we do not remember days, we remember moments: Holy Water, Frenchman! We made it to Lourdes.

Sitting in McDonald's. Fast internet connection. Jesse working to clear out an ever-expanding queue of complaint messages from Versus Tour Tracker users (keep the complaints coming--we need baguette money!) The smell of french fries. (Could that be why Paige is missing? Yes, here she is, fries in hand. And the verdict is...french fries taste the same in France as back home.)

With this backdrop, it is easy to forget the backdrop outside plate-glass windows--Les Pyrenees, the sun casting a spotlight on the towering Col du Tourmalet--but it's going to be a while before we forget the misadventures that got us here.

Following our reunion with Bertetto, Jesse's first two days in France consisted primarily of chain grease, shift cables, luggage racks, broken bolts, Coke-can seatpost shims, and hunting down baby trailers, interspersed with strong coffee from the bar adjacent to Paul's shop. Paige's time was occupied with postcards (keep an eye on your mailboxes), photos, grocery shopping, reading, and occasionally popping her head into Paul's shop to ask, "Are you done with that thing yet?"

So after all that tinkering, with fond thoughts of spinning our way up the Tourmalet ten-cogs to the better (for non-cyclists, this means we now have a much easier gear to pedal up Tour de France climbs than last year), we show up at the Gare d'Annecy. In tow: Bertetto; large green grocery sack atop a newly installed luggage rack; matching green baby trailer stuffed to the brim with camping gear, clothes, two computers, two cameras, brie, apricots, Savoie sausage, beer, wine, etc

Our first hint of things to come arrives when Jesse leaves Paige waiting in the ticket line to go check the automatic machine schedules. He returns less than two minutes later to find that the office--complete with Paige on the other side of the locked sliding-glass door--has closed, in true French style, 8 minutes early. No problem there--that's what emergency exits, err, entrances are for.

"Je voudrais deux billets pour Lourdes avec un velo, s'il vous plait."

The helpful clerk immediately recognizes our accents, and continues to flatter us by speaking French for about two lines. Then,

"I'm sorry, but there are no bike reservations left on the train today for Lourdes...Let me check tomorrow...No, I'm sorry. Nothing."

Wait, you mean we can't go with a bike? That would mean no TdF. Jesse may have had more than his fair share, but Paige has patiently waited for this. She'll turn into a pumpkin or worse if we don't see the peleton go whirring by in a flash of metal and spandex. Impossible, we'll make it happen...

"What if we put the bike with the luggage?"

She double checks with her colleague.

"We're not sure. Maybe. You would need to have the bike in a special bag [an 'housse']."

Paige and I stare blankly at each other. We have no choice.

"OK. Two tickets for the night train to Lourdes."

Tickets in-hand, Jesse runs to the downtown-Intersport and buys the last two housses on the rack (Bertetto is too big to fit into one) and runs back to the station.

As we research the situation further, we discover that the "train"--as described in the SNCF system and on our tickets--is actually an "Autocar." AKA, a bus.

Uh oh.

Then we see an Autocar being loaded with bags and realize that there is plenty of room. Just to verify, we ask a kind employee whether or not we can take the tandem on the bus to Lyon part Dieu (from whence a train to Lourdes).

She answers in French, but her reply can be summarized as "No, definitely not. That bus is much smaller and much more crowded. There is no way. I'm sorry. The bus is too petite."

"What if the bike is dissassembled?"

"No."

"And the trailer folded?"

"No."

"Is there anything we can do?"

"No."

Down 182 euros for tickets and 20 euros for les housses, we of course decide to try anyway. But an hour later--with all of the day's wrenching undone, Bertetto tucked inside his cozy housse, baby trailer folded into a pancake with little resemblance of its formerly stuffed self, belongings, bike parts, and groceries packed into six different backpacks and bags--our bus arrives. This time we know better. We don't bother asking the ticket man whether or not we can take all of this stuff on the bus.

It doesn't matter--he takes one look at Bertetto, who, beneath the housse could pass for a large Great Dane or a small Shetland pony--and gives us a distinctly negative frown. He follows this with a statement in French that leaves no doubt.

"No."

"Why?"

"You can't."

"Please?"

"Impossible."

Bertetto is not allowed. Not on the back of the bus, not on top of the bus, not even underneath the bus in the luggage compartment.

Then the conductor steps out of sight, and a green-clad, cigarette-wielding lady with blonde frizzy hair and a big smile tells us in French, "You can go with the bike."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Really really?"

"Follow me."

Long-story short (we do after all, have to start riding up that hill), "don't ask, don't tell" works in France, but only if you take it to the extremes of determination and faith, and only if you have a little help from a friendly bystander. The lady and I opened the luggage compartment ourselves and shoved Bertetto and the trailer underneath the bus before anyone else could tell us "No."

As our bus left the station, no one said a word about Bertetto stowed safely below. We waved at the lady in green, then took her picture through the bus window. Mom Cz will surely claim--a claim we will not dispute--that she was just another TdF guardian angel.

Now, 18 hours later, we are in Lourdes, Bertetto reassembled, trailer re-packed, sun shining, and the Col du Tourmalet beckoning all 200+ kilos of us to get to pedaling.

We will probably be disconnected for the next several days. Look for the green baby trailer with the orange flag on Versus tomorrow--we're hoping to be at least a third of the way up the Tourmalet.

A bientot!

The Holy woman in Annecy: