October 2009 Archives

Sometimes I even find the decisions I make concerning the way I do things questionable.

So I'm hanging out in Paris. I have friends in Amsterdam. I email them, asking if I can come visit, they say, "Come 'round." Perfect, since Paris is a hub of transportation options to get to somewhere like Amsterdam. The most obvious being by train - or even take a plane.

I take out a map, I go, "Hmm"... a little and say, "Well, I'll ride a bicycle to Amsterdam, instead". Knowing full well that it is now Fall and Fall means it's cold and bicycle rides of such distances mean, for me, Camping Savauge. Camping Sauvage means simply exhausting oneself of functioning whilst riding a bicycle, to retire to finding a quiet, out of the way patch of secluded land to discretely lay a tent down and snore for a while.

You may also call it, being a complete bum.

And - that's what you must look like: a bum. You're on someone's property, having your way with things, just sleeping as if the world doesn't turn when you're nodding off and then, you just get up, whenever you feel like and keeping on going. It sounds inherently dangerous, but, it isn't. There are secrets, I guess to successful Camping Sauvage.  We will not get into that, in this essay.

The day before I'm supposed to leave, I visit the local camping store. Stores. There's many, as is la mode in Paris, where many different boutiques are established under the same name, since storefronts are just designed that way. I go to the pots 'n pans, stove + fuel magasin for some fuel and the books 'n maps magasin for a map of Northern France -

And what catches my eye? But a guide through the route of Paris-Roubaix!

To the uninitiated, Paris-Roubaix is a one-day professional bicycle race, known to be extremely difficult, since the race follows a route that tries, as hard as possible, to use the sketchiest, oldest cobblestone roads that can be found and is also known in the same circles as a complete joke, not even a race! - for the exact same reasons.

The cobblestone sections are now somewhat well maintained, since there's just not that many any more to be used. A much different story, when the race was first ridden, over 110 years ago. What makes this all the more hard is that it's raced on road bikes - $10,000+ carbon fiber super bikes (these days) and not mountain bikes, of any sort, which would make such terrain castrated.

I'm holding the guide in my hand and I decide to buy it. It sounds like a good adventure, since it fills many of the necessary requirements:

    * It's literally, off the beaten path
    * It's not something I need to do
    * I really have no true interest in the subject


The last point needs some explanation.

I like bicycles. Quite a bit. I don't really love bicycle racing. I've done a little bit of it myself, but it's not a passion. I like roads too - but nothing really about cobblestones makes me get up in the morning, to start a new day.

What does spark my interest is having to search for something so benign - a road! A road that may be very old, that's not used very much, that you need a guide, to even find!

The stretches of cobblestones in the Paris-Roubaix race are only dozens of kilometers long, under 50, I'd guess. The entire race is 260 km. What this means, is that what you're looking for, isn't even most of your ride - the cobblestone sections are split up in a few dozen (again, around 30) different sections. It means that there's a lot of things to find and what you find is fairly diminutive.

It comes down to the act of the journey being the most important part, not what's to be found. Like I constantly remind myself, there's nothing I can do, to transport you the places I've seen and more importantly, the feelings I felt, while doing this course - and afterwards, to Amsterdam.

What follows, though, is a small photo essay on what I did find, as well as a few notes of my travels.

My ride for this adventure was going to be my trusty Surly Cross Check, known to me as, Marserena III. What makes this somewhat interesting is that the bike is not set up with multiple gears - I had basically just one. One is fine on a beach cruiser, but for touring, well, I've never done it before. Things get a little problematic when you face something like a hill. But going to Amsterdam, I really wasn't expecting much of that, so - whatever.

When I was planning on writing this all out, I was going to emphasize the components being used, as single speed and fixed geared bicycles are certainly in style. Touring on such a beast, mostly used either on an actual vélodrome, or as city bike seemed to me, as quite the hipster thing to do - we could even coin the term Hipster Touring for such a setup, but we run into one impassible problem:

If you're that much of a hipster to be touring with a single speed/fixed gear bike (fashionable bike, in other words), you wouldn't have the interest in actually pursuing the tour at all, since there's nothing really ironic about spending so much time to get something done. In the end, it's just riding a bike, once again. End of story.

I left Paris on Tuesday, around 9:30...ish. Much later than I wanted to. I asked my ever-generous host, which way out of Paris and she told me to take, N17, which turns into D117, otherwise known as La Route de Flandre.

Basically translated to, "How to get to Belgium"

Since we're on the subject of, "Roads", one must think about the history of this little path, how/when it started and the changes it has gone through, since its inception.

The route, sucked.

Construction all the way to Compiègne - the contemporary start of Paris-Roubaix. Construction was partnered with fairly heavy traffic and modifications needed to my route, since the construction literally closed the road itself and I had to scramble to find alternative ways to get to Compiègne.

