July 19, 2023
On a mission
Bringing them home
The extraction was worthy of a Tom Cruise movie. (Though, to be realistic, I see myself being played by Judy Dench or Maggie Smith, with a rumpled Bill Nighy reprising Bruce. More ‘King of Thieves’ than ‘Mission Impossible’, I guess.) There had been months of planning, numerous emails across the world, purchasing of ransom items, memorising timetables and a train station’s floor plans, and …well, you get the picture, I hope. Retrieving our bikes from captivity was a complex and carefully planned operation.
After 24 hours in Paris, always a happy place for us, we boarded the TGV Lyria to Lausanne early this morning. Four hours later, the extraction operation was under way. First up was a quick shuffle to the baggage lockers, expertly led by Bruce – Tour Leader – who knew their exact location, no easy feat in a sprawling multi-floor building. My contribution had been to research and gather in advance the exact amount of Swiss francs to feed the locker.
Freed of the weight and awkward dimensions of our duffel bags, we hot-footed it to a ticket machine and found the correct platform for the local train to Grandvaux. Like Lausanne, the commuter suburb of Grandvaux is impressively hilly so the hot 40 minute walk from station to house was UP all the way.
The house sitter was expecting us…and we were expecting to claim two neglected bikes. But no. Tyres had been pumped, brakes were in working order, panniers were all present . . .there were no signs of ill-treatment whatsoever.
With the thank-you gift handed over to the house-sitter, we were able to ride our bikes down to the station, just in time to see the Lausanne train gather speed as it pulled away. With time to kill (but not too much: the next Swiss train is never too far away) we re-acquainted ourselves with the touring bikes we had left with a kind stranger four years ago. (“Oh look, yours has got a kickstand!” “No, I don’t do kickstands . . . oh yes, so it has.”). And I may have taken a few reunification photos.
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Phase 2 of the operation kicked in when we returned to the city. Nearby the train station was a small, independent bike shop. The owner, Oliver, had responded to my email weeks earlier – the only bike store to do so positively. We were booked in for a service and general check over. We left our bikes with him, retrieved our baggage from the locker and found the metro line for the short but steep climb to our accommodation.
Job done.
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Today's ride: 2 km (1 miles)
Total: 2 km (1 miles)
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