Wing Cmndr. Knight and his home made contraption (the building behind him)
The French trains on a Sunday conspired to mess with our military-precision meeting at the foot of Sacre Couer Basilica on top of Montmatre so it was down to Edwin Knight and Cally to lead the charge out of Paris via St. Denis and, er, more St. Denis. Me (Cally) I was reminded of France’s colourful North African Colonial history as we ploughed through housing estates, always cheered on by colourful Magrebians.. Paris still smells of Paris. The enormous heat bounced back at us off the pavements and shockingly bad road surfaces, all deliciously laced with odour de drain, two-stroke and that piquant sting of urine, it was good to be back.
Soon we were out in the suburbs, taking lives in hand as we headed for Chambly up the old N1. The French drivers give you lots of room. I suspect that they are all lapsed or practicing cyclists, the way they indicate move far away from you. The blare of a horn and shout of a window is a tad off-putting: I’m sure we’ll get used to it.
Edwin and I sped down rolling open roads flanked on all sides by the Poplar, both Balsam and Lombardy. The Lombardy avenues were the sort my father pulled up on, on long trips to Switzerland for the much welcomed lunch stop. 3 brothers would fall out of the Ford Consul de-luxe (deluxe? Ha ha) and dad would light a fire the proper way and whittled sticks for sausages (no forks in our family) before struggling manfully with the primus for kettle-boiling before we set on our way again. The Balsam’s fragrance reminded me of lengthy Canadian trips in the Rockies where Dad would pull over the 1958 Plymouth, light a fire… oh never mind, needless to say, we ate a lot of sausages in those days.
12 of us have managed to convene in Beauvais, a town dwarfed by a bunker-like Cathedral Albert Speer would have deemed ‘ a bit over ze top’ after a half-hour hiatus in Chambly where the rain arrived on cue.. it poured and poured and… went away again just as we decided on a small re-group.
All bikes and riders behaving themselves with gusto.