Life On Two Wheels

Along the river and toward the mountains a morning shadow shimmers across the road. The rays of the first light jet through the trees and across a figure gliding upon the road. His breath trails in short spurts, petrified as it hits the icy air. All is quiet except the slight sound of the athlete as he summons himself for yet another days work. Soon the rest of the world will bustle with life as well and the brief simplicity of cyclist and nature will disappear into the everyday struggle of life in full motion; the errands and intervals, the appointments and intersections, and the deadlines and finish lines OutPaceTheRace

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Americano!

Girona, ESP
Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Since not much is happening here, except that the condition of my illness seems to be getting worse despite a daily dosage of antibiotics normally prescribed to those who've caught Anthrax. I'd presume that Anthrax antibiotics would be quite potent, but evidently whatever I've got is giving 'em quite a battle.
That's not what I wanted to write about though. I was thinking about America and how much better it is there than it is here. And I got to thinking about this little situation we got ourselves into after the Grimpeurs race near Paris. Evidently someone left a light on or something in the camper, & of course no one had jumper cables... and definitely no one in France has ever jumped a car (especially if they're American) so... we started pushing the camper (quite light indeed) on this little one way road as every team tried to exit on the same road. The idea was that we would pop start it. I don't have much experience here, but I guess the idea is that you get it rolling, and start it in 2nd gear. I guess somehow this generates a spark or something that starts the engine. We tried this multiple times to no avail.
This is where some typical French sentiment was offered. I was pushing the camper with a teammate or two and a handful of very enthusiastic French spectators, when some comment was generated from a group of spectators who were spectating our situation. In reply one of the helping spectators said "Americano!" This cleared up all confusion generated by the situation, and the spectating spectators looked at each other and said awh, Americano!" obviously liberated from the ambiguity of a stalled camper being pushed. It may seem puzzling to you why the French would be so surprised that someone pushes there car, but the answer is simplistic in that the French are in no hurry at all. They'd rather get out of their car and yell at the person they're holding up than consider the notion of perhaps pushing their car. Eventually we got the camper to a downhill section and got a good solid pop and a roar from the diesel below the hood of our high quality fiat motor home. Italiano, eh? Awe, Italiano!