Bordeaux

Train travel is interesting. I imagine it would be pretty easy to see France by train--if you didn't travel with a bike. Traveling with a bike always brings its own set of challenges. It's almost like I decided to take all of the possible cab fares for my trip and instead grunt through hauling a bike around. Granted, it becomes its own form of entertainment. I would probably have wanted to rent a bike if I hadn't brought one with me. So I get to the train station in Lourdes, and had previously been told there's no reservations for bikes, but there is on the next train. So I show up and see about 10 bikes that are waiting for the same train, maybe 5 in boxes or cases. Luckily this time works out ok, though my bike ended up traveling 1st class. The next train is where things get interesting though. Turns out they don't fool around with trains that end up in Paris. This thing was like 20 cars long, and I was assigned car 1. There's a neat little map on the platform that shows you approximately where the cars will stop so you can be in position; because this is a really long passenger train and you don't want to have to walk the length of it after it arrives. Except that the numbers of the cars changed twice after I first checked the board. But I could tell people were flustered and moving around in response to the announcement in French and decided to go check again for myself. I found a station employee, and it just got changed back to where I was originally. So turns out I positioned myself nearly perfectly, but then thought it might be easier if I let people board first so I had room to manuever without people trying to stow luggage. Unfortunately this lady apparently thanked me, then said a few things about my bike, and proceeded to be the worst bottleneck I've ever seen I don't know what she was doing, but her friend went in and out, and grabbed her bags, and she said something else about my bike, and finally I was worred about making the train at all and decided to enter the next door, thinking maybe the bike stowage would be in the other end of that car anyhow. Well, the train left shortly thereafter, so it probably was a good decision to at least make sure I was on the train. But then I saw no bike storage on either side of the doors, and left my bike in the way in between to go check out the other side. Sure enough, there was a nice bike location on the other side as well as a small 2nd class (most of that car was for 1st class, perhaps she though that bikes didn't belong in 1st class) area for me to sit in. Then I looked back at my bike and the room between the aisles and decided it was not going to happen. So I pulled the rear panniers off, and wheeled the bike through on the rear wheel so as to lift the handlebars above the seats and passengers heads. I strapped in my bike and went back for the other bags. It's just never easy to travel with a bike. It was so close to being very easy to travel that train but etting that lady in front compromised the whole experience. Oh well, I was able to transfer platforms on my transfer without hauling my loaded bike upstairs and at my destination rode out the parking garage to avoid it. I made it to camp, setup the tent, and rode back with 20 minutes to spare to get my spot and watch the finish in Bordeaux. I've already got my bottle of wine to enjoy from the sidelines of the time trial tomorrow, about 1 mile from my campground. It only gets easier from here. I've enjoyed the experiences I've gotten, but at the same time I can appreciate a respite from the constant rush, rush, rush I've gone through to make sure I see a stage where I want to. The train recieved a pounding of rain right before entering the station at Bordeaux-St. Jean, but luckily no more than a sprinkle remained after that. The skies are clear here now, and I may just have to visit the pool at the campground tomorrow. Life is good. How many readers know that's what LG electronics stands for, life is good? I thinks that's a grand brand.