Dreambike -French Bike Tour Dream
I get off the plane in France and load my bike up. I don’t know the language or where I am. Then I see Owen M. getting off and also loading up. He’s Mr. France…a classy bike journalist who in real life I used to be friendly acquaintances with but who for unknown reasons hasn’t replied to any notes or zine issues I’ve sent him over the past 10 years, so that’s peeving. But in the dream it’s nice to see him anyway. He has a traditional touring setup, with lugged-frame bike, khaki shorts, modest, low packs front and rear. He says with a French accent that he can give me assistance “and away we go.” He pushes off into traffic and starts riding like a pro, swift but unhurried, never looking back. I can come along or not. I hang about 50 yards back. I am comfortable with my touring setup as well. I suppose it must be somewhat oldfashioned and ragtag, but I don’t see exactly what I’m riding. After awhile of zigging and zagging in ways where it looks like he knows where he’s going, we suddenly pop into a view of a lovely modern French neighborhood in a valley. Then we swing onto a big empty roadway and start dropping into town. I see we start to join other cyclists. I see riders ahead, lots of them. We all start merging. How neat to come into a culture that respects and loves the bike! Men, women, young, old are all gliding down the big long freeway hill into town, going under overpasses. Owen zips laterally across the road, weaving back and forth, going faster and faster thru the horde of cyclists. I am concerned but keep plunging with him. Then everyone starts braking. We’re nearing the bottom, an intersection. My brakes don’t work too well. I wonder what a crash would look like at this high speed with all these people, hundreds of them. But everyone is relaxed. Just swooping down. Then we’re in town. We stroll thru some kind of rough gambling and restaurants district with a sideshow, carnival atmosphere and meet a couple really ratty bike racers with funny outfits and huge goofy trashed long aero helmets. They’re Americans racing over here, being bums. The one all in red, with red duct tape all over his shorts, just won a race today. It doesn’t seem like they could hardly ride. Owen seems to know them. Then I get a ride with a young expat woman out of town in a car and see amazing, beautifully sun-lit mountains. I can’t tell if they’re near or far, big or small, but I think they’re the Alps. Wow. She drives very fast on bad, snowy roads that have no sign of a road. Twisty, banked corners. I guess that’s how they do it over here. Man, we hardly use our traction in the US, I guess. We get to a bike race scene where my old bike racer girlfriend is hanging out, smoking dope with another burnout bike racer. I didn’t think bike racers did this kind of thing, but when in France…
The End.
