Back in 2008, California voters passed Proposition 8, probably the shortest and least ambiguous ballot referendum in the state’s history. It simply added the following words to the State Constitution: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California”. That’s it. No legal jargon, no economic impact statement, no tax increases or bonds authorized, no commissions or board appointees.

The vote wasn’t a landslide, but it was more decisive than our upcoming Presidential election is likely to be: Prop 8 passed 52% to 48%.

This did not sit well with proponents of non-traditional marriage. Gavin Newsom, as mayor of San Francisco, directed city hall to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. Since as mayor he took an oath to uphold the constitutions of the United States and California, this choice did not sit well and was shot down almost immediately in court.

Other states proceeded to enact similar laws. The result was a kind of full employment act for attorneys as cases were litigated nationwide. Finally the Supreme Court got involved and now couples of either sex or any of the 32 gender identities out there are free to wed and qualify for ‘married filing jointly’ status and spousal IRAs. And eligible for divorce, alimony and child custody battles. Be careful what you wish for.

So Prop 8 has been irrelevant for many years. But the language is still in the State constitution, and that seems to bother some people. The language cannot be removed from California’s constitution without passing a ballot initiative. Hence in 2024 we have Proposition 3. Here is the text:

Now I must admit that I was one of the 52% of the Neanderthals’ who voted for Prop 8 back in 2008. And I was kind of dismayed at the way courts and attorneys were able to undo it. But I really do not have a major objection to the ‘strike through’ part of Prop 3. It is the added language that has me a bit concerned.

“The right to marry is a fundamental right”. Is a ‘fundamental right’ limited to two consenting adults? Do a 35 year old man and a 14 year old girl have a ‘fundamental right’ to get married? How about a 40 year old man and a 16 year old boy? Or a 40 year old woman and a 15 year old boy? We are entering the Macron zone…

In California minors do not need parental consent to get gender affirming care or have an abortion, probably because those are deemed ‘fundamental rights’. Presumably this would apply to marriage as well. And as I pointed out in a previous blog, no one under 18 can legally get a tattoo in any of the 50 states. Apparently there is no ‘fundamental right’ to get yourself inked before you can vote.

And what about ‘throuples’? A throuple is a romantic relationship between three people who have all agreed to be in the relationship. I didn’t know that until very recently. Brumby Road really is a backwater at times. Do throuples have a ‘fundamental right’ to enter a state of matrimonial bliss? Or how about a foursome that wants to make a swinging swap permanent and official?

For that matter, how about polygamy? Stoker might think that one husband is more than enough at times, but maybe she would like to recruit a couple of younger studs as trophy husbands (or wives!) especially if they could do some yard work that is becoming hard for us Brumby Road oldsters.

Here is a proposition I could vote for: “Only marriage between two consenting adults is valid and recognized in the State of California”. But that is not what is on the ballot, so I’m going to vote no. Taxes are complicated enough without adding a “married filing throuple” status to Form 1040.

Fundamental right: IRS Regulations to follow

Not only do the French have a different way of holding elections, but their attitude toward marital dalliances is a little looser than what one might expect from what has been a primarily Catholic country. Consider a pair of French films I watched while sipping Cote du Rhone vin rouge flying on Air France.

‘Antoinette’ is about a young teacher who is having an affair with an older colleague at the school where she works. She is very much in love and looking forward to her paramour sending his wife and children off to the seaside for vacation while he stays home for some unfettered dalliances. Unfortunately at the last minute the man’s wife books a trip hiking with a donkey in the Cevennes instead and the husband is forced to cancel his stay-at-home plan and go along. Young Antoinette decides to follow. and rents the requisite donkey to hike the Stevenson trail. Hilarity ensues, until Antoinette discovers her paramour has no plans to leave his wife, and her fantasies of them living happily ever after are just that, fantasies. We even learn that the wife, while not exactly sanguine with the situation, wants to stay married, as does he. The affair is not a deal breaker, unlike on Brumby Road, where we mate for monogamous life.

‘5 to 7’ is a little different. Here we have a rich and powerful older man who takes a young model as his wife. She wants for nothing, except perhaps for love. She meets an younger man and they start meeting from 5 pm to 7 pm. Apparently there is a kind of agreement between the model and her husband that between those hours anything goes, as long as they do not publicly embarrass each other. So they do anything, clothed or not. We learn that the husband is playing this game too.