This is my guidebook. The sections of the route (red) that are dashed are the parts that are cobblestone. The time it took to finish the ride to Roubaix is quiet extended - as you can see from this page. The race route isn't straight, it turns all over the place. It also doesn't follow the main routes. This page shows just the start of the route - it gets worse, the closer you get to Roubaix. A good part of one day was spent in the same 10 square kilometers.

Hôtel de Ville, Compiègne. This is our starting line.

 

Even though I made it to Compiègne by the first day, and started the Paris-Roubaix route shortly after, I did not hit any pavé the first day.

To give you an idea on the speed I'm moving, I can generally cover 100 - 200km/day. 200km is sincerely pushing it, since there's just so much sunlight, I'm on a bike that only has one gear and I'm packing some serious baggage. As well as the camping gear, clothes, toiletries, camping food/stove, I brought two cameras, many books (mostly French books) and a MacBook Pro.

Bum, indeed.

The route from Paris to Roubaix is over 320km. It took me three days to cover it - once I hit the Belgium border, I kept going.

From Roubaix, Amsterdam is another ~270km. I did this in two more days. This, of course, does not take in the countless times I got lost trying to find these small patches of cobbles.

So, I did about 100 miles/day for 5 consecutive days. If you map this route, you'll find that it's generally a lot less in distance than what I'm saying. Your mapping will not take into consideration the Paris-Roubaix route (twisting) and my wanderings (many).

Secteur pavé #26 de Quiévy à Saint-Python

Sectuer pavé #25

"Pedestrian Path" 

The guide I got was actually about walking the Paris-Roubaix route and doing so, in about nine days. I couldn't imagine something more boring.

Taking a break from riding on Day #2. I was awaiting a pizza being baked in a van in a random parking lot, in a random town, near Secteur #21 in Verchain-Maugré. The pizza was OK and I kept riding, well after midnight - probably until 2:00 am, or so.

This would have been extremely dangerous, but the route followed small, local roads, with little or no traffic. The few larger roads I was forced on all seem to have bike lanes. Appreciated.

Funny things happen on the pavés during the night. This is relatively flat country and these are relatively unused roads. Sometimes, you find a car, parked on it, for what seems, no reason. I got up close to some of these cars, only to find two teenage heads bobbing up from the back seat. Cracked me up.

Horses near Secteur #20 in Quérenaing. Thought I'd try the, "I have some food in my mounth fake-out"

Success!

Secteur pavé #20

Secteur pavé #17 - la trouée d'Arenberg

The nights were very cold.

Secteur pavé #16 - de Wallers à pont Gibus, à Hélesmes

Camped right off of the pavé. Woke up very very cold. Notice the frost on the ground.

Secteur pavé #15: de Hornaing à Wandignies-Hamage

French towns next to nuclear power plants always seem excruciatingly depressing.

Secteur pavé #7

Secteur pavé #4 le carrefour de l'Arbre

Secteur pavé #3 de Gruson

Another short day was drawing to a close. Still, a few hours to the finish and well away from Amsterdam

Secteur pavé #2 de Hem

Secteur pavé #1 Roubaix Espace Charles-Crupelandt

The last piece of pavé is actually in between the two sides of l'avenue Alfred Motte. That big arrow points to the entrance to the velodrome in Roubaix - the current finish of Paris-Roubaix. Being after 21:00, the velodrome was certainly not open, so that was the end of my little trek for Paris-Roubaix.

I still had the problem of getting to Amsterdam. In the next few days. And I mean days: two, at maximum. Pushing ahead.

What Belgium looks like, initially.

Belgium was somewhat of a blur - I didn't take many pictures. It was somewhat forgettable. I sauvaged in a very small patch of wooded land, next to a cow pasture and, as I realized when light hit in the morning, someone's back yard. Whoops. There's not much free land left. Another depressing thought. Whatever really - another notch in the, "countries I've visited" headboard.

Amsterdam was reached around 22:30, on Saturday Night (I initially left on Tuesday, 930am). I stayed only till Monday and then off to the small city of Nijmegen.

You'd think that Amsterdam would be a perfect city to be a flâneur in - and you'd be right, but I never really got myself together to take too many pictures.

Actually, you may just want to give me (Maybe I mean, I may want to give myself) a break: I just spend three days searching for, and photographing, roads. Talk about the ultimate flâneurusation. In Amsterdam, I was more interested in hanging out with my friends and their child, resting and recovering from a marathon ride through some backwater towns and generally, well, eating. More pictures does not necessarily mean better. And, I'll come back.

Autoportrait at the FOAM museum:

Well, the bathroom, anyways. Good exhibits. The joke is that it's a photography museum and I have a photograph in it. Ha ha.

