PBP 2007 Fini
Page: 10
Around dawn the road flattens a bit. A bunch of riders are
helping a crash-victim who lies face-up, motionless, at
roadside, covered in a space blanket.
Villaines-la-Juhel—my favorite!
Just after 8am, we arrive at the first time-control
checkpoint, Villaines-la-Juhel (222km)—my favorite
control. Though we pass through countless thousand-year-old
French towns, most of the controls are in larger and more
modern communes. Villaines-la-Juhel is a beautiful example of
the former (the only control town NOT located on a national
road), and though its population barely tops three-thousand,
you'd swear every single inhabitant must be volunteering or
just cheering the cyclists on at the control. Serving as both
the 222km and 1002km control, Villaines-la-Juhel opens on
Tuesday at 3am and closes at 11pm on Thursday. In 2003 I passed
through Tuesday morning and very late on Thursday, yet the
volunteers and onlookers always greeted us with the greatest
hospitality.
Villaines-la-Juhel
(Photo by Jean-Julien Kraemer)
In Villaines I saw Gainesville RBA Jim Wilson, met up
with Jerry and Branson just after checking in (somebody lay
down and closed their eyes and was immediately roused by an
official who directed us toward the dorms) and ran into J.D.
who suggested a brief nap—what a great idea! If we
sleep for one hour, when we wake up it will still be morning
and we can trick our minds into starting a new day!
Volunteers bring us blankets, we hang our rain-soaked
clothes, and they write our wake-up times on little slips of
paper and tape those to the floor at the foot our mattresses.
Copyleft © 2007 Adrian Hands.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or
modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free
Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version
published by the Free Software Foundation