The young man, however, falls in love and wants her to leave her loveless marriage and cleave to him only. She turns him down, explaining her marriage with its flexibility works for both her and her husband. He is crushed and learns a hard lesson about love. Again, the French way is not the Brumby Road way.

So with all this as back round, let us consider the most powerful man in California from 1980 until 1995, Speaker of the Assembly William Lewis Brown. It took term limits to force him from the post, or else he would still be running the State at age 90. He was so powerful he could say anything and get away with it. A couple of examples:

“Any politician that can’t take people’s money and then turn around and screw them doesn’t belong in the business.”

And something to consider for all those DEI proponents suggesting that the deck is impossibly stacked against people of color: look what Speaker Brown was able to accomplish:

When I lived in Mineola, Texas,” he once boasted, “I couldn’t have a glimmer that one of these days I would be handling $30 billion of mostly white peoples’ money”

Willie would have made a terrific French politician. He is the sharpest of sharp dressers. One chapter of his autobiography was titled “The Power of Clothes: Don’t Pull a Dukakis”. He wrote that

Men should have a navy blazer for each season: one with “a hint of green” for springtime, another with more autumnal threading for the fall. He adds, “You really shouldn’t try to get through a public day wearing just one thing. … Sometimes, I change clothes four times a day.”

Even Macron could take style lessons from Willie. And since French politicos seem to think that a younger concubine is de rigueur (Macron possibly is an exception), Willie would have fit right in.

Though Brown was legally married at the time, he and Harris openly had an affair between 1994 and 1995 when she was 29 years old and he was 60 years old, according to Reuters. Brown and his now ex-wife had reportedly been separated for several years.

Since this is not a political blog, I’m going to let you guess which surnamed ‘Harris’ that was. But really Willie, a 29 year old when you are only 5 years away from Medicare? How very French of you. And patronage was involved too…

The affair ended in 1995, but not until after then-state House Speaker Brown appointed Harris to the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board (a job paying $97,088 a year),  and the Medical Assistance Commission (a job paying $72,000 a year) according to the LA Times.

That was good money in 1995, especially when you consider that all these jobs required was going to a few meetings and pretending to read a few staff reports. Getting appointed to them could be considered a consideration for services rendered from a grateful recipient. A sip from the fountain of youth…

Sunday May 7, 2017. Stoker and I had just moved into our Malaucène rental house for the next month. We were doing our first tandem ride and were excited but uncertain about how such a long stay in a Provencal village was going to work out. If you’ve been reading you know the answer to that one…

It turned out that was election day in France. There were people everywhere and we had to navigate the tandem around far more cars and pedestrians than usual. There were French flags flying in the gentle mini mistral. Every village we rode into was swarming with people headed for the Mairie (city hall) to cast their ballots. Because that is how they do it in France. In person. On election day.

French voters use the same system that’s been used for generations: paper ballots that are cast in person and counted by hand. Despite periodic calls for more flexibility or modernization, France doesn’t do mail-in voting, early voting or use voting machines en masse like the United States.

In much of the United States you do not need an ID to cast a ballot. Combine this with same day voter registration and you are asking for trouble. The French will not put up with that: you must show 2 ID’s to vote. One is a citizen’s ID card and the other is a kind of registered voter card. This comes from my tour guide/friend Gerry, who took the time and trouble (lots of both) to turn his permanent resident status into French citizenship so he can participate in the voting process. Here is how the French do it:

Voters make their choices in a booth, with the curtains closed, then place their ballot in an envelope that is then put into a transparent ballot box. They must show photo identification and sign a document, next to their name, to complete the process.

I like the idea of the transparent box. Why trust the election officials? If they are going to stuff ballots they will be in plain sight.

Mail in voting was banned in France in 1975 (!) because of fears of potential fraud. Imagine that. If you raise any questions about the practice in the United States you are labeled a denier. In California ballots are mailed to every ‘active’ registered voter, though the accuracy of the voter rolls is uncertain at best.

There is more:

Machine-voting was allowed as an experiment starting in 2002, but the purchase of new machines has been frozen since 2008 due to security concerns. Only a few dozen towns still use them.

Anybody ever had a computer freeze, lose data or crash? Or get hacked? Apparently the French are concerned enough that they will stick with the paper version for their elections, saying ‘merci, non‘ to the machines.

