 stars, and so is Versailles and a small number of other places....
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Into the Vosges
Day 3: Freiburg to France’s Vosges mountains
Another early start, powered by heaps of muesli and yogurt. Today had the largest agenda of any day in the entire trip, so I was eager to get moving. The first challenge was getting out of Freiburg in the correct direction. It’s much easier to find the way to a city’s center than it is to find the way out of it. Eventually I got on...