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.

Last week, I left you as we were at dinner at my favorite pre-trip restaurant in Paris, Au Claire de Lune, a couscous restaurant in the 2nd Arrondissement.

Au Clair de Lune in the 2nd. Get the brochette. So good.

There was nothing about the group in particular that set off any warning bells, but even though it was one of my first trips ever, I could tell that there was a certain vibe, a je ne sais quoi that made me think I was in for a bit of an “adventure.”

The entire night at the couscouserie we ordered one carafe of wine, and I drank it all.

There were eight people on the trip.

And they were all lawyers.

More precisely, they were all recent law school graduates, which meant that they all thought they knew everything and, since they had not yet technically started their lucrative positions, they were all cheap as hell.

I spent that first dinner trying to impress upon the crew that even though the trip was short, there were multiple highlights. The first was Versailles, the last being Chartres (truth be told, those were the only highlights, but, well, I needed to lie in order to stir up some interest).

But they heard nothing.

They were lawyers. And trust me, they “knew” everything, and they exhibited that tidbit freely and frequently.

The following morning, we got off to a fairly good start, with the last rider out shortly after ten. It was a mere 20 essentially flat kilometers (~13 miles) to Versailles, the only real stop along the way to Rambouillet. An easy start to the day, for sure.

But.

If you want to visit Versailles, you need to plan two hours, at the very least, for a visit, then there would be lunch, an argument or seven (remember, they were lawyers), and the desire for an early afternoon nap.

None of that would be a problem except that there was another forty kilometers (25 miles) after Versailles to Rambouillet and they are decidedly not flat (no, we were not suddenly in the Alps, but any hill on the first day of a trip always felt like the Galibier).

I have climbed the Glibber once. That was enough (Photo: wikipedia). The road to Rambouillet was not this.

You know where this is going.

Even though I was technically a bicycle tour guide, I loathed riding with the clients. It was not due to the fact that they were a montage of overly litigious twenty-somethings, or the fact that they pedaled along at a pace that made me wonder how they actually stayed upright.

No, the reason that I hated riding along with the group? I have a horrible sense of direction. Really. Yes, I know that I was literally a tour guide but at any given moment I had absolutely no idea which direction to go. None. At. All. In fact, if the first part of the trip had not been as simple as it was (“stay on the right bank of the Seine–the one opposite the Eiffel Tower” all the way out of town”), we would never have been able to leave the City of Light, and we would have needed a hotel for the night.

Leaving Paris along the Seine, past the Eiffel Tower and the mini-Statue of Liberty.

As we left the city and navigation became more difficult (although only slightly; nearly every sign included an arrow pointing toward Versailles), I made up some BS about stopping by my favorite bike shop and picking up some innertubes or a new frame or something.

Yeah. I lied.

I was going to go buy a L’Équipe (the daily French newspaper about sports), find a café, have lunch, and catch up on the Tour de France.

Perfect.

The only problem was that I could not leave Versailles until after the last client was on the road. The company I worked for was too cheap to pay for a van to follow the group, so I was supposed to be the last one on the road. The idea was that if someone had an issue with their bike, I would eventually come along and ameliorate the situation.

Since I had no desire to visit the château (I had been many times already and it is completely packed with tourists with no clue when it comes to French history; plus, the cost to attend would come out of my own pocket–I mentioned the company was cheap, right?), I told those that were planning on visiting Versailles precisely where I would be and that they needed to just swing by and check in with me as they left.

If you have never been to Versailles, it is, um, big. (Photo: wikimedia)

No problem.

What could possibly go wrong?

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!