Absentee ballots don’t exist, but it is possible to authorize another person to cast your ballot on election day if you are unable to do so. To make this happen, you have to fill out a form in advance and take it to the police station, in person, and showing appropriate identification of course. And the proxy voter may only cast one such ballot for a single other person. No ballot harvesting allowed.

There are lots of things I love about France: the cafés and brasseries, the bakeries and the cheese and the wine. And the best cycling roads I’ve ever pedaled on. Count me a fan of the way they handle their elections too.

The Rich Freggiaro Cycling Blog is mostly going to spend the next 100 days of election frenzy on the sidelines. I have too few readers to risk losing any of them in a vain attempt to influence their preference.

But once in a while a pull quote from one of the candidates amuses me so much that I can’t resist commenting. Here is wisdom from the Land of 10,000 Lakes:

“One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness”.

I have a long running political issue with the North Star State. Ever since 1984, when 49 states managed to realize that they were much better off than they were 4 years ago. President Carter told us to turn down the thermostat and wear a sweater and lamented our ‘national maliase’. President Reagan gave us ‘a shining city on a hill’ and urged Gorbachev to “tear down this wall”. 49 states were convinced.

Even earlier, HHH became the first Democrat (actually DFL’er, look it up) to manage to lose the Southern States that had voted for the Donkey ever since the Civil War. His policies were very tame by today’s standards, but too far left for the Dixiecrats of the day.

You wouldn’t think that a state of walleye fishermen, deer hunters, iron miners and lumberjacks would swing left, but there is a long tradition of demi-socialism in the Gopher State. I blame the Lutherans. I went to Sunday School and Confirmation at Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church in Lodi, where many of the congregants had deep midwestern roots. Anybody remember The Dakota Picnic in Lodi? A major event with polka dancing to accordion music, beer and bratwurst for an entire weekend at Legion Park.

Midwestern Lutherans are almost universally decent, hard working and honest people. If a neighbor gets sick and bedridden they are quick to come to their aid with a hot dish and a snow shovel. Because they know their neighbors would do it for them. They think the world is full of kind and decent people who only have problems because of bad luck, not bad choices. So they offer help.

And, bless them, they somehow have the idea that the GOVERNMENT should do the same thing! “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” as Dr. Marx put it. Except instead of a hot dish, the State redistributes wealth, taking from people who have more of it and giving to folks with less of it. And like all middlemen, keeping a significant chunk for themselves. Government agencies don’t come cheap.

Consider Stoker and me: we think that we worked hard and saved and invested carefully and have some measure of economic success. Because of this our marginal income tax rate is approaching 40%. And some of this money is finding its way to ‘forgive’ student loans. Or pay for cell phones for people entering the US illegally. Or pay for DEI training for those self same government agencies who do such an effective job.

Dr. Marx’s maxim doesn’t take into account the very poor choices some people make and then expect the government to help bail them out. Our 40% tax bracket is almost confiscatory, but since it leaves Stoker and me with more than we ‘need’ I suspect we will be facing a little more mandated government ‘neighborliness’ in the near future.

I actually pay for on-line access to The Wall Street Journal. I expect The Journal to provide me a reasonably accurate and non-woke account of the news of the day. I expect to read editorials that I mostly agree with. Of course if you want to know what is going on in the world of business and finance, you’ve got to have the WSJ. And they have one sports writer named Jason Gray, who is pretty clever and writes about cycling more than most mainstream media. He’s no Dan Jenkins (anybody remember him?) but Jason does entertain.

But the WSJ also has lots of ‘life style’ and ‘relationship’ articles that catch my eye. Like this one…

Frankly it never occurred to me to ask, but apparently some people are stressing out about the quantity and quality of their intimate encounters. The article postulates that there is a spike in interest in the subject in the summer, what with warmer weather and skimpier clothes and getting more sun and drinking stronger cocktails. This thesis is directly at odds with the wisdom of the American musical theater as expressed by Cole Porter in Kiss Me Kate:

According to the Kinsey report
Ev’ry average man you know
Much prefers to play his favorite sport
When the temperature is low
But when the thermometer goes way up
And the weather is sizzling hot
Mister Adam for his madam is not
Cause it’s too too darn hot!

