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We Are Recycling Our Old Bikes!
The Mobile Cycle Service - Exeter
Each year I have to wrestle with this logistics problem of getting a load of new bikes out to 5 separate depots in France and Italy.
This year we have to bring back about 50 old bikes that my mate Andy is going to sell through his new venture The Mobile Cycle Service in Exeter, in Devon, UK.
We’ve given lots of bikes away in the past, and taken loads more to French and UK dumps.
This might sound wasteful, but what do you do with them? When they’re more than a couple of years old, you have to bring them all back to a central location. That takes a week of solid driving, all day every day for a week in a big van.
Typically you take the wheels and pedals off for transportation, so when we’re back in the Loire Valley, there might be a pile of 30 bikes, all dirty, all too old to use again, all in bits. So even to sell them you have to clean them, re-build them, check them all out, particularly for cables, brakes, gears and major bearings.
And at the end of that, you’ve got a bike that you can sell. However you can sell it, it will cost you money, even if you put them on eBay or sell them for a commission through a shop.
If you’re doing a thorough job you can probably only do 4 bikes a day, tops. We have to get in spares - seat posts, saddles, bottom brackets, derailleur’s, brake blocks, cables. So to do 30 bikes properly is probably 2 weeks work - whereas building 30 new bikes straight out of the box is maybe 3 days work even if you’re the slowest mechanic in the world.
And I think we used to employ the slowest mechanic in the world as a guide - look - please don’t bother guessing, or tempt me into revealing.
So someone has to take a total of 3 weeks in France, with food and accommodation etc., and spend a few hundred pounds so that we can maybe get £3,000 for 30 old bikes. And I have no idea how to sell 30 bikes in France - getting them back to the UK is another £500.
Anyone who thinks that makes good sense needs to read through the previous paragraphs a bit more carefully and make a note every time money needs to be spent.
So we have a pile of bikes in a barn in the Loire Valley, courtesy of my brother and sister-in-law. Many of them have been completely done-up, literally from the bearings upwards, new bearings, new grease, cables, everything. And they’ve sat there for 3 years!
Old Bikes Get A New Life In Exeter
Cathedral in Exeter
This year, change of plan. Andy has started up a bicycle repair business in Exeter.
He’s picked up lots of work - it’s amazing how little people know about bike maintenance.
I don’t mean they need help replacing the headset, I mean the chain started clicking a bit in 3rd gear so the bike spends the rest of its life in the shed!
And lots of people want to buy a bike off him. One of the issues we had with our old bikes before was whose job was it to clean them, do them up, try and sell them? Mine. This year, Andy is going to take as many of our old bikes as we can drag back across the channel (sorry Andy, it’s a hell of a lot of bikes), fix them up and put Exeter on 2 wheels. Doing our bit for the environment, you might say.
That’s the theory, let’s see what happens. And if you live anywhere near Exeter and want one of the best bike mechanics I know to have a look at your bike, do email Andy at andy@mobilecycleservice.net
Square in Bordeaux
A Tour for Lovers of Wine
This was the 2nd tour that we designed. Running the Dordogne tour in 1997 awoke my interest in wine, and inevitably I started reading about the wines of Bordeaux, the greatest wine producing region in the world.
My first plan was to visit the main regions of Bordeaux wine production, namely, St Emilion, the Médoc, Haut Médoc, Graves, Sauternes and the vast but unsung vineyards of Entre Deux Mers.
Stephane and I set off driving around, stopping at hotels, reading wine books, buying armfuls of maps and visiting every Office Du Tourisme we could find.
Our original plan encountered problems. There’s nowhere to stay in Entre Deux Mers. All the roads that lead to Sauternes are too busy and horrible. And the biggest problem of all - Bordeaux’s in the way! It’s too big, there are bottlenecks caused by the Gironde and the two rivers of the Garonne and the Dordogne, and it’s just not nice to cycle there.
So we ended up going back to the drawing board. Stephane knew the area around Bergerac and Ste Foy as far as St Emilion. One look at St Emilion and I was hooked. It’s such a beautiful and atmospheric place, surrounded by very picturesque vineyards. And then we discovered the ferry that crosses the Gironde from Blaye to Lamarque in the Haut Médoc, and the whole route came together.
The Cleverest Bike Tour - The Best Wine Tour
Vineyards in Bordeaux
Of all of our tours, all 7 of them, Bordeaux is the cleverest - the one which took the most work, the most calculation and measurement, and the most visiting and organising.
And in 10 years I don’t think I’ve seen a better ‘wine’ tour anywhere.
Walking vineyard tours are no good for me, you just can’t travel far enough. And coaches really don’t do it for me! And on our trip we meet such a variety of winemakers, and taste such a variety of wines.
Bergerac
In Bergerac, the wines are simple, everyday wines, red, and white and rosé. But even within Bergerac, there are special nuggets to explore, like Pécharment, and the beautiful, deliciously sweet wines of Monbazillac.
The Outlying Vineyards of Bordeaux
Further down the Dordogne we stay in the Bastide of Ste Foy la Grande, home of Bordeaux Ste Foy, the most outlying of all the ‘Bordeaux’ vineyards. We cycle through Montravel, with its white and red wines, and more beautiful dessert wines, then through the Cotes de Castillon, again ordinary wines where the surprise is just how good some of the wines are, and how skilful and dedicated the vignerons, the winemakers.
Castillon is literally a road-width from St Emilion - it should be no surprise the wines are good, but they can’t put ‘St Emilion’ on the label - that means bargain time for you and me.
St Emilion
Then we’re on the climb to St Emilion and Pomerol, whose wines need no introduction.
Next we cycle through Fronsac, a historic pocket of quality on the right bank of the Dordogne, before cycling through the emerging appellations of Côtes de Bourg and Côtes de Blaye (if you’re interested, Bourg is usually considered slightly upmarket, but I prefer Blaye because I like Blaye and know some of the growers - so choose Côtes de Blaye!).
A shop in St Emilion
The Haut Médoc
By now we’re among the historic clarets of the Haut Médoc, the real heavyweights of world wine. People talk about Burgundy, and New World wines, but to paraphrase my Dad, no vineyard owner in the Haut Médoc ever woke up and wondered what it might be like to own a vineyard in the Napa Valley.
And finally we come down the quality scale a little with a day in the vineyards of the Médoc, historically known as the ‘Bas Médoc’, or low medoc, but they didn’t like the connotations, so simple Médoc it is.
A Totally French Wine Experience
It’s such a fabulous exploration of styles and prices and techniques of wine. Every single time we run the Bordeaux Winetrail it’s an education - and can you imagine a nicer classroom than the vineyards and tasting rooms of the Dordogne, St Emilion and the médoc? No, me neither.
