The Official Tour D'Laur

Bastille day, July 14th 2010, hereby goes down in Laura's Book of Epic Adventures. Like a typical Roach vacation gone astray, this day was not expected to be anything more than a leisure adventure through the surrounding area... However, the fate of this day was taken out of our hands, as one misfortunate event led to another. To get an idea of what I mean I will keep a running tally of those lost, hurt, or otherwise disheveled from the going ons of this day.

With train tickets to Beaune, a town to the south in Burgundy, we all left Wednesday morning to go for a bike ride through the vineyards of Beaune. With little packed in our bags other than baguettes, cheese, salami, wine and water, we set off on the travel on this beautiful, sunny day. However, once arriving to Beaune, it was realized that we were missing 4 students, as they did not get off the train at our stop and carried on into the next town (uh oh...4 down..)

So the 15, or so, of us continued on. Slowly, but surely we started on the trail, as we made many, many stops along the way due to a learning bike rider (not me, I'm from Davis). Luckily this young man had the determination to carry on despite his many falls, scratches, and running-intos and the positive energy to learn the hard way with a smile on his face.

The official Tour d'Laur

Once in the park of Beaune, we found the route through the vineyards and were quickly on our way through the Grand Cru and Premiere Cru Clos (sectioned off vineyard parcels) near Beaune, Pommard and Volnay. After a few hours of biking, picture-taking, gawking, and ooo-ing and aw-ing, we came upon the center of a deserted town and set up for lunch. With a fountain nearby, we took advantage of its cool water by jumping in and cooling off (which was not the least bit clean...but who cares?) By this point many of the members downed their 1 and 2 Liters of classy red wine in plastic bottles and were pretty amped to head back. Myself, not included in the drinking, was quite dehydrated by this point and searched out more water for the trip back.

Mark, Ryan, Krystal and Caroline enjoying the break before heading back

So we retreated in the direction that we came, but the ride back was a little trickier than the ride there for some. A little wobbly at the handle bars, a few lost their balance as we entered back into the vineyards, but everything else seemed to be going well. Just as we were making our way down the hills, the slope gradually increased to where we each were picking up speed and racing down the path. Spread out and of a safe distance from each other, no harm seemed possible as I angled forward on my bike to gain more speed. Just ahead of me, as I rounded the corner, I am forced to squeeze my breaks as I noticed three bikes parked directly in the path and one of the girls from the group lying on the cement as two other's looked on.

As I stopped, all I hear is "I'll call 911" as another girl takes off into town, and the rest of the group began to circle around the scene. A local woman runs toward our group and mentions that she is a doctor as begins to examine Connie. I step back to give her and the others room, but stay near to help in any way. I find out that Connie was the first to go down the hill, and hit the large bump in the road and did a 180 flip off her bike and fell head first on the ground. Luckily she is conscience through it all, but she is quite dizzy, numb and in pain. As she most likely suffered a concussion, the ambulance comes to take her to the hospital and check for any damage. Along with Connie goes one of her good friends, Kayla, and Caroline, as the French-English interpreter (3 more down...)

Our misfortunate event

With more bikes than people, we were thankful to get the help of a local man who offered to take them in his truck to the rental company. With him went Professor Lapsley...and another student who was too drunk and sick to ride her bike (...2 more down)

Once this catastrophe passed, the rest of us realized that a storm was setting in, and we desperately needed to start back before it hit. Not even 5 minutes after getting on our bikes, the clouds became darker and more luminous as bolts of lightning shot to the ground just off to our left near the vineyards. Exhilarated and a little worried, I made sure to wait for the last of the group to go and fought my way in the rain and the thunder. Never before in my life had I seen a storm so beautiful and dangerous. Like biking through a twister the winds picked up and swirled around us as we biked in the dark. With the group once again split up, I entered into town with two other guys but we were confused about our next turn. Luckily one more guy came after us and told us to turn around and make the next left.

Following his orders we flipped around, soaked to the core, and biked back to the intersection. Just as we approached the stop sign, a booming cracking noise went off to the right of us, not even 10 meters away. We biked faster, despite our shock, as a HUGE tree collapsed in the street behind us. Taking up the entire road, the tree laid in the spot we had been just moments before. We realized that each of us just barely scraped by as we looked at the tree lying there, our hearts pounding, as we thanked our lucky stars.

Realizing that we were still in danger by riding metallic objects in the lightning storm we continue onto the bike-rental. While we expected to be the last of the group, we find out that we are the first 4 of the 5 to make it back. The middle group had some how also gotten lost along the way. By this point, I was like "Shit! Can it possibly get worse!?"

Luckily, after running around in search of them and returning once more to the bike rental we come to find out that they all made it back While they are all in one piece, they definitely had their fair share of scratches and bruises. One guy had flew off his bike, over the handle bars, along the way as he raced to catch up with the guy in the lead and had scratches all up and down his body. Another girl had popped her pinky out of joint and back into place as she also fought her way back. While I was lucky enough to get by with no scratches, I was definitely shivering with the rest as we returned to the train station. Wanting nothing more to return to our dorm for showers we were all greatly disappointed to wait two hours to get home as many tree branches had fallen in the railways and needed to be picked up.

The rain storm at the train station (unfortunately I was unable to capture the storm in the vineyards on my camera but will have some of me on facebook thanks to other brave souls :)

But, long story short we all made it back that night, Connie recovered alright, and we all fell asleep early after rejoicing our return with a glass of wine.

Cheers to bearing the worst and celebrating the best!