George C.: Work winters, tour summers—enjoy

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George Christensen is a 55+ yr-old Chicagoan who bike messengers during winters and bike tours in the summers, around the world.

He also loves movies and attends some of the major film fests each year.

There was a recent write-up about him in the Reader, Chicago’s alt-tabloid, at this link (photo courtesy Reader):

www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/ourtown/061124/rideglobal/

But he writes a bit, too. You can get on his email list of notions and exploits by writing to: george6567@yahoo.com. Or just keep your eyes peeled here from time to time. I’ll start posting his work.

Here’s his latest, from France. He visits France about Cannes time and stops by Craig’s house—another crazed biker, half-time Chicagoan and in-the-margins lifestylist. This time he dragged Craig out on tour…

***

Friends: Cognac is another of the many French towns

that have gained international reknown thanks to a

drink or food or condiment that originated there,

along with Dijon, Roquefort, Chablis, Champange,

Bordeaux, Beaujolis, Brie, to name a few. This city

of 20,000, about 50 miles northeast of Bordeaux and 25

miles east of the Atlantic, has several dozen

distilleries, many of which give tours and tastings of

the double-distilled, extra-potent wine known as

Cognac, a label that can only apply to the officially

sanctioned distilleries of this region.

Rather than a distillery, we opted for the Cognac

Museum and its sister Art Museum, a two-for-one deal.

The former moved into its new location, a former

chateau, just three years ago. Its first-rate

displays included several videos with English

translation via headphones. The English provide the

biggest market for the drink, and with this a region

that attracts many English tourists, most of the

displays included English translation.

Cognac is aged anywhere from two to fifty years,

losing about 2 percent of its volume to evaporation

each year, “the angel’s share”. One of the more

interesting videos was of the construction of the oak

barrels that the cognac is aged in. Another room was

devoted to the exotic glass bottles it is sold,

contributing to its glamour and prestige. There was a

shelf of books, including The DaVinci Code, that

mentioned cognac with the page marked.

If we had been more conscientious we could have

wild-camped in any of the many vineyards in the area

last night. It would have maintained our theme of

camping among agriculture indigenous to the region.

Maybe tonight, tho vineyards with their low height

don’t provide as much privacy as I prefer. They can

do, however, if they are over a rise and out of range

of anyone out strolling looking down the

well-manicured rows.

Last night’s campsite was on the fringe of a

waist-high field of wheat in rolling terrain framed by

a small forest along a stream, maybe our best yet.

Wheat ranks second to grapes as the most grown product

of this region. The night before we camped in a

forest of chestnut trees, the ground thick with spiney

chestnut carcasses. A walnut orchard along the

Dordogne River was another campsite. We also camped

in a field thick with slugs, something the French

don’t eat despite their kinship to snails, which we

have also encountered on our tents.

We have woken to a handful of slugs clinging to our

rain flies most nights, but that one campsite, on the

fringe of a small garden tucked beside an overgrown

meadow, was an extreme case. Our tents were speckled

with more slugs than a boulangerie has baguettes. It

took no effort, just some time, to flic them off.

Fortunately, they made no noise, at least discernible

to our ears, otherwise we would have had a truly

sleepless night. As it was, there were plenty of

other violations of the silence–the tinkle of bells

around the necks of sheep on a nearby hilside, the

hourly chime of the church clock not far enough away,

the toot of the trains as they entered a tunnel not

far from us, car horns warning their approach to the

one-lane wide underpass just below us beneath the

train tracks, and jets above landing and taking off

from a regional airport.

Still, it was fine camping, and no complaints from

Craig, who hasn’t been in a tent in years. He’s

proving a natural to this hobo-style of travel, having

no qualms about bathing and washing his gear in the

cold Dordogne River and under cemetery spigots, dining

on bread and cheese at roadside picnic tables and

village soccer fields and in his tent at night. His

French fluency has come in handy asking directions and

just being plain friendly with the locals. It is not

unusal for people to express shock that he is

American. He hardly looks it, wearing a wide-brimmed

straw hat astride his bike with a mismatched set of

panniers that he has scavenged here and there.

Having spent six months a year in France since

buying his house in the Cevannes 12 years ago, he is

well inculcated in the culture. He finds things in

the grocery stores that I am blind to–bags of

bargain-priced croissants, hunks of cheese at

spectacularly low prices, figs and assorted fruits.

I didn’t need to indulge in quiche, one of my

staples, the first couple of days, as he thought to

bring along a dozen hard-boiled eggs. He nearly

brought them fresh from his local Saturday farmer’s

market the day we left, but Onni warned him that fresh

eggs don’t peel very well, so he purchased the eggs at

the supermarket, and those did peel with ease.

The cycling world’s attention will be focused on

Cognac in a month-and-a-half, when it hosts stage 18

of The Tour on Saturday, July 28, the final time trial

of the race. The town does not yet have banners and

posters up promoting the vent, though the gardens

outside the town hall has a flower display with a

bicuyle and another of a map of France with the Tour

route marketed by flowers. It will be a 55.5 km route

to Angouleme, due east of here, where I intend to be

at the finish line cheering for Levi Leiphi,er, this

year’s American hope, trying to make it 9 years

straight for an American.

Later, George



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