Untitled (Motorcycle: late morning). Col du Tourmalet, France, 2023.1
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The second day. A Monday, PM:
Descending the Col du Tourmalet through the clarity of the morning mountain air was like awaking from a lovely dream, way too early. The immediate environs on the way down are a bleak, desolate ski station; with further, ski-related development taking place. I needed a drink and a snack, but this wasn’t the place.
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Further descent eventually revealed a village with a cafe and easy parking of the Pan—more of a requirement for a 330 plus kilo bike and me since my accident—my left ankle remaining weak and unreliable. It was getting warm. I entered the dim, cooler, interior of the bar and ordered a quiche and an orange juice. I held out my card. The young chap behind the bar issued a gallic shrug (do they learn that at school?), he didn’t take cards, ‘désolé’. I was desolated too, and annoyed at not having got some cash earlier. I left the bar a as another biker was entering, removing helmet, looking purposeful. She said something to me, I thought in English, ‘they don’t take cards’, said. ‘That’s ok, I have cash’, she responded. Sorted.
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Sam, as she turned out to be called, was a new biker and an old hand in France, having escaped the UK and the banking industry 17 years ago to become a personal trainer, then chef. We chatted about biking and life in France and swapped life stories; more bikers rolled up (this happens a lot in Europe). Then finally we headed off—it was getting hot sitting around, even in the shade. Sam and I did another couple of passes and cols together, then in Luchon went our separate ways.
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Ah, Luchon. Back in ’86 I’d hitched to the Pyrenees with the Dutch lady who’d later introduce me to the delights of PTS by doing a disappearing act. But then we were halcyon and camped by a bridge over the river on the way out of town—the way which I’d just done, in reverse. The overnighter (or was it two?) By-the-river-bridge in Luchon had led us up into the mountains with a lift from a German sculptor who’d cashed in a sculpture for a ruined barn and installed a massive wood-burner—I’ve not seen a bigger one to this day—but no bath or shower; we had baths outside under the stars in a galvanised tub with a hose; staying on for several days, not wanting to leave that paradise.
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Halcyon?2 I’d wondered, mused—as I’m prone do from time to time at various junctures—what would’ve happened if I’d kicked in my life and cashed out, staying on that trip: heading over the minor mountain pass into Spain, infused the the esprit of smuggling and the maquis, hustling escaped PoWs, or other undesirables across? Did new freedoms lay there still? Perhaps. Or perhaps I was about to find out?
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Over the little pass and my second pothole of the trip where the road-menders had run out of stuff at the top, and down to a T-junction: ‘Easy, or hard’?, said the voice in my helmet: ’Hard, of course Paul’, ‘because that’s what you do’: Let’s head south—go large, go ‘dur’, go hardcore—towards Llieda, in the gathering heat and windy truck-streams interposed by cool shady tunnels. Let’s see if my fortunes might have laid—or still lay—that way. After all, what’s the worst that could happen?
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Untitled (Motorcycle: late afternoon, 32c). Nr Llieda, Spain, 2023.
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Notes:
Col: | kɒl | noun; the lowest point of a ridge or saddle between two peaks, typically providing a pass from one side of a mountain range to another; Meteorology a region of slightly elevated pressure between two anticyclones. ORIGIN mid 19th century: from French, literally ‘neck’, from Latin collum.
halcyon | ˈhalsɪən | adjective: denoting a period of time in the past that was idyllically happy and peaceful: the halcyon days of the mid 1980s, when profits were soaring. noun 1 a mythical bird said by ancient writers to breed in a nest floating at sea at the winter solstice, charming the wind and waves into calm. 2 a tropical Asian and African kingfisher with brightly coloured plumage. Genus Halcyon, family Alcedinidae: many species. ORIGIN: late Middle English (in the mythological sense): via Latin from Greek alkuōn ‘kingfisher’ (also halkuōn, by association with hals ‘sea’ and kuōn ‘conceiving’).