French Revolutions

first floor are horrible, but I found the
exception, run by a motherly type who scored big points by helping me stow ZR
under her stairs, then lost them again by the multi-sensory appraisal of my presentability
whose conclusion was that I should give her my details after I’d showered. Le
Blanc had been une ville d’étape three years previously, she said, and as the
Tour wasn’t stopping here this time no one was getting very excited. For a
reasonable-sized place such as le Blanc, a town whose many road connections
regularly channelled the race through it, I supposed the Tour was as much a
curse as it was a blessing for the smaller villages. There was the wearisome
civic obligation to string up the bunting and deadhead the hanging baskets, and
all for two minutes of Lycra whoosh.
    A quick pre-shower biological
inventory was generally reassuring. The hamstring twinge was much better once
I’d Boardmaned my leg up on the cistern, and I was particularly pleased with my
Savlon-slathered perineum, which, assuming — oooh! — that was it, emitted only
the dull bruised sensation one might expect to feel a week after falling
awkwardly at a tap factory. On the other hand, the front seam of those
skin-clamping shorts left a terrible scar down each leg, as if I’d recently
endured a pioneering double thigh transplant, and there was an itchy fungal
patch on my right love handle. No one had warned me that all that cycling would
put hairs on your stomach — one could only hope the back wasn’t next — and the
idiotic cyclists’ tan, which I’d been secretly cultivating as a sort of
initiation ritual, had come up bright pink instead of berry brown. If Barbie
had given me a lift in her Jeep I’d have looked like a headless torso.
    Still, strolling about the
sun-burnished buildings in slightly dank espadrilles, I grandiosely reflected
that these things happened to us giants of the road. As a road warrior, you’ve
got to expect a few war wounds. Kids were buzzing round the square on their
mopeds, and I smiled leniently at their doomed efforts to imbue these foolish
machines with streetwise rawness by sticking their feet up on the frame and
gunning the hedge-trimmer throttle. Where were all the cyclists? It was
certainly easier to imagine the Tour streaking across the mighty River Creuse
to le Blanc’s witch-hat-towered chateau than fumbling around Loudun’s
light-industrial hinterland, but neither scenario seemed particularly
convincing.
    I found a pizza restaurant, where,
sitting alone in the tiny covered courtyard, I spread Michelins across the
wobbly table to savour my achievements. Pedalling across fold after fold of
three maps, I’d covered 234 kilometres (almost 150 miles) in two days, only six
less than I’d been advised to do in three. No matter that this was 20
kilometres less than the longest single day in the Tour itself, and even less
matter that my average speed to date, 21.1 k.p.h., was just under half what
they’d manage. Sipping my rosé, I decided I’d settle for that. After all, I was
clearly far worse than twice as bad as any other sportsmen. Could I complete a
round of golf in 140 strokes? I could not. Four-hundred-metre hurdles in two
minutes? Not without a ladder, and a piggyback. I’d always had a plan to wear
down the world’s tennis greats by perfecting the art of dispatching an unending
series of net-cord services, but that didn’t really count. No, I was good at
this and I was going to get better, I thought, celebrating my future glories by
raising a huge quadrant of pizza Napoletana to my mouth.
    It never made it that far. The smell,
an apocalyptic marine rancidity, ensured I would not be summoning any of my
other senses in dealing with the chef’s creation, save a tiny glance at the
bloated, newt-like anchovies that were unequivocally responsible.
    Being British, I love complaining
about foreign restaurants, but being both a hypocrite and a frightful coward I
always endeavour to do so either to myself, or outside and round the corner.
Looking back, I can see that electing to break this rule in a French pizzeria
was an error, such establishments providing impressive scope for a
counterattack pairing Gallic truculence with Italian unpredictability.
    Stifling a dry retch, I shrouded the
plate with my napkin in a reflex flick. This was all very sad. It was a Tuesday
night, which in this area dictated that all other restaurants I’d passed had
been closed. There were no other dining