Riding on the back of the tandem frees up my hands to take photos, so here are a few from our july 20th 08 trip with SMUS - our local bike club.
The trip left St. Maur and the SMUS house around 8:30 a.m. on a cool Sunday morning. We started out with a bang - literally as we blew our front tire just 5 minutes into the trip. As 25 cyclists looked on, Pat changed the tire with the help of several of our SMUSards.
Our travels took us through the Bois de Vincennes and past the velodrome and Chateau Vincennes. Then we stopped for coffee just before the Bastille and across the steet from the Paris Aquarium.
As we remounted and rolled past Bastille, we headed down Rue de Rivoli and towards the Tour of St. Jacque, now newly reopened. From there we went towards the Place de Vendome and then through the gates to the Louvre, where we paused only briefly. There was a lot of construction as the building of Paris Plage was underway and a lot of red lights! The traffic wasn't too bad however as it was still early-ish on a sunday morning.
We headed towards Musée d'Orsay and out around Hopital Invalides and the beautiful gold dome of Napoleon's tomb, then right by the Rodin Museum where folks were lined up around the block for the last day of the Camille Claudel exhibit. The snaking line of cyclists rolled between the Grand Palais and Petit Palais and then turned right down the Champs d'Elyseé towards Place de Concorde.
We finished our tour at the SMUS house with a cold lunch and cake for one of our most frequent riders in the 100 km or more group (that's per ride) -- Roget, who was celebrating his 84th birthday.
