Le Blog :: A Visit With Some Great Americans

My father was a Glider Guider in World War II...and also somewhat of a raconteur, a most enthusiastic story teller. While this trait of his basically drove my mother crazy and delayed our departure from any event or gathering where there was the possibility of a willing audience (two ears would do), he did in fact have some pretty good stories to tell.

His stories generally focused on sports, with basketball, track and field and golf being his favorites, but there were times when he would drift back to WWII and recount the glory days he spent in France. You have to understand that flying a unpowered aircraft full of combat troops over enemy lines and then fighting your way back to safety was one of the craziest and most dangerous  jobs you could have in a crazy and dangerous war, but I can’t remember him really ever talking about missions and combat...nor were there ever any tales of debauchery on leave. He had an appreciation for little slices of life, normality managing to coexist with the insanity of war.

The story I heard the most concerned a bike road he took from his unit’s station near the French village of Chateaudun. He and a  few comrades had requisitioned some bikes and were leisurely riding along a country toward the centre ville when a young French woman road around them on a bike loaded with fresh baguettes and a baby on board. With a cheery “bonjour” she pulled away from the soldiers and headed down the road to continue her errands.

After a few moments, they decided that this innocent pass constituted an affront to their all-conquering American manly manhood and they resolved to set affairs straight by catching up to her and regaining the lead. And good luck with that.

As his crew transitioned from leisure spinning to ad hoc teammates, the gap only continued to grow. Here a young lass carrying out her normal day-to-day affairs, completely oblivious to the fact that there were virile young men chasing her, and dropping them like Ricco dropped the climbers yesterday. Dad always got a kick out of that, the simple fact that the French girl was so strong from her daily routine that she could beat them without ever knowing that she was racing.

This little vignette came to mind in the middle of a visit to the Memorial in Caen, France, the first major population center inland from the beaches stormed by the Allied Forces on D-Day. The simply named Memorial is a museum dedicated to the D-Day invasion but includes a comprehensive recounting of the events leading up to the war as well as the aftermath which led to the partitioning of Berlin. At the time of our visit, the Memorial was also mounting a major exhibit related to the 9/11 events in New York City and Washington, D.C.

So, as I was walking through the WWII exhibits, I came across a bicycle leaning up against a graffitied wall. While virtually everything in the museum was meticulously curated and documented through signage in three languages, this bike seem to exist for no particular reason, but to me it resonated. That, I thought to myself, is the very type of bike the French girl would have been riding in my father’s oft-told tale. I unholstered my camera and captured an image of the classic French cycle with flat font tire, then decided to widen the frame to include the dominant graffiti above it.

“Don’t the French hate Americans?” That’s a question I often hear when I tell someone that I headed to France for the Tour. Well, there may be certain waiters in Paris who are less than enamored of crude, loud American tourists, but in Normandy, where the liberation forces landed and turned  the tide of the war, there is respect and reverence for the Americans as well as the British and Canadian forces who joined them in the D-Day landing.

The Memorial, the 9/11 exhibit and the unending stream of monuments along the coast from Utah and Omaha Beach, where the Americans made their landings, and through Arromanches, Gold Beach, Juno Beach and Sword Beach, where the Brits and Canadians fought their way onshore, give testament to the fact that these French people will always love the Great Americans who gave their lives to liberate France. For someone who generally thinks war is a foolish endeavor, I had to admit that sometimes there are good reasons for fighting -- and winning -- wars.

The day following our visit to Caen and Omaha Beach, I was reviewing my photos with my host Philippe, when we came across the two images of the bicycle in the museum. Philippe hadn’t noticed the bike as he made his way through the exhibits, but immediately asked if I understood the meaning of the graffiti above the bicycle “Laval au Poteau.”

When I admitted I didn’t, he explained that Laval was one of the heads of the Provisional Government the French set up in Vichy in the Allier region. While this government did manage to convince the Germans to spare much of the south of France from destruction, it was generally seen as an invention of collaborators who expected to wind up running France under a victorious Nazi regime.

The other words, ”au poteau” indicated a fence post, in this case a post in front of which the graffiti writer wanted the collaborator Laval to face a firing squad to be put to death.

As it happen, Vichy is where I came when I visited France for the first time as a high school student back in 1968 and it is where I now find myself. After a last ride in the beautiful Risle Valley on Saturday morning, we drove several hundred kilometers, first south past Paris and then turning slightly east into the Massif Central to reach this lovely home of healing thermal waters and turncoat politicians.

And I’ve got to tell you, this is one great town, no matter its checkered history. Since my month here forty years ago, Vichy has made substantial investment in sports infrastructure. The Allier River has been widened here and is called Lake Allier. Along its banks there is an Omnisports Complex, a Hippodrome, a golf course, many tennis courts, swimming pools and even a large complex where an international competition in the game of petanque has been going on for the last several days.

More to the point, the Allier region is a great place to ride a bike. Vichy is basically the entry point to the Bourbonnaise Mountains, which happen to be just perfect as a step up  from the gentle hills of Normandy to the bigger climbs of the Alpes. My first ride here came yesterday and was a fun 35-miler through the village of Arronnes, then up a nice 4 or 5 mile gradual climb, just right for high cadence spinning, before a return on a high bluff with plenty of slight ups and downs and winding up with a superfun descent back into Vichy.

As I approached the longish climb, I stopped for a map check and nature break and another rider zipped by, Just as my father must have done, I assessed the situation, kicked it into gear and it was game on. At first I thought I had no chance, but nearing the top of the climb, I finally locked onto the wheel. Unsure of the etiquette, I sat there until my quarry unexpectedly unclipped from his pedal and nearly fell. As I went past, he laughed and said “ce n’est mon velo” (“it’s not my bike”). We finished the climb together and then parted ways as he headed to le Mayet and I made my return to Vichy.

Dad, I caught one for you.

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