When my good friend (and former boss) died a couple of years ago, a rather large chapter in my life ended as well. I started working for him in the early 1990s as a cycling tour guide in Europe and continued leading tours, of and on, up until he passed away. Just about any client and certainly, all the guides knew that his passing would indicate the end of the company.

Sure enough, the bikes are now all gone, the office in Paris has become a tea shop, I believe, and what used to occupy a good portion of my summers for nearly three decades is no more.

But. I am not left empty-handed. I owe my family to the company as my wife and I met indirectly as a result of my very first trip. I have a decent knowledge of Western Europe and France in particular, my French language skills, although a bit rusty, did not go dormant, and every bottle of wine I open, I can trace back directly to all those nights seated around a dinner table, after a healthy day’s riding through the European countryside.

I do not know how many times I have had to explain the origin of the name of this blog, but it has to be in the triple digits at this point. Lately, I have been changing the story up a bit, just to keep it interesting (for me, getting asked the same question that many times is at best tedious; I guess I know how Monica Lewinsky feels). The truth of the matter is while I do not endorse drinking and riding, I did quite a bit of riding in the daytime and then drinking at dinner. Want a great cure for a hangover? Realize that you have a not optional 60-mile bike ride, including a pretty substantial mountain pass ahead of you.

When I first started leading European bike tours, way back when, one of the first trips I led was called “Ile-de-France” which is basically Paris and the area around the capital. There are twelve distinct administrative regions in mainland France (and another six past its shores), which should not be confused with the French départments, of which there are 96 in mainland France. Ile-de-France is the smallest geographically of those twelve, but it is by far the largest in terms of population.

Yeah, confusing.

The Ile-de-France trip was the shortest (both in the number of days and the kilometers covered) offered by the company, which meant that many clients would add on the trip either right before or immediately after another option, all of which were a full week-long (more or less).

The itinerary was rather straightforward. Day One: ride west out of Paris along the Seine River to the outskirts of the city, then take a more southwesterly tack through the Rambouillet forest to its eponymous town, where we spent the first night. Day Two: a trek across the Beauce, the “wheat basket of France” to Chartres (which is technically not in the Ile-de-France region), home to perhaps the most famous and studied cathedral in all of Christendom.

The highlight of the trip was decidedly Chartres, which I first visited as a college student, however, many years ago, and, well, I was not all that impressed. It was old, dirty, dusty, in disrepair, and most disturbingly, disjointed with mismatched spires (yes, I have more than a touch of anal-retentiveness-disorder [yes, I am calling it a disorder] and the fact the spires did not match was a big problem for me. Add the fact that I did not grow up even remotely religious (agnostic at best) and I viewed all the grand cathedrals of Europe as attempts by the Church to either awe or scare the populace into adherence.

It is difficult to capture the sense of awe triggered by Chartres.

The lowlight had to be the fact that Ile-de-France is not a wine-growing region. Sure, it was still France and wine was everywhere (particularly at dinner), but there is something about riding through vineyards that makes just about everyone happier.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

Although the trip did not technically begin until the following morning, as I typically did the night before I left on a trip, I had dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Paris. No, it is not any of the restaurants that anyone has ever heard of in Paris. It’s called “Au Clair de Lune” a small couscouserie (couscous came to France via Algeria, I think and has become, essentially, French ethnic food) that had four things going for it:

1. It was close to the office
2. The food was good (if not better)
3. All of the staff knew me
4. It was cheap (relatively–after all, this is Paris)

As I always did, I invited the eight people on the trip to join me for dinner the night before our morning departure from the office in the heart of Paris’2nd Arrondissement. The good news was that they all showed up. The bad news was that I realized that it was going to be a loooong four days.

More to come…

Do you want to travel by bike with me in Europe, tasting great wine, eating fantastic food, and having just a boatload of fun? Send me an email as I am organizing trips for next Spring (jeff (at) thedrunkencyclist (dot) com). I would love to hear from you!