September 13, 2011
That happy buzz.
I've now sat down and am looking forward to an afternoon of doing not much more than relaxing. I'm at the quintessential French cafe, sat at a pavement table with a parasol to shade the strong sun. If I'm making this sound such an effort, well lets say France, or at lease Avignon is an effort when it comes to getting things done.
This morning, I returned to the bike-shop sometime between nine thirty and ten: the shop with only racing bikes. It was plain obvious that the shop didn't stock any mountain bike bits, not lease bits for disc-brakes. The proprietor, a stout elderly man that looked the part, oozing with knowledge and came from the bygone era of cycle-racing, shook his receding mop of white hair, and got his young assistant to help as he spoke passable English: to whom it was left to explain the way to a shop called "Velo Altitude": proceeding as he did, with a pencil he'd plucked from behind his ear, to draw a rough plan on a piece of paper on the counter over which he leant. He finished off by passing the paper into my hand and seeing me out the door into the street, he pointing the way saying, "tout droit a direction Marseille, a big carrefour a gauche over un pont..........".
I cycle the way as instructed, following tout direction signs until a big roundabout, whereupon a big blue sign, were A7, Orange, Lyon, arrowed in one direction and, Aix en Provence, Marseille, the other. I pondered where to now, but soon discovered that the autoroute actually terminated here in the direction of Aix and therefore I could continue as the man said, toward Marseille. The road remained a dual-carriageway and for quite a few kilometres passed through industrial park suburbs, eventual though, Is in the countryside and began doubting I'd every find the bike-shop. I began to think that I should ask someone. A local cyclist would know.
I caught up a sixty something man in lycra shorts and a team jersey, riding a Trek racing bike. "Si vous plait......." I opened somewhat out of breath handing him the piece of paper, whereon the shop-man had drawn his detailed plan. He studied it, looking somewhat baffled, then seeing a box with Decathlon marked, lit up and said ah...and said something, then intimated partially through sign language that I should follow him; that he was going that way. He cycled on ahead of me and I pedaled a rapid cadence to keep up. On a leafy road without much traffic he glanced back while slowing so I could ride up abreast of him. He asked "English" meaning the language I spoke, I nod and smile, and then asks, "English" meaning nationality, and I nod and say Irlande! He then said it was just another quatre kilometres, even though it seemed we'd cycled far enough. All the time we cycled together on cycle-path white-lined off from the road, through long straight tree-lined roads, by stretches of the autoroute, passed superstores and passed what looked like a roman temple on the way into a village where he said, it wasn't far now. He then turned down a narrow street which led through a housing estate. Where are we going I thought. He cycled up a ramp and round a roundabout where big superstores came into view again, whereupon, he cycled off and through a big car park to the front of a big Decathlon store. We walked into the store together and walked over to the cycle department where after he had a word with the shop assistant, I thanked him before he took his leave.
Decathlon sell only cheap bikes and it goes without saying, don't sell decent quality brake-calipers. I showed the scribbled plan on the piece of paper to the shop assistant, who pointed me in the right direction for Velo Altitude, the bike-shop which was only on the other side of the roundabout.
At Velo Altitude, I wheeled the bike into the shop and showed the assistant at the counter, the oil leakage at the caliper, and that I would have to buy a new caliper complete with brake-lever and cables. The short of it though, was, instead of just buying the aforementioned bits, the shop assistant came back out front from the backroom with a box which contained a complete unit including the disc; and despite my protestation and attempts at reason that, I didn't need the disc, he said he couldn't (I think he really meant wouldn't) sell the caliper singly without the disc. Thereby, I came away having spent a hundred Euros instead of seventy. But at lease I've got myself a quality Avid mechanical caliper notwithstanding the extra hardware I'll be carrying hereafter. I cycled back in to town, to the campsite and fitted the new brake. I've now got a front-brake which works as well as can be expected: braking, with an instant response, and safely with no sudden locking up of the wheel.
The campsite costs me six Euros which isn't so cheap, as I've to pay to use wifi, or to charge up batteries. I don't have the right power-adaptor though, as I bough my computer in Chile where three pin sockets are used. The campsite doesn't have a spare adaptor and the nearest electrical store is I'm told five kilometre out of town, which is perhaps another half day..........so now my batteries are dead and I haven't used wifi in awhile.
I've already had a large coffee, a bottle of soda water and now I'm ordering a cold beer, and there won't be much change out of five Euros when the bill comes. Later, the beer gives me that happy buzz which makes me see everything in a positive light. A half litre is enough though.
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