Back in Paris...

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, my cell phone ran out of juice so I had to wait until we got back to the hotel and got some sleep.

Becky is till out there riding! She missed one time cut off but they told her she could keep going so we don't know if she's going to be officially cut because of that or if it's okay. I guess we'll see when she arrives in Paris but either way she will have ridden 750 miles!!! She's amazing... and a bit delirious right now too. She's not riding alone, it's just a battle against the clock now. They had some time to make up.

The weather has been miserable, wet and cold almost the whole time. I think we've seen the sun for a total of 5 hours in the last 90 hours.

The DNF (do not finish) rate it SO high. As of 2 nights ago 1,000 of the 5,000 riders had quit and that was before 2 more nights of rain.

Verson is about to finish any min! We've been providing some support for him when we see him. He's going to be hurting for a while, this is just so bad. At some point yesterday he looked at me and said, "you know I don't think the body is meant to do this." I made some kind of "no shit" comment. I didn't have to try this to know that!

Yesterday in the car was a bit more cramped because we had Marlene's bike but it was more entertaining because we had Marlene. At one of the checkpoints when we knew we had hours to wait we found some wine and food and broke into it in the car. As we were sipping our 3 euro bottle of wine from little plastic cups one of the officials directing traffic looked at us and shook his finger as if to say, "that's bad" We were caught red handed. Oops! Then we offered him some and he immediately gave up his job directing cars, bikes, and pedestrians to join us... and then one of his comrades joined us too. They spoke little English but it was easy to understand what they were saying. They had been working for hours and hadn't slept much. We made quite the scene with all the people standing around, it was fun.


Later as I was walking up into the control to find Becky I saw our new friends again. One of them, Joseph, offered me his arm and then paraded me around showing me off to all of his friends. It was clearly the highlight of his day and it was hysterical, he was like a giddy school boy who just got a date with the most popular girl. They bought Marlene and I drinks and we sat around and chatted a bit. Me speaking little French, them speaking little English but I followed most of the conversation and the language barrier wasn't much of a barrier.

Now there's just to get these riders finished and rested. We didn't get much sleep over the last few days. We took turns driving and sleeping in the car. All of us got a bit cranky at some point but we handled it well. It's going to take us a few days to recover.

I think it's time for another nap.

-Sheryl





Marlene is doing great, and she feels good about her decision:













I guess a little chocolate is good for the soul.