Cycle Shorts: 1 Day of Your Trip: Sue Chapple - France

Ever had to navigate a busy train station with a bike that's all loaded up for a long journey?  In our Cycle Shorts mid-week short episodes we share the stories of our listeners recounting what it as like during one day of their trip.  This week's episode features guest Sue Chapple, as she shares the experience from one day of her bike tour through France.

You can follow Sue's future adventures via her instagram account - @sue_chapple

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:25

Hello everyone, it's Bella Malloy here, host of Seek Travel Ride. Very happy to bring you a midweek episode of Cycle Shorts where we transport you to what it was like for one of our listeners on one day of their trip. This week features Australian Sue Chapel who's transporting us to France and what it was like for her on the first day leading up to a big cycle tour. And I'm sure some of us are going to resonate quite well with what Sue's going to talk about here, which is sometimes just getting to the start of the tour itself can be the most eventful thing, especially when you combine that with having to transport a fully laden bike up and down stairs. Without any further ado, let's listen to Sue tell us what it was like for one day on her trip.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Hi Bella, it's Sue here from Brisbane. I wanted to give you my one day on a cycling tour. I'd flown into Paris, it was my first solo trip, I'd organized everything, I'd done a reconnaissance mission the day before and made sure I knew the way to the train station to get my first train out to start my cycle tour. Everything was going to plan, the elevator was working, I'd had my ticket. The next morning I got up and I packed the bike, and oh my goodness, those wobbles. I thought I was literally going to fall over. I was terrified. I rode the route that I'd planned the day before, and all of a sudden there's a market in front of me. And I got so confused about where I was, I went the wrong way and was several kilometers off my planned route. I asked for help on the way and got it, and eventually I ended up at the train station. Great. Unfortunately, the elevator was no longer working. So I saw the escalator and I thought, I can do this. It's fine. It's just a solo bike loaded. I can do this. I wheeled it on and, like in true comedy fashion, something you'd see in the movies, the bike and I were laying down on that escalator. And the whole gadunk all the way up. It was terrifying, embarrassing, painful. Eventually I got pushed out at the top, bruised and bloodied, lots of tears. And eventually a young Frenchman came and helped me because there was a second escalator. So he helped me up that second escalator and I got to the top and thanked him profusely. But of course, I felt so useless and so degraded and so hurt by that first experience. Now when I look back on it, I can laugh. But at the time, oh boy, were there a lot of tears. So after my mishap on the escalators in that Paris train station, I decided to get the train out to Chartres to avoid some of that really heavy traffic in and around Paris. It was quite an easy train ride, wheel the bike on, wheel the bike off. However, when I got off at the other end, of course, no escalator, no elevator, just lots and lots of stairs. With the bike alone being 14 and a half kilos, let alone all the gear I had on, I had to unpack the bike. It was the only way I was going to move it across those stairs and get to the platform I needed to be on to actually exit the train station. So I took everything off and I started by carting two panniers down at a time. So two flights of stairs, turned the corner along the big tunnel up towards the main building, and I made a decision to leave the panniers there at the corner of the stairs. I turned around, ran back up the two flights of stairs, grabbed the next two panniers, ran down the stairs and turned the corner, and lo and behold, here's a guy at the other end with my two panniers in his hands. I had no idea what to do. All my French went out the window. I couldn't remember a thing to say, and so I reverted to English. It turns out that swearing in English is universal. And the guy just looked at me, shrugged his shoulders, dropped my panniers, and walked away. By this time, my heart was absolutely pounding and I'm running through the tunnel. All of a sudden, an SNCF staff member appears and asks me if I'd like some help. It was the most amazing thing to happen right then and there because I needed help and I was so grateful that they turned up. Maybe they'd been watching it unfold, maybe they hadn't, I don't know. But meanwhile, my bike was back up on a platform a long way away from me, and I needed to get back to it so that I could start my journey. This is just the first day of my trip and what turned out to be a fabulous one. But boy oh boy, was that first day a challenge. Anyway, I hope this gives you a smile to make that first impression of cycling on your own in a country where you think everything's right and organized, but unfortunately, things don't always go to plan. Nice to speak to you, Bella. Cheers, Sue.