Pedaling Around the Pandemic
As almost everyone figures out at one point or another, it’s easier to follow society’s rules than to break them. Break them, and you can...
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My French Routes
Pedal forth with an open spirit and all manner of discovery shall be yours.
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Mark Smith
10 janv. 20202 min de lecture
Behind that Next Hedge: Le Moulin Roupsard
Normandy’s impenetrable hedgerows were a curse for advancing soldiers on both sides of WWII, but today they merely tease the curious...
169 vues0 commentaire
Mark Smith
7 nov. 20194 min de lecture
War Heroes
It doesn’t take armed conflict to produce danger and hardship. Just get on a bike and pedal. War will come to you. That’s what happened...
240 vues0 commentaire
Mark Smith
16 juil. 20193 min de lecture
Next Time
Is riding a bicycle around the backroads of France a good thing or bad? That depends on who’s doing the riding and when you ask them....
114 vues0 commentaire
Mark Smith
12 mai 20193 min de lecture
The Cycling Fisherman
Social life in a Norman fishing village is no sitcom. First, there aren’t many people on hand. Second, two-thirds of those who are live...
210 vues0 commentaire
Mark Smith
4 févr. 20195 min de lecture
Part-Time Pilgrims and Their Two-Wheeled Epiphany
At a dinner party in Paris a year or so ago, Roman friend Daniele Fano mentioned that he was planning to ride his bike along the Via...
91 vues0 commentaire
Mark Smith
2 oct. 20184 min de lecture
Where We Are Going
I’d have written this entry long ago if the only thing involved were a travelog about Kyrgyzstan. But that’s the last thing on my list....
77 vues0 commentaire
Mark Smith
27 mai 20184 min de lecture
When It Rains…Just Go Straight
There I’d been all worried about not finding a cycling partner because good ones are like haystack needles, when suddenly I had two. The...
55 vues0 commentaire
Mark Smith
12 mai 20184 min de lecture
My Kingdom for a Throne!
So Ann Henriksen and I struck a deal, and now there was much to do to prepare for the big Kyrgyz adventure. For weeks we’ve been...
137 vues0 commentaire
Mark Smith
25 mars 20183 min de lecture
DIY Adventure, or How a Total Stranger Lit a Fire Under My Lazy Ass
To find a suitable cycling partner is no cakewalk. One might think the promise of exotic adventure irresistible to any number of working...
150 vues0 commentaire
Mark Smith
3 mars 20183 min de lecture
Soggy Gauntlet and Beyond
If nobody ever told you, it rains in Paris, and rains. And when it ain’t raining, it’s gray. Residents take this state of affairs as...
67 vues0 commentaire
Mark Smith
5 janv. 20184 min de lecture
Cold Road to Anna
You needn’t travel far from Paris to see how the country towns and smaller cities of France are shrinking, their economies strangled by...
57 vues0 commentaire
Mark Smith
8 déc. 20172 min de lecture
Two Old Friends
One can’t speak. The other never stops. One is beautiful and functions perfectly. The other drinks too much and spews food while eating....
73 vues0 commentaire
Mark Smith
10 nov. 20173 min de lecture
When in Rome…or Sicily
Now that I think about it, one doesn’t tend to associate Sicilians with outdoor activities such as hiking, camping or mountaineering....
189 vues0 commentaire
Mark Smith
1 oct. 20173 min de lecture
Canadian Dirt Road Rhapsody
We live in a world of contrasts—a truth that shows its face in stark fashion when you get on a bike in a foreign land. Here in France,...
63 vues0 commentaire
Mark Smith
4 sept. 20173 min de lecture
At Home in the Cotentin
The idea that I might refer to a remote peninsula in northwestern France as “home” is puzzling to me. The place is 7,000 miles away from...
97 vues0 commentaire
Mark Smith
1 juil. 20174 min de lecture
Lost and Found in the Allier
On a bike it can happen that you arrive in places you don’t quite know how you found, and from which access back to those you do know...
61 vues0 commentaire
Mark Smith
3 mai 20173 min de lecture
Father, Daughter, Hill and Dale
Logic would have it that the greatest satisfaction comes from setting oneself gargantuan goals that somehow one manages to achieve—the...
127 vues0 commentaire
Mark Smith
19 avr. 20172 min de lecture
Old Friends Still Pedaling
If I reach back past the brambles of adult life to the tender simplicities of my teens, I get a choppy film, practically in black and...
57 vues0 commentaire
Mark Smith
21 mars 20172 min de lecture
No Pulling the Wool
I received a typically minimalist message the other day from bike pal Robert, a man of few words but some determination. The email...
83 vues0 commentaire
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