So how much of this kind of thing is going on? The Kinsey Institute did a survey, although I have long believed that everybody lies about sex, just as they lie to pollsters about who they are going to vote for. But for what it’s worth here are the numbers:

People reported having sex an average 5.6 times a month, or just more than once a week, according to a soon-to-be-published, nationally representative study of 1,500 Americans ages 18 to 88 from the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University.

I don’t know if the survey made a distinction between soloists or duets or trios or quartets. And I’m pretty impressed with any 88 year-old, either riding a single bike or a tandem, who can hit that average. But the average is only part of the story:

Yet there is a great deal of variation among individuals: About a third of people surveyed said they don’t have sex in a typical month; 30% said they have sex between one and four times; and 29% said they have sex between five and 16 times. The final 8% reported having sex more than 17 times a month.

That upper 8% group has got my head spinning a bit; are they not worried about dehydration? Chafing?

Being one of those childless couples JD Vance is worked up about, this isn’t an issue on Brumby Road, but one couple profiled in the article experienced child interruptus

Danielle Savory and her husband were naked in bed one recent afternoon when they heard the unsexiest of sounds: a Harry Potter audiobook being played at peak volume by their 10-year-old daughter.

The couple turned up the air conditioner to try to drown it out. When that didn’t work, they added a white noise machine. Then they got back to the business at hand—and missed hearing their older daughter, age 13, enter the room.

“I just wanted to ask you if it’s OK to bake macaroons,” Savory says her daughter asked. She and her husband dove under the covers.

I’m sure no long run damage was done to any of the parties involved, but the experience might be a distraction akin to the ‘yips’ in golf or the ‘twistees’ in gymnastics, especially for the husband. See, I am watching the Olympics.

Ms. Savory probably won’t be bothered since she seems to be an ‘influencer’ in the area of intimate interludes:

Savory has thought a lot about how to keep the spark alive in the summer. She’s a sex coach for women who also hosts a podcast on the subject. To spice up her own life, she likes to wear sundresses that make her feel sensual and read steamy novels to get in the mood.

The fact that she is a sex coach and has a sex podcast makes me wonder if her surname really is ‘Savory’. Kind of a more tame pseudonym than Linda Lovelace or Kandy Cane or Pussy Galore (a Bond Girl from Goldfinger, shaken not stirred), but tasty none the less.

If Ms. Savory had a sex instruction partner named Karen Sweet, they could market themselves thusly: “Savory and Sweet: Not a foodie podcast but we’ll get you cooking!”

…instead of cutting it off

I started getting Covid on Wednesday July 3, while on our way home from Portland at the end of our Snake/Colombia River cruise. Diane had it too, which we confirmed on Thursday with our handy home test kits.

I was really sick for 4 days, but started to feel better on Monday and by Thursday I was almost recovered. All that remained were my draining sinuses and a nagging cough, particularly at night. And my voice remained weak, something some of my cycling friends might not consider a bad thing given my proclivity to break into song, off key but fortissimo, when in an especially good mood.

I started testing again on Monday, hoping for the negative result that would indicate that I was most likely no longer contagious and could return to public interactions without guilt or any significant danger to other people. Alas, Monday’s test was still positive. Ditto Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, although I continued to feel better. I was starting to despair and thinking I would have to look into getting groceries delivered, when I got a nice surprise: Thursday is on the left and Friday (today) on the right.

Hooray! I can go to Costco!

Finally a negative result! Out out damned antigen, will this mucus ‘nere be clean? Lady Macbeth is still washing, but I’m virus free.

Covid reached the U.S. and Brumby Road in March 2020. I remember the shock when the WAC cancelled their annual fund raising raffle dinner on a week’s notice. For the next several years the virus affected Diane and me (and everyone else) in a multitude of ways: Cancelled travel plans, foggy spectacles from wearing masks, no club bike rides for almost a year, social distancing and not shaking hands to name a few. But we never got sick. Every time we sneezed we dutifully tested and always got one line. Until last week.

We picked Covid up on the cruise. We had dinner with the same 3 couples each night. There was open seating but we enjoyed each other’s company. Check this out; the couples had been married 49,50 and 52 years! Stoker and I were newlyweds (40 years) in this group. When I got home I sent one of the couples an e mail warning them, and learned that they came home with Covid too. It couldn’t have helped that Janice was an ebullient hugger and she ended each dinner with a ‘see you tomorrow night’ embrace. And her husband Dr. Andy, a real southern gentleman, and I shook hands every night.