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Thank you so much, Sue, for sharing your experience of what occurred to you on that day. My goodness, not one, but two incidences at two separate train stations. I'm so happy that your panniers didn't get stolen and that you found some helpful members of staff as well. Many of you know I do live here in France, and I have definitely taken my fully laden touring bike on trains to connect places that I want to tour to. It's a great service, but it does come with those little problems that you need to navigate. Getting on and off platforms is often stairs or escalators, and doing it with a fully laden, cumbersome bike can be really problematic. Something that I distinctly remember actually was getting to I think it was Bordeaux train station, and the lift I do believe was not in service, or maybe there just wasn't one there at all, and had to make my way down a lovely steep staircase to get off the platform, and I was just thinking, this is going to be impossible. My husband was ahead figuring out how to do it with his bike, and of course it is that scenario like Sue was mentioning. You can take one bike and go to another one, and then you just have to hope that someone's not going to be stealing your gear at the other end. Anyway, a helpful member of staff sort of came up to me, saw what the problem was. I asked if was there a lift, he shrugged his shoulders and then looked at the situation, looked at my with the panniers and the bike, looked at the steep staircase that I had to descend, shrugged his shoulders in a very typical French fashion, just went bon courage. Needless to say, obviously I did navigate on and off there, but it is something that you've got to think about. And if it's anything this show has taught me, it is that now I am just going to reach out to what appears to be the kindness of strangers, scanner platform, and see if I can get assistance next time as well. I do wonder how many of you have listened to this story and have triggered in themselves a memory of a similar situation as well. If this has, definitely get in touch and tell me what happened for you. I'd like to now take a moment to give a shout out to my new Buy Me a Coffee supporters. Thank you so much for supporting the show. As I've mentioned previously, I think the best part of buy me a coffee are the messages that you also send me through as well. This one here is from Julia Blenerhassett and she says, Bella, thank you so much. I'm loving your podcast, the people you chat with, and the warm, friendly feeling that you impart on us all. Loving bikepacking here in New Zealand, and I can't wait to go global. Oh Julia, you need to keep in touch with me. I need to learn more about your bikepacking adventures there in the beautiful country of yours in New Zealand. And if you do go global, my goodness, perhaps there's a future episode of Seek Travel Ride in the making for you as well. Thank you for supporting the show. Another Buy Me a Coffee supporter, Nick Woolfrey, says, Thanks so much, Bella, for your wonderful work arranging and presenting these wonderful casts. They are so entertaining and inspiring. I've been largely confined to home for the last two years looking after my dear old dad. So the bike touring activity has been minimal and confined to day trips. No matter, virtual touring has brightened my life up greatly as I walk the dog or get time off for a day ride. You are such a fun and uplifting interviewer too. Keep it up please and enjoy a coffee and bicky or two on me. Thanks so much, Nick. I'm really happy that these episodes are providing you with enough wonderlust and inspiration to, as you say, go virtual touring far away from your situation and transporting yourself to these experiences of my guests as well. It's good to see that it's having that effect on you because with each and every interview that's exactly what's happening to me as well. And of course, you've listened to enough episodes to know food gets mentioned so much that of course I'm going to have a bickey or two with my coffee, perhaps even a piece of cake, or because I'm in France, a croissant. Thanks so much for supporting the show. If you'd like to support the show, the best way you can do that is to click the link to buy me a coffee in the show notes. All this support helps me to keep producing these episodes of Seek Travel Ride with you each week, interviewing these guests and bringing their stories to a global audience. Thank you so so much for supporting the show. Until the next episode, I'm Bella Malloy. Thanks for listening.