French Revolutions

Nose halted the entire
peloton for a photo opportunity with the yellow jersey. For days I’d been
wondering what kind of a show this ultimately French village would be putting
on for this ultimately French event, but the next time I squinted through the
gloom at my map and itinerary was at Bar-sur-Aube. I’d passed through Colombey
15 kilometres back and hadn’t even noticed.
    If it hadn’t been a week away from
the year’s longest day, it would have been pitch black long before I rolled
past a sign welcoming me to Troyes, city of art, history and gastronomy. As it
was, the full, dark weight of night only dropped around me as I dumbly
uncleated outside a McDonald’s — gastronomy be damned: if anyone had ever
needed food fast, it was me, then. It was 10.17 p.m.: I had been cycling for
over eleven hours, twice what it would take the pros. The stage was supposed to
be 254.5 kilometres but looking at my computer under a streetlight I registered
that somewhere along the way I’d picked up another 3.2k. All I’d noticed during
the last 50 kilometres had been a lot of long names — Montier-en-l’Isle, la
Villeneuve-au-Chene, Saint-Parres-aux-Tertres — and a horrid smell of
Poupou-sur-les-Fields. I had travelled through five French departments and
across huge swathes of two Michelin maps. Not bad for an old man.
    Feeling almost totally disembodied I
clicked spasmodically across the tiles like Mrs Overall, the food chain’s
heavily oiled final links piled up on my tray. It was Tuesday and the only
other clients were students, who accepted my appearance with a nonchalance that
cheered and depressed in equal measure. Having filled my face in the most
literal fashion I remounted with predictable difficulty and set off for the
finest hotel Troyes had to offer.
    It didn’t take long to find, snug up
against the cathedral in a theatrically spotlit alley. But then it took even
less time for the very kind and very young night receptionist to send me back
into the night with some desperately awful tidings. A conference was in town.
No room at the inn, nor at the three others she telephoned on my behalf. ‘Try
ze steshun,’ she said, handing me a map of Troyes as I tried to get my face to
do something grateful.
    The station was not nearby, and as
suspected its semiindustrial ambience made it the natural home of the city’s
tawdriest overnight accommodations. A couple of them had ‘complet’ signs
outside the reception window, but one didn’t, partly because the reception
window was on the first floor. This probably needn’t have required me to wheel
ZR right through the busy ground-floor restaurant and over the feet of a dozen
diners, but I could feel coursing through my veins a sort of drunken
recklessness, an ugly, animal determination. Man need bed. Give man bed. I
shouldered my bike up the stairs, panniers and all, to be greeted by a tall,
skeletal crow of a woman grimly shaking her head and one hand.
    Still not quite understanding how
this was happening to me, or why it had to happen to me now, I found a phone
box and rang Birna. The blathering torrent of self-pity was by this stage a
staple of our telephonic encounters, and she listened patiently as, dispensing
with respiration or punctuation, I stated that I was in a town with no hotels,
that she had the hotel book, and that having cycled 94,000 miles I had
forgotten how to speak French. ‘You want me to find a room for you, then call
you back,’ she précised slowly, and with the now traditional lack of grace I
agreed.
    Five minutes later the phone box
rang. ‘I’ve found you the last room in Troyes,’ said Birna. I made a little
noise like a puppy being reunited with its mother. ‘But there is one problem.’
And then having its tail stamped on. ‘It’s not actually in Troyes.’
    The lady Birna had spoken to at the
Holiday Inn Forêt d’Orient said her establishment lay 13 kilometres from Troyes. In theory this information should have led me to explore further avenues. It was a
warm night; I could have dossed down in a park. I kept feeling that in my
condition I shouldn’t have cared where I slept. But I did. I cared
passionately. I had done something exceptional and I wanted a reward. ‘Tell
them I’ll be there in half an hour,’ I muttered, and having scribbled down
directions off I went into the night.
    Thirteen was a lot of kilometres,
particularly because — and you’re going to love this — they involved retracing
my journey right