I traveled to Nijmegen after Amsterdam - this time, by train. I'm not comfortable taking trains anywhere yet - they seem like such a weird idea. It's the American upbringing I guess. I went to Nijmegen to meet someone I met in New Zealand in the spring. She had some city bikes and we went for a bike ride through the countryside,

My Friend, and I

My Friend:

Ahoy fellow skippers!


(Seen here on the River Seine)

The Good Ship Marserena III flying the flag of captain death has just come out of cardboard box dry dock on the Île-de-France to set sail this Autumn season in the Olde World. She has been re-rigged from a full ocean-crossing vessel, having sailed both sides of the Pacific and the Eastern Atlantic, to a versatile channel-hopper to deal with the tight inlets and dangerous seas this city of lights has to offer.

The current rigging is very underpowered - as you can see, as the Good Captain's knee is going through the slow but inevitable healing process of being overworked - but he's on the mend and in good humor, helped out with an extra ration of whiskey at night. What's is flying now is a 42 and 38 double up front and a 17/21 dinglecog, paired with a 16/18 DOS ENO. With a little luck and a pair of "Powar Links" a 48 ring can be put up front for greater wind-catching.

To counteract the thieves and traitors of the area, I've re-painted the shiny-black hull with black board paint, which is very dull and perhaps hopefully will start a fake patina of rust, making the vessel look un-seaworthy. The Planet Bike fenders have also been lightly sanded to reduce glare and make it less available when on the horizon of a looking glass. Once the ride is dialed in, superglued ball bearings where ball bearings should be superglued and chain up the seat will be the modifications. Two mini-U's are necessary in such disenchanting waters. A CETMA rock will be here, shortly to extend the bow for extended supplies on extended routes to bring back extended riches.

Marserena III is to set sail on Wednesday to the port of Old Amsterdam - the only addition being two waterbottle cages for fresh water and a back brake (that works). The course takes us through the Paris-Roubaix Pavé before entering Belgium and then Holland.

Give some luck to thee!

Had the wonderful opportunity to tag along my extremely generous host's Sunday bike ride.

I think I asked a few hours into the ride, where it was we were actually going.

"Hey, where are we going?"

Such questions seem like obvious things to ask, but when you don't know an area almost at all and there's no real reason to be going - except to go - out, they're mostly inconsequential.

"We're going to Vaux Le Vicomte."

For the uninitiated, or at least, unversed in French, Vaux Le Vicomte, sounds something like Vooleviszoome, which just proves my point above.

In the end, we came across a huge castle!

Inside, is generally what you'd expect when it comes to castle-things: immaculately reconstructed rooms filled with this or that. Art on the walls, mostly copies of other famous works (the garden on the other side is the real gem of this place).

Of all the artwork, the engravings really got my attention. This one, especially:

This is Jean François Niceron and what's really amazing is that diagram he has - it just looks so contemporary. The above geometric model is some sort of stellated dodecahedron and below that is a figure of a Hypercube, if it could be in 3D space:

Very interesting how it's illustrated by showing a projection of the intricate figures onto a 2D plane. A little research finds that this guy wrote a book on perspective. 

I haven't yet found out what his portrait is doing in Vaux Le Vicomte. It's quite the silly place!

Another closeup of the portrait - I found the technique, especially around the eyes, wonderful:

Another etching:

Again, what's interesting is the out-of-context contemporary feel of this etching - I don't know what it was doing at this place and I don't know why the face has no... face. There was a couple printings of it, some with different faces, some actually mirrored.

My guess is that some of these were test prints, before the actual plate was printed. It might have been that the plate was used as a template (hmm, thus the term), so the engraver could fill in anybody's face into the blank space and save a few weeks of work.

But, to have them just presented like so... - quite amazing.

Final one:

I was just pleased that my (admittantly much looser) technique for this little guy:

Proved to have some echos to this past master's methods.

A good trip to a place I'd never go myself, alone.

Leaving with my London-born companion for the day, stopping for snacks and booze, before the party.

"We should bring some wine. That would be nice."

"That would! Nice thinking!"

We brought six bottles of red wine.

It was going to be a pisser.

I really would be lying to you, if I remembered everything from this evening. My Dixie cup used for holding red wine was forever being re-filled, I hadn't eaten much all day - all week, really and the alcohol took effect very quickly.

I met a lot of wonderful people - strangely, a lot of freelance writers, living in Paris -

but from America. Not very different from me, even. Nice people. One of my favorite things developed in the middle of this party. A marching band!



I remember meeting one of the hostesses of the party - she showed me her room. They had just moved in - thus, the reason for the party.

"Nice View"

We were on the twenty-third floor. This is rare in Paris. We were barely in Paris, but still, this is rare.

