The Cycling Tour – Part 1: Puncture

The tyre went with a bang on a quiet stretch of river road, and Hannah swore in three languages.

She stood in the dappled shade of an avenue of plane trees, holding her bike, looking at the flat. The Loire flowed past, wide and slow and golden. A château rose on the far bank, pale as a wedding cake. It was twenty miles to the nearest town, and she had never mended a puncture.

A white van pulled up behind her, and a man leaned out of the window.

"Problème?"

"A flat."

"Ah." He climbed down. He was thirty-five, lean and sunburnt, in a cycling jersey and shorts, with a shaved head and a crooked grin. "Pascal. I guide the tours. I have a spare. And a group of eight Americans who need a rest."

Behind him, eight tired Americans spilled out of the van and flopped onto the verge. Pascal knelt by her bike. In four minutes he had the wheel off, the tube replaced, the tyre pumped. His hands were quick and brown.

"There. You are saved."

"Thank you. I owe you."

"A coffee in the next village."

The next village had a café under a canopy of roses. They sat at a small iron table, and Hannah, thirty-one, an English teacher on her summer break, found herself telling this stranger about her divorce, her job, the way she had cycled out of her life with a map and a thermos.

"And you?" she asked.

"I guide the tours because I love the road," said Pascal. "But I miss being alone on it."

"I can ride alone."

"I know. I watched you. You ride very well."

"Can I ask you something?" said Hannah.

"Yes."

"Is it very inappropriate to keep bumping into my tour guide?"

"I'll keep going slowly," said Pascal.

"Green?" she said, a traffic light.

"Green," said Pascal, grinning. "Very green. Tomorrow, the château of Chenonceau."

Continue the story: Part 2 – The Last Bend.