Oh goodness. That sounds highly distressing. The only internally geared hub I would trust is a Rohloff, but those cost and arm, a leg, and your first born child. For everything else there is the trusty derailleur. But these e-bikes now seem to want to do all sorts of fancy things like internal gears and belt drives. That just seems like more and more stuff that’s hard to find parts for on the road and harder for a handy bike user to fix. I hope the patient finds life again!

Hi,
Thanks for the tour of Orleans, a great city. I have one bike with a Nexus hub, my city bike. For getting bread and croissants at the boulangerie it works fine. For anything that involves climbing , I will only use one of my derailleur equipped bikes.
All the talk of Joan of Arc reminds me of a story.
Many years ago, when I had just taken up my first post at Hamlin University in St. Paul, I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Bill Downing. Bill had been a liaison officer in the US navy assigned to the Free French cruiser Georges Leygues and like me he was a francophone /francophile. During his service he was at the Normandy landings, and was the officer in charge of giving the order to open fire which the French did ten minutes before the Americans, British, and Canadians. Anyway, one day when I was at work, I came upon a sign attached to the men’s restroom that read « Jeanne d’Arc », Bill’s way of letting us know the lights had gone in the w.c. (For those of you who do not speak French, Jeanne d’Arc is pronounced like John dark in English).
Cheers,
Keith

Or not if it’s a listed building and the ox-blood paint is part of the cahier des charges.

May 8th is also VE Day from the Second World War, and so doubly famous.

Orleans is lovely. A shame that I haven’t been for at least five years. Thanks for sharing it with us.

The mortar is usually over the brick and protects it. When one of these buildings is renovated, we are often surprised by how different it looks with or without the lime, depending.

Hi,
In my youth, I picked strawberries every afternoon after school for what seemed like years, but was in reality only about a month. By the end of that time the mere thought of a strawberry would give me the heebee jeebees, and the smell was so off-putting I haven’t been able to face a strawberry since. So I’m afraid that I don’t have an answer for your question. Pardon me while I go get something to take my mind off that miserable « fruit ».
Cheers,
Keith
P.s. curiously, I didn’t have the same reaction to any of the other things I picked, raspberries, peaches, grapes, cherries, plums, asparagus, green beans, etc. thus I stayed employed through the summer and into the following school year.

I am writing this from the bike shop in Orleans, where the patient is on life support on the bench right now. A pawl has fallen into the guts, and the surgeon is drilling to try to extract it.
We discussed putting a derailleur, but that implies a new wheel and shifter, plus the cassette and derailleur. From where I stand right now, I am considering buying a whole bike, like right here and now. It'll be a derailleur model!

I will also add my support to touring with a standard derailleur. My folding recumbent came with an Alfine 8 hub. Brand new. And it didn’t work right. As soon as it was fixed, I sold off the hub and replaced it with a traditional derailleur system. Nothing worse than having a hub fail and not be able to repair it right away. You can generally find a traditional derailleur of some sort in most bike shops if it should fail.

The advertisements for shows are definitely different! ( Dirty Dancing is so.. “yesterday” ;)

Nachos?

And, to the unknown buyers, the names persuade the (in) correct decisions…usually..Bigger is NOT better, as I have said..those are for chocolate dipping, to mar the blah tasting strawberry in the first place!

I agree, Steve! These are the better green beans! Haricot Vert.. I can only find them here in March! So, have to wait until next year!

No, not at all! They are widening them, Steve! The plywood is proof ;)

Yes, as you know at home there are the rather squat and totally great local ones, and the useless California ones - two basic types. Bot the French seem to sell many named, and differently tasting, varieties