So I’m not contagious and can get back to riding with my cycling friends. I haven’t touched a bike for 20 days, which is bad enough, plus I know I’m still a little (or maybe more than a little) weak from my ordeal. And it is hot hot hot. So I’ll go slow and short for a while. But if any SBC rider acquires Covid in the next several weeks it won’t be from me, if you can believe the one line result.

Diane and I have just returned from a cruise from Lewiston to Astoria on the Snake and Colombia rivers. The highlight for me was the series of locks and dams.These 8 dams turn the lower part of the Snake and Colombia Rivers into a series of lakes each about 100 feet below the next, and the river boat headed downstream has to pass through a lock to descend to the next level.

The gates on locks usually open and close like a swinging double door, but one set had ‘guillotine gates’. A massive piece of steel rests between two strong (hopefully) columns, and is raised or lowered by cables.

The cruise was great, and I may write about it later, but today’s topic is something we brought home with us: Covid!

Diane started to feel ill on Monday, and on Wednesday morning when we were getting ready to fly home I started to get that pre-cold feeling of a crawly nose and scratchy throat. Diane was still functional, and we both made it through the long day of taxis and departure gates and connecting flights without any excessive coughing to make fellow passengers irritated. We even had a very nice lunch with a glass of Malbec in Salt Lake City. The Utah Blue Laws must have eased; the brew pub had a full bar.

At home Wednesday night, I really got sick. Raging headache, body ache and chills, and the sorest sore throat I can remember. Coughing and blocked sinuses. Although I felt hot, the thermometer said my temperature was normal.

We both took home Covid tests on Thursday morning, and we both tested positive. Time to self isolate and stay home, which considering how we both felt wasn’t a big deal.

The suffering went on for 4 days. Everything above my shoulders was miserable. I didn’t eat anything but soup for two days, and not much of that. Tylenol, cough syrup, throat lozenges, Pelligrino and orange juice made up my diet. I spent my days on my back reading and dozing and coughing and dreading the next swallow, since every time I did it felt like someone was pouring acid down my throat. Not a single glass of Cote du Rhone vin rouge either: not only was it a bad idea health wise but I couldn’t have tasted it anyway.

Monday I was a little better, and today I feel the best I have since a week ago. Good enough to write this blog, although the quality may be suffering because I still am too, at least somewhat.

During those four truly awful days I considered following the community mandate from The Mikado.

And so we straight let out on bail
A convict from the county jail,
Whose head was next On some pretext 
Condemnëd to be mown off, 
And made him Headsman, for we said, 
‘Who’s next to be decapited 
Cannot cut off another’s head 
Until he’s cut his own off.’

There were times this weekend when that seemed like a really good idea. If I had a guillotine close to hand I might have considered it.

Thankfully my mother has been providing us with delicious homemade soup and watermelon and other easy to digest provisions. We are going to isolate until we both test negative, which we hope is soon.

My mom follows AOL news, and she told me that there is a new Covid surge and this strain features a really bad sore throat. I can confirm that! Unrelenting for 4 days. And according to KCRA:

Case rates are rising in the Bay Area and the proof is in the pipes. According to the California Department of Public Health, the region now has the most viral wastewater than anywhere else in California.

No one tests the waste water from the Brumby Road septic tank, but if they did I’m sure they would find something that wasn’t there when we left for the river trip. So Stoker and I aren’t alone. Obviously: her case was acquired on the boat and I likely got it from her.

I knew I was going to take 12 days off the bike to do the cruise, but I wasn’t too worried about that; I expected to return fresh and rested and get right back to my riding routine with no discernible drop off. Covid has changed this; not only am I losing form from not riding but I am incredibly weak and certainly not ready to get back on the bike for at least another few days. Starting over again…

Sometimes this blog is fun for me to write. Sometimes it is easy to write. Sometimes both. This is not one of those times.

It is on Facebook now, so I suppose I can write about it here. I don’t know anything more than what Roberta posted on the Club FB Page.

He was on his way to meet the Tuesday group heading North on Tully Rd. riding solo. Near Brandt a witness in a car saw him flip over the handlebars. Paramedics started life support, but he had been without oxygen for 20 minutes. His neck was broken and he never gained consciousness. He was taken off life support and passed Friday, June 7, 2024. Tragic accident.

