Tour de Paris

Trying to find the combination of a Saturday morning, a reasonably close bicycle ride shorter than 50 miles, and a location of interest has been an ongoing challenge since picking up the cycling bug a few years ago.  We discovered the Tour d’Italia in scenic Italy, TX, last year and really enjoyed it.  However, this year’s run conflicted with our half marathon run in Ithaca, NY (linked here).  The organizers of the Italy ride do two others each year as a part of the European Tour of Texas, with a ride in Paris (Tour de Paris), the Tour de Norway (in Clifton), and the Tour d’Italia.  If we can’t get them all in one year, guess we’ll make a stab at getting all three over three years …

Saturday 2016 07 16

An early morning bike ride in a small town two hours away is a difficult commitment to keep after a late evening (which followed a long afternoon) involving excessive amounts of alcohol.  Unexpected free time is sometimes a negative item.

After eventually convincing ourselves it was time to leave, we raced up various Texas highways at well over the posted speed limit in an attempt to minimize our lateness.  Stopping for anti-hangover Chick Fil A probably didn’t expedite the drive.  After driving through towns like Desert, Ebhowe, and Honey Grove, we arrived late (but only about 10 minutes or so), hungover, and half-asleep.  Glad to see we weren’t alone in the late start, but ready to get on the road, we opted to skip the packet pick-up and bib attachment, a decision we would regret later.

We started the race with a quick ride through downtown Paris.  Race volunteers were enthusiastic. They lined the sidewalks of Main Street and provided loud cheers of support, which reverberated through our still hungover brains.  Smiling and waving, (because that felt like the right thing to do) we continued our tour of town and admired the scenery: houses half standing, homemade front porch, an abandoned schoolhouse, and one house burned down completely.

We were lucky.  In contrast to most rural rides in Texas, the highways and byways were paved nicely, which provided adequate support for bodies recovering from alcohol abuse, and rest stops were frequent.  The route was a nice blend of slightly windy roads and low rolling hills, perfect for a recovery ride.  Our late start ensured that we spent a lot of the time looking at roads like this – empty of almost everyone but us:

We saw a lot of this:

And this:

With stops every 5 miles, we stayed well hydrated, and kept our blood sugar from crashing with oranges, bananas, and various chunks of cookies provided by smiling and chatty volunteers.  Keeping a nice, relaxed pace and enjoying a cooling headwind most of the way, we made it back into Paris for the final miles of the ride.

We rode by this old abandoned school house. I imagined ghost children peeking out of classroom windows while we rode by.  Then I realized it’s Saturday and the ghost children won’t return until Monday.

Multi-tasking safety violation: Cycling + photography

Thirty-five miles later, we crossed the finish line and were congratulated by the Paris High School cheerleading squad.

The Faux Pas

We didn’t want to leave without our t-shirt and race packet, so we made a stop at the registration table before we left.  We were greeted by a very strict race volunteer and we explained our late arrival and failure to obtain our tags prior to racing.  It appears we had angered the Queen of all Race Bibs by admitting that we had not worn ours during the race. The angry volunteer stared at us for a minute as if trying to comprehend what had just happened in her town.  “You didn’t wear a bib?” she accused.  Again, we explained.  “Next year, you won’t race.” She seethed through her angry eyes. “We’ve had this happen before, and it’s not okay.”  She stomped to the packet table, retrieved the bags and delivered them to the criminals.  After our scolding we decided it was a good time to leave.

We Are Tourists

Of course, we had to stop at the Eiffel Tower, conveniently located at the finish line:

We stopped for burgers and beer at Jaxx Gourmet Burgers (this link does *not* take you to the site for the restaurant, but it’s interesting .. assuming you read Kanji), a small place on the square in downtown.  We were pleasantly surprised with their wide selection of beer.  The food was edible, but not fantastic.  There was a burger with a bun that resembled a sesame cracker and a hot dog smothered in an unnecessarily large amount of mustard and sauerkraut.  We spent some time crowd watching – mostly cyclists enjoying a post-race meal, but also a crew of local Parisians.  The elderly Quaker lady with the sour face, drinking dark beer and not speaking to her son, made us wonder if they live in the creepy school house.  Or maybe in a hotel on the edge of town.

After we had sufficiently stuffed ourselves with calories, we took a quick tour around Paris.  A typical east Texas sleepy town:

We enjoyed the quiet small town atmosphere while trying to ignore the fact that it was 102 degrees and sticky outside.  We admired some more dilapidated structures before retreating to our air-conditioning on wheels.

For a minute, we wondered if we were in Paris or Pars …

Our last stop was the Paris Bakery Cafe, which served coffee and shortbread cookies for additional hangover/exhaustion relief.

We left Paris with full stomachs and sore legs and sadly traveled back to the land of urban congestion, otherwise known as DFW.