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With the fixie to Morocco #1: A start with obstacles

Jonathan Perraudin und Christoph Zuidema

1.9.2018

Translation: machine translated

After the last test, Jonathan and Christoph are drawn out into the world. Not on an all-inclusive holiday to the Canary Islands, but to Morocco pretty much without anything: just with their fixies and light luggage. Here they report on their experiences.

Our first days in numbers: 370 kilometres, 2000 metres of altitude, 4 kebabs, 10 pain au chocolat, approx. 24 litres of drinks, 1 kilo of jelly babies. Optimal nutrition after optimal preparation, which is the key to a successful trip. After Christoph's final exams, we have exactly four hours left, then it's off to Geneva on platform 7. From there we are in the saddle and the two longest stages of our journey begin straight away. Speaking of perfect planning: Jonathan has forgotten to pack his cycling trousers.

After the first few kilometres, we meet two fellow sufferers, Jaques and Olivia. Equipped with saddlebags and touring bikes, they scrutinise our equipment with a critical eye. But we don't have time for such comparisons. As we would never make it to Morocco at their walking pace, we shift up a gear (at least mentally).

The rescue by Louise

We keep looking for drinking water on our journey. And in the Rhone Valley. As beautiful and idyllic as the French village landscape is, the locals were too consistent with our plan and banned all supermarkets from their villages. After an hour on dry land, we catch sight of Louise. She is sitting on a park bench and mesmerises us with her beauty like a siren with her song. After a few words and the comment that it was already far enough from her small village to this slightly larger village where she works as a hairdresser, she says that the village shop is only 50 metres further along the road. We can hardly believe that we have overlooked it. Louise probably also realises that these two strangers are a little too focused.

On a kebab diet

As we are on a rather sporty holiday on the first day, we drive until dark and only find one Turkish gourmet restaurant that is still open. The house speciality "kebab" proves to be perfect after an exhausting day.

The next morning, we get up at the crack of dawn (9am), buy Jonathan a pair of cycling shorts and leave this cultural desert behind us to tackle the first climbs, which we are not up to.

Better to be good on foot than bad on a fixie.

The professor serves coffee

Soon enough, it's time to eat again. We two naïve people thought we could escape the academic world, but in Thierry and his daughter's café it's all over. He was a professor for twenty years and then decided to open a café in honour of his mother. Instead of tormenting students with education, he now makes his fellow human beings happy with coffee. We must have made a rather sorry impression, because at the end he offers to fill our water bottles - including ice cubes. The man knows how to make cyclists happy!

Thierry and his daughter build us up again.

Studying is finally worth it

After finally arriving in Provence, we have a day off. How about a little recovery ride up Mont Ventoux? Well... we gave it a go and followed our offline sat nav. But, what can we say, somehow we ended up on a lake with the wakeboard.

Speaking of fails: this trip hasn't been completely mishap-free so far. For the second time in our lives (the first time was to make the grandparents proud), we were able to put our mechanical engineering skills to good use and mend the rear wheel of Christoph's bike.

What else happened:

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With the fixie to Morocco #7: Land in sight!
by Jonathan Perraudin und Christoph Zuidema

How it came about that Jonathan and Christoph report on their experiences for Galaxus, you can find out here. [[marketingpage:8622]]

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Jonathan Perraudin und Christoph Zuidema

aurel.stevens@gmail.com

We're setting off from Zurich this summer, trying our hand at skidding with fixies, racing over mountain passes and not stopping again until we've reached the beach in Morocco.

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