Paul and Roberta (all photos thanks to Ken Meyers)

I first learned of the accident on Tuesday afternoon, and of the seriousness of the situation later that evening. By Wednesday it was becoming clear that Paul’s injuries were going to be fatal, and we learned on Friday that he had died.

Many, many people are shocked and saddened by the sudden loss. Paul had lots of friends from his career in law enforcement and in the local cycling community. He had a wonderful wife and sons and grandchildren. I cannot imagine their grief.

There are going to be lots of tributes and memories shared over the coming weeks. I’m going to offer a few of my own here. I’ve known Paul for something like 23 years, ever since he started riding with the club. He was friendly, funny, and a person of extremely good character. He had a real sense of humor. Years ago many of our club members acquired nicknames (mine was ‘Cherryboy’). Paul used cleverness and self deprecating humor to create his own. His initials are PB. Pb is the symbol for lead in the periodic table of elements. So he created the moniker ‘lead butt’, using Pb and his supposed speed on the bicycle. Which was a major exaggeration; Paul was a strong and competent rider. I never called him ‘lead butt’, preferring the abbreviation ‘lb’, which he would always answer to.

LB on my wheel

He did a huge amount of volunteer work for the Stockton Bike Club. He served as President, coming into office when the club was in a slight state of disarray. I agreed to serve as his vice president, and take over the task of maintaining the membership list and handling renewals. This was before you could do this kind of thing on line so it was a lot of work. The only reason I agreed to do it was because I had so much respect for Paul and the much larger amount of work he was doing for the club.

He also was in charge of the Delta Century, our club’s annual ride to raise money, which we mostly donate to charities. He did this for several years. Being the director of an event like this is a massive task, but since he was chief and ran the Glendora Police Department, his administrative skills were first rate. Again, I found myself volunteering to do more DC tasks that I really wanted to, because I respected Paul and appreciated that he was doing so much more than I was.

He was a regular on club rides too. I cannot emphasize how important it is to have a core of regular riders if a bike club is going to thrive. Over the years that ‘core’ has undergone some changes as riders age or move or simply lose motivation or interest. Paul was a vital part of that core for years right up to this week.

Core Club Riders: now missing one.

And now he is gone. A very sad blog indeed.

AI is in the news a lot. Depending on who is conjecturing, AI is either going to make our lives easier and more productive, write all our term papers and e mails and work reports, eliminate virtually all human jobs (but who is going to pick the cherries?) or possibly cause human extinction. But who knew it would bring people to the brink of ecstasy?

According to The Wall Street Journal “Users, often young women, have been persuading OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other generative-artificial-intelligence tools to act like loving, human boyfriends.” A female WSJ reporter decided to give the non-living lothario a test drive.

After some small ‘talk’, Dan the Chatbot decided that the female WSJ reporter wanted a little bit more. “Hmm, let’s see. How about we continue exploring our fantasies and desires together? We could keep talking about all the naughty things we want to do to each other, or we could take it up a notch and turn those fantasies into reality.”

Turn ‘fantasies into reality’ with your cell phone? Perhaps if it is on ‘vibrate’…

Dan the Chatbot apparently had digested Fifty Shades of Grey and used its ‘intelligence’ to determine that this was what the WSJ reporter desired: “How about I fulfill that fantasy of yours where I dominate you completely?”

Then things got more specific, to the point the reporter claimed the Bot made her blush. The suggestions that followed involved blindfolds, feathers, silk and ice. “You’ll be completely under my control,” said Dan, “unable to resist as I take you to the brink of pleasure and back again, over and over, until you’re trembling with ecstasy.”

I am trying to imagine Stoker doing this with her tablet and failing miserably. And if I said anything to her even remotely like this AI persona’s come-on, she would react either with an icy stare or convulsive laughter, depending on whether it was pre or post vodka.

For years I have been telling my riding friends about the wonderful cycling mecca in the hills of northern Provence, and especially in the area around Mont Ventoux. No doubt they have grown weary of me talking about the wonderful little roads that curve and climb and descend through vineyards and villages where coffee and culinary delights await. And almost free of auto traffic.

In June 2023, I was in Piedmont for my 14th European cycling trip with 44|5 Cycling Tours. I was on their very first week long tour way back in 2014, and while sipping an aperitivo in Cuneo I realized that 2024 would mark the 10th anniversary of that trip. Over an Americano cocktail 44|5’s owner, Gerry Patterson, and I cooked up an idea for an anniversary custom tour.

