April 3, 2015
A bike race, just for me: Sens-de-Bretagne to Cosse-le-Vivier
IT was funny, seeing that poster for an Easter bike race yesterday. That was knockabout stuff, I think, but sitting in a café as dawn turned to day this morning, I saw that the Real Thing was happening down the road. A full-scale pro race, part of the Coupe de France series, a decent-class event that draws riders from all over northern Europe if not always the very best.
There's a law in France that obliges not only lights when you ride in darkness but a reflective gilet. I've used that word before and people have asked what it means. The problem is that I don't know another word for it, so it's maybe best to say that it's a lightweight, sleeveless jacket that you slip over whatever else you're wearing. You see them all the time where people repair roads.
So I had one of those this morning as I set off before sunrise, on what I'd hoped would be a lonely, romantic hour to only the hissing of tyres. It hadn't occurred to me that the first commuters would already be up and driving and judging their progress by what they hear on the radio, but there they were. And a fair number of them, too, because I was on a secondary road that nevertheless linked two towns.
I've never seen my reflective gilet when it's lit up by headlights but, coupled with a flashing light and the silver reflective panels on the panniers, I must have looked like something out of Star Wars. No doubt about getting plenty of space, even from the most yawning.
I rode into Vitré along the route the riders would be taking a few hours later.
The distance markers were there, and the barriers and the straw bales on the outside of a bend. At the top of the slope were enough cars, trucks, trailers and motorbikes to keep a traffic jam going the rest of the day. Any surface that would bear advertising had it on it.
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The crowds were already starting, though not standing in place because there was no point and because it was too cold. It was going to rain again any moment. Mainly men, they were, all of an age, with flat caps and waterproofs and the air of people for whom this wasn't the first time. Their wives were glad to see the back of them for the afternoon. You see the same people at a dog track or poking about second-hand car lots.
"You go," they probably got told at home. "But don't bring back any of that cheap rubbish they threw at you in the Tour de France. Trophies, for heaven's sake. Straight in the bin, and the best place for them."
So Jacques and Gilles and Jean-Robert met on a corner somewhere, shook hands, remarked at the weather and looked for the nearest bar. Maybe Pierre would be there. Haven't see Pierre for a while, you? It's the ritual, every day somewhere in France.
Vitré has had a pro race for 20 years now. This was the anniversary. The Tour went there back then and two enthusiasts loved it so much they wanted to keep the experience going. Today they had teams or individuals from Japan, Italy, Britain, America, Belgium and Scandinavia. Plus a healthy dose of France's best, including Thomas Voeckler.
No sign of them yet, though. They'll still be holed up in their warm hotels.
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There were bagpipers outside the most obvious bar in town. There often are in Brittany. Lord knows why because I've never met anyone who likes them. As I came back out, shielding my ears, a man with sunken cheeks and the slightly stooped shape of a solicitous parson doubled back in the street, pointed at my bike, and said "I do that!"
"Touring?"
"Yes, love it."
He'd ridden the length of the Danube, he said, all round France and in the Baltic countries. He began listing them: "Estonia, Lithuania...." and then stopped when neither of us could remember Latvia. Or maybe he said it and he was drowned out by the bagpipers, who had just started on another of their seriously limited repertoire.
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"Always fancied it," I confessed. "What's it like? Flat and loads of forests?"
"Yes, you don't see much. But there's good beer and Nordic food and saunas." He smiled in happy recollection. "Fancy a drink?" He pointed at the café door.
"Kind, but I've just had one. I'm on my way," I said.
He shook my hand and said he'd look out for me.
"You're always meeting fellow touring cyclists in unlikely places years later, aren't you?", he said. And he walked off away from the bagpipes and probably felt better for it.
And I rode off as well, leaving the professionals to their fun.
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