"If you need to sleep - you can sleep in my bed! "

"Oh! No, no - I'm sure I'll be well towards going home, before I need to sleep. "

The only thing I was well towards, was getting absolutely loaded. The clock creaked towards the wee hours. The party dwindling to a few hangers-on. A new game was made up! I don't know what the point was - sort of like charades, but not quite. Words in a hat. The hat passed around. Teams... something-something.

I realized I needed to use the bathroom.

I did.

I then remembered the hostesses bed.

Crash.
 
I dreamed I was flying.

It was a wonderful experience. Above everything. Above the world. So at peace.

Then I realized, I wasn't in my own bed. Not that I have a bed to sleep in right now, but this bed - this bed right here, wasn't mine.

But the view - the flying, was real.

I checked the apartment. A dozen people asleep, including my British friend.

For whatever reason, I thought it bright to try to walk home. I looked for some food to eat (I was starved) and a pen - to write a thank you to my hostess. I found neither, so I just decided to go.



Still. Loaded.

I thought I knew the way home. I thought I was North West of where I was staying.

So, I started south. My plain was to find the Seine, and just follow it back, near home,

White Caucasian

 

 

"Taser New 65 Euro"

 

I finally got a little bored of walking and not hitting, you know, "Paris". Something - anything. I advised a local map at a bus stop.

I had been going the completely opposite direction I needed to go.

Drunk.

This was a bad neighborhood. I wasn't even in Paris, anymore.  I walked back, as the sun slowly crept up. Another night, defeated.

 

 

Took the metro - the metro was now actually operating, home and crashed out around 8:00am. Had to get up at 12:00.

Hungover

Road fixed-gears bikes to La Defense via the Champs-Élysées.

Terrifying.

I'm awake, now.

"Helped" my very generous host with a client she works with. He is insane. I am trying to talk to him, but I have to also act as if I'm insane to make this conversation work.

Lots of awkward silence.

I've never seen someone use 6 gigs of Gmail storage, until today. Fascinating. His filing system on his computer is almost as interesting as the entire wall of actual paper filing on the opposite side of the room, from his three computers. All different, all mashed together from broken ones.

Left, after mixing around with 13-year-old parkour kids and back through Champs-Élysées. Still - terrifying.

I am up, again.

Stopped back at home to pick up camera and sketchbooks. Riding to the exact opposite side of town to do a Dr. Sketchy's.

If you told me today, I would be in some sort of 50's rock and roll revival super rummage sale, in Paris, I'd call you a fool. But there I was. What's strange is that Paris was never into Rock and Roll - not until late late into the 60's, so this fascination with greasers, or whatever is strangely weird. Lots of swing kids, etc - that made more sense. Sort of.

Dr. Sketchy's happened in the middle of a giant warehouse that used to hold the local buses. When we started, the entire crowd around us, focused down. It was an incredible spectacle. I'm just drawing!

 

 

 

 

 

It's just a little different in Paris.

It's now, again 3:25am. Wake up call at 8:00am for bike rides through the countryside.

4th Arrondissement, Paris

Moi, J'etais un homme je serais capitaine d'un bateau vert et blanc.

My translation: If I was a man, I'd be a captain of a green and white boat.

Some sort of strange street art, made of fake fur. A few around.

Autoportrait.

"Death Valley"

Pompidou

Barre.

In Paris, 4:00am, not much time to talk.


Took a bicyle ride from the airport (CDG) after an incredibly boring fly over the Atlantic. The airline charged me half the price of my ticket for just taking the bicycle. I am not going back the same way.
 
Home is beautiful. Imagine being in the middle of the 4th arrondissement and having a place to stay there for three months. There's a big blue door that faces the small, medieval rode  that must be open. It leads to a courtyard where people are growing potted plants and the various apartments reach differing heights above you. The door to this apartment is opened with a giant, brass key and only after you move the three+ meter door shutters out of the way.

This night, the first full day in town, I visited  a "rock and roll" club and saw Germaine aka Germainbow of Old Time Relijiun, Josh Taylor's Friends Forever and Rainbow Sugar also known as my former neighbor, play in a band called the Castanets. They were great and the show, amazingly, was free! El Gran Chufle also played and they were amazing surf-rock-dub... stuff. It was really good. Kind of like a loungier Destroy All Astromen!

 

 

 

 

Met a Texan with a giant beard who invited me to a country western sing-along in a crêpe shop. Was promised cheap-to-free booze - they have a special that if you wear a cowboy hat, or cowboy boots, *or* if you're from Texas or Australia, you get a free drink - I am nor have, any of these. Why Australia? I think Nick Cave sometimes pours the drinks.

Things are a bit random... Had dinner with a polish beautiful girl, who plays bike polo on Sundays.


The start of something wonderful.