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Where have the water fountains gone?
‘You want to go to Laon? By bicycle? … it is not possible it is 50 km!’
During this journey it has happened to me often to ask street directions, and to receive a not required feasibility judgment, it matters little that you explain that you come from Zambia, that on average you cover 130 km per day, on the face of these people remains an expression sure that you will not make it, accompanied by a sympathetic smile … they are sure it is not possible … like the guy I met this morning in Reims …
The adverse wind has come back together with the cold!
It had accompanied me for the all of Zambia and most of Tanzania, now I find it again here, the only difference is the level of fitness, in a day like yesterday at the beginning I would have covered a much shorter distance, probably the guy from Reims would have been right … even today roller coaster ride less steep, but more frequent … often there is no flat between a downhill and a uphill … I did the all stage wearing the goretex jacket, it was cold until the late afternoon … I drank less than usual …
Today I had much more support than usual, we are in a bicycle friendly area, I found a grass bed where there were two beautiful ones made of steel and hedge, then I found some even here in the square of Saint Quentin, medieval city whose historical centre can be reached after a very steep uphill which sealed the arrival of this tough and demanding stage.
It is ok that the French multi-utilities are among the most gone wild in wanting the privatization of water, but I think I found the last water fountain in 2009 on the Pyrenees, in these 1000 kilometers I did not see any, yesterday I enters in a house where a family meeting was taking place to have my water bottle filled …
When I come to France it takes me a while to remember that, differently with Italy, the posts of highways are blue and those of, mine, national roads, provincial and regional are green … should we not have the same signal system in Europe?
I do not know which results it may have achieved … but the ‘shock’ campaign against road deaths … consisting in putting on dangerous spots of the road a black man shape for each person dead in an accident … it certainly has immediate effects when you pass close to it … yesterday I did a few kilometers on a very trafficked road where there was a sign saying that there are 20.000 cars passing per day, 30 people per year die, there are X accidents and Y injured …
In Zambia too, and in Africa, people die on the road but the main difference is in the first aid, in Europe in a few minutes an ambulance will come to get you, in Africa the minutes may become hours, you may be moved or picked up like a bag of potatoes and carried to a clinic, on a minibus or old Land Cruiser, where there are no medicines, no X-rays, no plasters, … so prudence mainly on two wheels …
One of the races I would like to see in London was the bicycle track, I would have liked to be there to cheer Fabrizio Macchi, a real ‘Never Give Up’ story behind him, leg tumor, the amputation as a child, then a lot of sport, at times I crossed him on the bicycle around Varese and it was beautiful and impressive to see him pedal, he will skip the Paralympics, for mow, to have kept touch with the wrong person, inhibited by CONI in 2001, but who by hook or by crook, continued to coach champions from Armstrong to Schwazer …
The desire to win, committing yourself to win, first of all against one’s self, is important and forming, it is the winning at all costs that is wrong and causes distortions …
I, who differently from Armstrong produce industrial quantities of lactic acid, mainly in these last stages, listen to music to feel less the effort, and I have a song by Vasco which describes well an attitude diffuse in these times: … ‘but where are the men, but where are those who thought that living is not always answering that … it is ok as it is to avoid trouble!’ … ‘Here you are, you are NOBODY … here you no longer exist … if you do not appear on TV!’
Tomorrow wind allowing I will try to reach Dunkerque, I love the North sea and I would like to spend here a few extra hours …
Chalons en Champagne N 48° 95.668’ E 4° 36.307’ – Saint Quentin N 49° 84.578’ E 3° 28.412’ 141 km