PBP 2019: to Paris and getting ready
Aug. 16th, 2019 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bikingandbakingOH LOOK I'M POSTING. Hurrah!
I'm writing this from the Mercure hotel in Saint Quentin en Yvelines, where I'm chilling and waiting nervously for PBP to start. We got in on Tuesday morning, after a fairly uneventful flight -- the bike had a TSA note, but unlike many friends' bike cases, they seem to have left everything alone in there after taking a peek. My main suitcase was a little more shaken up; they didn't like the mochi and kẹo mè xửng huế (Vietnamese soft sesame candy) lurking in the bottom.
Amusingly, the Carrefour near the hotel had both mochi (although green tea flavor, not red bean) and the candy in their international aisle, but I didn't want to count on it. (We'd gone over to the international section mostly to see what the "tex-mex" section contained for giggles.) But that's later in this travellogue...
Saw my first fellow randos at the car rental -- one guy in a Randonneurs Brazil jersey, and a group of four guys with bike boxes, but I was exhausted and didn't go say hi. We got a small five-door car just big enough for the bike box, and went to the hotel for quick naps. My bike was the first into the bike area in the garage! After napping I reassembled the bike, while chatting with a tandem team from Florida who'd arrived an hour or so after we had. (We ended up eating dinner with them as well, when we all had headed out to find what was open before 7pm in SQY and had discovered the same two options.)
Then we did two days sightseeing in Paris; on the second one I spotted at least two, maybe three fellow riders -- a pair of guys, one in a SF Randonneurs jersey, locking up at a cafe, and a guy on a very West Coast Rando Bike (boxy front bag, looong fenders and flaps, etc) in a jersey the color of Seattle Randonneurs (but I couldn't read it) aptly navigating the traffic-circle-of-hell around the Arc de Triomphe. Now we're hanging out in the hotel with a day to kill; we'd sort of planned to go into Paris today too, but neither of us want to walk around a lot, and Versailles tickets were sold out.
We bought snacks and beer at the Carrefour; right now our Paris souvenirs are a sweatshirt (D was cold in Paris yesterday) and two reusable shopping bags. :) Bike check tomorrow; am probably going for a short shakedown ride this afternoon. Possibly we may drive down to the start and check it out even though we'll be there tomorrow, too.
I am vacillating between nervous and excited to get rolling.
I'm writing this from the Mercure hotel in Saint Quentin en Yvelines, where I'm chilling and waiting nervously for PBP to start. We got in on Tuesday morning, after a fairly uneventful flight -- the bike had a TSA note, but unlike many friends' bike cases, they seem to have left everything alone in there after taking a peek. My main suitcase was a little more shaken up; they didn't like the mochi and kẹo mè xửng huế (Vietnamese soft sesame candy) lurking in the bottom.
Amusingly, the Carrefour near the hotel had both mochi (although green tea flavor, not red bean) and the candy in their international aisle, but I didn't want to count on it. (We'd gone over to the international section mostly to see what the "tex-mex" section contained for giggles.) But that's later in this travellogue...
Saw my first fellow randos at the car rental -- one guy in a Randonneurs Brazil jersey, and a group of four guys with bike boxes, but I was exhausted and didn't go say hi. We got a small five-door car just big enough for the bike box, and went to the hotel for quick naps. My bike was the first into the bike area in the garage! After napping I reassembled the bike, while chatting with a tandem team from Florida who'd arrived an hour or so after we had. (We ended up eating dinner with them as well, when we all had headed out to find what was open before 7pm in SQY and had discovered the same two options.)
Then we did two days sightseeing in Paris; on the second one I spotted at least two, maybe three fellow riders -- a pair of guys, one in a SF Randonneurs jersey, locking up at a cafe, and a guy on a very West Coast Rando Bike (boxy front bag, looong fenders and flaps, etc) in a jersey the color of Seattle Randonneurs (but I couldn't read it) aptly navigating the traffic-circle-of-hell around the Arc de Triomphe. Now we're hanging out in the hotel with a day to kill; we'd sort of planned to go into Paris today too, but neither of us want to walk around a lot, and Versailles tickets were sold out.
We bought snacks and beer at the Carrefour; right now our Paris souvenirs are a sweatshirt (D was cold in Paris yesterday) and two reusable shopping bags. :) Bike check tomorrow; am probably going for a short shakedown ride this afternoon. Possibly we may drive down to the start and check it out even though we'll be there tomorrow, too.
I am vacillating between nervous and excited to get rolling.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-16 10:30 am (UTC)Do we have an option to watch you bike on the internet?
no subject
Date: 2019-08-17 05:35 am (UTC)I've just forwarded you the email I sent to my folks with the tracking info.