French Revolutions

the road from Denain, where a steelworks
was threatened with closure. Consequences: riders halted by barricades; stage
cancelled for first time in Tour history; mayor jumps into blast furnace.
    My Dr-Livingstone-I-presume
appointment with the Tour route came at Saint-Flovier, announcing itself with a
virgin stretch of shiny black tarmac and freshly painted kerbs. I had the idea
that I’d be able to follow this all the way to Paris like some yellow brick
road, but ten yards out of the village it abruptly gave way to a signless
crossroads which dispatched three wobbly lines of pot-holed gravel over the
rolling hills. As I had by now wandered off the edge of Michelin map 232, with
a good fifty blind kilometres before I got back on to 233 (I thought I’d
forgotten the relevant 238, but it turned up two weeks later in the middle of a procycling), there was no choice but to turn back and — as a man, I
utter these words in a tone normally reserved for descriptions of domestic pest
infestation — ask for directions.
    ‘Oh, oh, monsieur, je suis malade!’
    The Babar headscarf was a clue, as
was the exuberant application of rouge that was more bleu, but I had failed to
detect either indicator of madness in deciding the substantial old dear waving
from her balcony might be offering to point a lost soul towards Obterre. It was
3 p.m.; her theatrical wails ricocheted off the shutters down an empty street.
    ‘Oh, monsieur! Ma poubelle!’
    I’d dismounted at her initial
exhortation, but now looked up at her gesticulations with a sense of
foreboding. ‘Poubelle’, as my schoolboy French remembered it, was dustbin, but
used in the context of disease suggested a euphemism whose full horror would
only be revealed when she flung her heavily stained floral skirt up over her
head.
    Further extravagant sounds and
signals presently made it clear she was in fact referring to her wheelie bin,
but relief lasted only until I understood she wished me to carry this
considerable and unsavoury object up the rickety fire escape that connected her
balcony to the street. That her physical condition made her ill-suited to this
task was beyond question, but as I tilted the bin backwards and prepared to
shoulder it, I was abruptly struck in the temple by the carbon-fibre fist of
hard reason. What possible purpose could this whole scheme serve, other than
the satisfaction of a senile whim? I released my burden, stepped back into the
street and fixed her with a businesslike look.
    ‘Obterre?’
    ‘Mais... ma poubelle! Je suis malade!’
    Following some idiotie horsetrading,
during which I had frequent recourse to sotto voce asides of the ‘blubbery old
loon’ variety, a bin-relocation/directions exchange was eventually brokered.
Fifteen minutes later, leaving a vapour trail of kitchen smells, I hammered
into Obterre.
    One of the nice things about the Tour
de France is the way it seeks out obscure roads and villages, giving everyone
and everywhere the hope that their fifteen seconds of international fame will
come. For places like Obterre, a fairly hopeless settlement where the only
visible signs of entertainment were bullet holes in the road signs, the Tour
offers a rare excuse for a long-overdue civic makeover. Two topless gardeners
were stocking an enormous embankment with busy lizzies; when I asked if they
were doing it for the Tour (OK, the tower), the one with the hairiest back sent
me on my way with sarcastic snorts and a heavy-handed ‘Non. C’est pour ma
mère.’ There were new zebra crossings, and the fresh pavement asphalt was an
eye-watering red. Only the dogs hadn’t cottoned on. I was beginning to despise
rural canines for their persistently unsettling habit of bounding up to the
borders of their property as I passed and discharging a furious volley of
barks. Three of them ambushed me as I left Obterre, and wearily climbing back
into the skin I’d just jumped out of I thought: Come 7 July and you’ll have
something to fucking bark about.
    Rain threatened but never came, and
with the odometer reading 129.3 kilometres I freewheeled down a considerable
hill into le Blanc. Two laps of a great, long square bathed in late-afternoon
sun, all shutters and mustard stonework, and I brought up the 130. I had kept
my word to Jean de Florette, and discounting a slight hamstring twinge I felt
good. The most I had ever cycled in a day and I almost wanted to keep going.
    It’s a general rule that hotels with
their reception desk on the