Day 7: 16th July 2010

I might have woken later than planned, but that did not prevent me from having a play with Pepe (the dog next door). Again, although the family and I could speak little of each other’s language the barrier wasn’t half the problem I had kind of expected, or been warned of. I drank my obligatory half a litre of water and ate an apple. A good way to start any day, but riding in the heat of the south coast, I can think of nothing better (except perhaps a banana). I packed up my kit and looked at the maps one last time. This morning was the ride to Montpellier and then Narbonne; they were just names to me, the tiredness settling in, making me feel edgy and jaded. The one thing I could look forward to was a nice hot shower and a glass of beer when I finally made it to the other side of Bergerac and that always brings a smile to your face. You ride and ride and ride, the sun beating down on you, the hot summer breeze coming up from Africa, searing your throat, and that one bottle of beer, ice chilled just takes your breath away.
Bergerac was not the plan for the day’s ride, the plan was to make it to Toulouse and then see how the day went. If I rode the whole way it was the equivalent of 400 and something miles, a prospect I didn’t relish, but a challenge that I kind of did.
I like to ride and the one thing that I can say about this tour is that the ride has been something else. For me, more than anything else, it’s about getting out there, it’s about the ride, it’s about opening the world up and seeing it the way ‘man’ should. On the road, where you experience life. Far too often we are quick to jump on a train, in a plane or on a cruise liner, happy to avoid the world around us in a desperate rush to reach our destination. For that quick fix in the sun, our happy holiday by the beach, or a pampering at a spa. Yet perhaps the most important thing about all of that is the experience of life which we miss. We like to believe that by eating a little of the food, or drinking the local beer, we have experienced the culture and see the great wonders. We take a day trip in our air conditioned coaches and smile at the quick comments made by the tour guide; we look at a castle, a cathedral, a museum or two and then we return to our world of high speed, high tech gadgetry and believe the world a better place for it. Yet is that really the case?
One memory that I will hold close is the experience of meeting the people. I left home with my prejudices all packed up in my backpack and made for Folkstone. It’s interesting, but let me be clear about this, by prejudices I mean the ideas and understandings that we all have of things without really understanding or experiencing them for ourselves. It’s like the child that says they don’t like potato, what they really mean is they don’t like the look of that potato when it’s first popped out of the ground, but really have no idea what it is, or what it will taste like. So you give them chips... Problem solved, the experience is now enough to convince them that they love potato’s in every form. Simple really, but it’s the lack of experience which dictates the response.
So, back to the story... I had my worries and concerns of the world that lay before me, yet I really hadn’t experienced any of it in any great sense or detail. Sure, I’d travelled, I’d seen some of the places I was to travel through, but never had I really experienced them, so my own prejudices were informed (as for most people) by the media, and or the odd travel page on the internet. Nothing could have prepared me for what was to come. So how does that relate? I pulled into a rest point on the E72 checking the maps just to make sure that I had the correct junction on the road and that I was really heading in the right direction. An old couple were serving a picnic lunch at one of the tables and looked at me with a smile. There was no malice or distrust of this hairy biker, just a genuine smile and a brief ‘Bon jour’. It settles you, you feel comfortable and as the man began to speak French and ask me about the bike and how I was fairing in the heat (amongst 100 other things), I had to admit to him, that a) I was English, b) he was speaking too quickly, and c) I didn’t really understand him anyway.
We did the usual broken conversation, helped and supported by universal sign language and then bid each other au revoir. He returned to his lunch and then, quick as a flash, he turned and said, ‘Monsieur?’ and held a small bottle of beer toward me. Other than being a little early in the day for me to drink, I thanked him and declined. ‘I am sorry; I don’t drink when I ride.’ I said. He smiled. Turned and went back to the lunch he had with his family.
Now that might not sound much, but my first thoughts were, at what point in life, anywhere in Britain have I known that to happen. Guys (and I guess girls) on bikes are often met with some suspicion and distrust. I can say that, I have personal experience after 21 years of riding. My second point is, I have never, nor do I know of anybody that has pulled up on the side of the road and with no knowledge of the person, with no thought of distrust, have I ever had a person offer to share their drinks with me. That, my friends, is the culture of experience that I am talking about. The experience that we all miss, by rushing through life with our blinkers tightly fixed.
I think in general the world is a good place and that for all we try to do; we often miss things by seeing things that really aren’t there. It is our own experiences which should guide our knowledge and not the prejudices of others (We all have enough of them ourselves, without adding those of others).