Mon-Tues, Sept 19-20

The route I planned fit neatly into three two-day parts: England, Netherlands+Belgium, and France. Having toured in France years ago, I knew that “department roads” were lower traffic volumes and speeds, but I was nervous about biking thru a less touristy area this time. But the French apparently have invested a ton in bike lanes and signals, and with a few exceptions of fast vans, my bike ride from Lille to Arras on Monday was safe and less taxing.

My sore right achilles was the only thing keeping me from biking further than the 35 miles I biked to Arras, but knowing I had Paris ahead, I played it safe and took the train to Amiens. Again my hotel was across the street from the train station, and again I ate groceries for dinner in my hotel room while getting some work done. I also walked for miles around Amiens and really liked it. Amiens and Antwerp were actually very similar experiences.

And then came Tuesday, the day that I biked the least but easily expended the most stressful energy! I took a morning train to Paris Gare du Nord, where I played a free piano in the station for nearly an hour before heading out onto Paris’s insane streets of cars, delivery trucks, construction, scooters, countless pedestrians, and other obstacles seemingly everywhere. My Achilles heel felt the worst there, so I gingerly and carefully biked first to Notre Dame to see its condition and rest there. I don’t remember such an intense biking experience as biking on Paris’s streets!

The biking got a lot better after that: Paris has wide bike streets and paths along the Seine for miles, so I slowly (Achilles) made my way to Eiffel Tower, then worked my way back to the train station. I was in the city for about two hours total and needed to rest my leg, so I caught the train to Charles de Gaulle airport, took the CDG people mover to my hotel, and prepared myself for the biggest unknown of the trip: how to get my bike back to Chicago.

In the end, it was the worst scenario. I first spent a couple hours trying to find a bike box at CDG, including being refused by Air France because I wasn’t flying them (even though they had boxes!). So in a panic, I took the train to the closest stores I could find, including a Carrefour, where several of their workers who spoke almost no English were extremely kind and helpful. They had no bike boxes (“if you were here 10 minutes earlier…”), but they gave me a large cardboard box (probably from a piece of furniture) and a free roll of plastic wrap they use in their store room. I also bought a couple cheap pillows and some foam floor mats, and dragged all that stuff back to my room at my airport hotel.