A nice cup of tea and a sit down
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"A nice cup of tea and a sit down" was the height of my mother's dreams. And mine. It marked a truce in the trench warfare of being dragged round yet another shop as my mother once more couldn't decide what to buy or, as bad, bought things as boring as cauliflower.
I have never lost interest in a nice cup of tea and a sit down. There is nothing better after a couple of hours in the saddle, and the Sem Fed people know it well. That's why on that map of the route I showed you a while back, the organised tea - or more likely coffee, beer and wine - stops are marked in such big type.
It takes thousands of volunteers to run a week like this and a lot of them are absorbed in the coffee stops. They're generally run by one or more of the clubs local to the site. Their reward, I gather, is to share the profits of what they sell.
Anywhere else, the coffee stop would be little more than a beer barrel and an urn of tea. But this is catering for thousands - thousands with the hunger of cyclists and the tastes of the French. I don't know how much beer, wine and cold drinks they get through but I did my best to keep the figures up.
Almost every stop has entertainment laid on. It could be local folk dancing, or singing or - this being France - someone playing an accordion.
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One stop had a display of old bikes. It also had a curious tandem, fairly new, in which the riders sat back to back. The novelty was that each pedalled forward in the usual style. A cross in the chain turned the traction in the right direction.
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I don't know who the couple were who dressed up and rode around to demonstrate this tandem but they were generous in allowing other people to have a go.
Now and then, coffee stops excel themselves. Approaching one beside the river on our last leg into Saumur, we were greeted by a clown riding a tricycle around which rotated effigies of women dressed in white. The clown sang as he pedalled and the dolls revolved in a genteel dance.
Later we found the same clown teaching anybody who cared to try how to ride circus bikes. Alongside him was a man who had built an copy of the Eiffel Tower from bicycle frames, each frame dedicated to a winner of the race. How long it takes him to erect it - let alone how - I have no idea. But he did it, like the clown for the simple pleasure of giving everyone a nice cup of tea and a sit down.
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