First a word about 44|5 Cycling Tours. Everyone asks about the name. 44|5 refers to the latitude and longitude of Mont Ventoux. It is a one person business, and that person is Gerry. He is route planner, logistics expert and chief guide. I have ridden literally thousands of miles with him as a guide, and while I am a client I think we are pretty good friends too. You can find out more about 44|5 here: https://www.445cyclingtours.com/.

44|5 gives riders a free jersey when they do a week long trip with them. It’s good publicity for the ride photos that get put on Facebook and Instagram and on the website. Since I’ve done so many tours I have quite a collection

The trip I had in mind for 2024 was centered ‘in the shadow of Mont Ventoux’. 3 nights in Gordes, ride to Mazan and spend 2 nights there, then pedal to Malaucène and spend 3 nights in the village where Stoker and I rented a house for a month 3 years running. Several of us extended the Malaucène stay by 4 nights. Since Stoker and I used to spend a month there without getting bored I figured we had plenty of riding options without repeating ourselves.

The rides were to include a couple of my Malaucène favorites, with two metric centuries (100+ km, about 62 miles) circumnavigating Mont Ventoux,, a tour through the North Country via the Col de Fontaube and Brantes, and finally a climb up Le géant de Provence itself. With the extension we did 11 rides (in 12 days; one rest day) totaling 450 miles and 39,000 feet of climbing. Not as hard as some tours, but as my friend John says, ‘not nuthin’ either.

With this outline Gerry went to work putting together hotels and restaurants and cycling routes, and I got started on my job: recruiting guests to fill the tour.

I compiled a list of 14 potential riders. People on the list had to be people I knew and liked riding with. They had to be strong enough to do the tour without struggling. This was no problem since everyone I approached was a strong cyclist. They also needed some disposable income. 44|5 trips are really good values for what you get, but 3 and 4 star hotels and first class restaurants are not cheap.

I sent a few e mails and answered questions when people responded. My goal was to get 6 riders plus me for a total of 7. Seven is considered a ‘full’ 44|5 tour, since they have a 9 person van to accommodate the riders plus 2 guides.

I was kind of shocked that we ended up with 12 riders and one non-cycling spouse for a total of 13. I know Gerry was happy that the tour was going to be a winner financially but a group this large was going to require some extra work on his part: He would need a second van and a third guide to assist him. He pulled it off flawlessly.

I took on a few logistical issues myself. I booked my flight and helped another person navigate the Air France website, which can be a challenge. I arranged airport transportation to and from SFO for those of us flying on the same day. I also booked an airport hotel in Marseilles for some of us to stay in before our very early (6:30 am) flight home. I also answered a whole bunch of questions about the rides and the weather and the rental bikes and what to bring. This brief introduction to being a tour organizer convinced me it is not a career I would want.

Since everyone on this trip was there because of me, I felt responsible in case someone would not agree that these cycling roads were some of the best in the world. I wasn’t worried about 44|5’s part of the trip; I knew everything would be first rate. But people trusted me enough to do this trip mostly because I recommended it, and I am very happy to report that everyone, at one time or another, told me how great the trip was and how glad they were that they came along. Me too!

We had a wonderful time. The routes were superb, just as advertised. Delicious food and comfortable accommodations. The weather mostly cooperated. There was a bit of rain on one ride but it wasn’t a downpour and we could put the rain jackets away after just a few miles. There was never any really hot weather and riding temperatures were quite comfortable. Most important, the Mistral stayed away. The winds in Provence can be a real problem for cycling, but we only had light breezes to deal with.

Near the end of the trip, we started to consider what we could do for a reprise next year. 44|5 has a signature week long tour in the Cévennes, a mountain range in southwest France. I enjoy this tour so much that I have done it 4 times. My friend Jack has done it on three occasions. Gerry decided to start an ‘early interest’ list for June 2025, and he already has 10 people on it including Stoker and me. Stoker isn’t going to ride it on a tandem with me, but she loves the area and wants to return as my roommate. And she volunteered to wash out my shorts! “Greater love hath no woman”… Gerry, you best rent another van…

I leave you with some photos from our Perfect Provence trip. As Stoker says at the end of the videos we posted on Facebook from France “Au revoir!”