A Dream Come True

Oh what a perfect day, I’m glad I spent it with you

Lou Reed

Back in 1972, I used to sit behind Carole Brennan in our ninth-grade French class. We were both national champion speedskaters, but I could always tell that she was much more into her other sport—in which she excelled equally. Carole was a bicycle racer at heart who passed the wintertime skating because the two sports went hand in hand back when we were kids in the 60’s and 70’s.

She was a great skater, but she could really fly on a bike.

I can’t say that Carole hated my guts, per se, as “hate” is maybe too strong of a word, but loathing, and detest, and disgusted would all be terms that would accurately portray how she felt about me. And because we were both from Berkley Michigan, and because both of our single mothers were poorly paid public schoolteachers who had to pool expenses and means of travel, Carole and her two sisters were forced to spend pretty much every single weekend around me from early November to late April. From 1967 to 1975.

Carole was a serious, mature person, while I was an insufferable clown. Carol was a studious, straight-A student and I was a lazy C+/C- underachiever. Even as speedskaters, Carol trained much harder than I ever did, as she had a work ethic that put mine to shame.

Carole was an especially excellent student in 9^th grade French class but as for me—early in the first semester the term “une petite woodchuck” turned up in some lesson or another, and I totally fixated on it. Subsequently, every quiz or test we took, no matter what the question was, my answer was une petite woodchuck. Other than that, I was completely clueless and never learned a single thing.

This earned me a solid D- in 9^th grade French class, as well as providing yet another of the 10,374 reasons why Carole Brennan considered me to be a complete fucking jerk.

“Une petite woodchuck,” Carole would hiss at me derisively, “what is wrong with you?”

So, because of all the above as well as the fact that I took great pleasure in driving her crazy, that I was assigned to sit behind her was an absolute affront. She knew what was going to happen, and it did. I irritated the shit out of her every day, and never more so than when I would lean forward, look over from behind her, sometimes even placing my chin on her shoulder, and scan the bicycle racing newspapers that she would often read during the idle moments when she finished the classroom assignment long before the rest of us.

Being that it was 1972, the bicycle rags were printed in black and white, and usually featured Eddy Merckx, a Belgian bicycle racer who until this year was unanimously considered to be the “greatest of all time.” Merckx’s Tour de France exploits were so epic that they even reached America—despite all but a very few two-wheel zealots being in the absolute dark about European bike racing. Monsieur Merckx’s nickname was “The Cannibal,” and he won most everything back in those days, and I loved reading about him even though, unlike Carole Brennan, I stopped bicycle racing by the time I was twelve years old.

But my freeloading on Carole’s bicycle paper was still another reason for her to detest me with all her heart, both because of my grossly intruding upon her personal space and because I was so cheap that I pirated her paper instead of getting my own.

Still, she must have had a small, probably microscopic soft spot in her heart for me because despite my annoying intrusions in French class, she never got me in trouble, at least overtly.

“Don’t touch me,” she would whisper so that the teacher couldn’t hear.

“What is wrong with you,” she’d continue.” “I hate you!  Buy your own magazine!”

But why would I? I was killing two birds with one stone: I was bugging the hell out of Carole Brennan, and I was reveling in the excellence of Eddy Merckx as well as learning about—and coming to love the Tour de France.

—

There’s a time and a reason

You could go a long, long way

And for you, it’s so easy

Yeah, and it’s your lucky day

And you know you have a thousand

Things in front of you

Doin’ anything you like and takin’ it easy

Is all you ever need to do

And you know it’s true and you never wanted anything

You’re a lucky guy,

Oh, you’re a lucky guy,

Oh, you’re lucky

—   The Muffs

I was the luckiest guy I know yesterday.

I have been dreaming of seeing the Tour de France in person since I was fourteen years old, and at long last, but not too soon and not too late—I finally did it. Yesterday, and I’m not exaggerating, was one of the greatest days of my life. Everything about the Tour de France was as perfect as I ever imagined it—and even more. The energy, the crowd, the pomp and circumstance, the Paris sights, the weather, the racing—I have dreamt of being a part of it every summer for over 50 years.

Up until yesterday, I watched every minute of every stage of this year’s racing on television while I was back in Minneapolis, and then I spent most of the rest of the afternoon reading everything I could online regarding what I had just watched. I was supposed to attend a couple of the middle stages in person, as back last winter when they announced the Tour route, I immediately reserved a motel room in two of the towns they were to go through—St. Cyprien and Bergerac, as in Cyrano de. Both feature some of the best red wines to be found in the whole world and I especially love Bergerac, having spent a couple of weekend getaways there by myself, hiking the French-style beautiful, dusty old streets, and sampling their most excellent vin rouge.

Anyway, I was supposed to go, that is, until I contracted a healthy dose of the cyclospora that has been sweeping the U.S.A.—which forced me to cancel. Repeatedly shitting my pants was not the condition that I wished to be in during my first-ever Tour de France—and so with great sadness and disappointment I had to let it go.

But then, this past Thursday while I was watching and thoroughly enjoying one of the best French Alps stages ever, my sweetheart commented, “we should just go.”

“Don’t say that twice,” I replied as I sat there watching Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia), Paul Seixas (France), Remco Evenepoel (Belgium), Richard Carapaz (Equador), and Issac Del Toro (Mexico) battle it out going uphill at 10,000 feet.

“No Hon, we should go,” she said.

I was uneasy about the “controlling my bowel” situation, but it seemed like I was finally getting the upper hand….

So here I am, the morning after one of the best days of my life, sitting in my favorite café in Paris, Le Recepteur, writing about things that I love, and recognizing that despite being a lifelong scofflaw asshole, I am nonetheless blessed to be an extraordinarily lucky guy.

—

Standing on the Pont de la Concorde with the River Seine passing by underneath us, Rachel and I ended up with an excellent vantage point for viewing the final stage of the 2026 Tour de France—as well as the exquisite beauty of Paris proper. Pogačar and company rode directly by us seven times, and we could also see them go by in the distance on the other side of the Place de la Concorde—on their way back to the Arc de Triomphe. Originally, I had planned for us to make the morning trek up to Montmartre where the real racing took place, but it was just as well that we opted to stay on the less crowded section of the race—the crowds on Montmartre were nuts! And packed in 15 deep!

If we had made it up to Sacré Coeur, I would for sure have joined in, excessively, gotten drunk, and made an ass of myself—which is so unlike me. Therefore, we were in what for us was a perfect place to watch the incredible racing, during what must be one of the more perfect days in Paris, weather-wise. All of France has suffered from an epochal heatwave for the entirety of this year’s Tour and the riders suffered greatly for it, but yesterday was the opposite: 75 degrees, partly cloudy, with a cooling breeze.

As the 2026 Tour concluded Pogačar joined the very exclusive “Five-Time Tour Winner” club. Tadej pretty much owned the whole race for the entire 21 days, to the point that even the great Eddy Merckx himself conceded that his crown as professional bike racing GOAT was passing to the 28-year-old Slovenian. And just yesterday, Merckx went so far as to suggest that Pogačar might someday win all three grand tours: The Giro de Italia; The Tour de France; and the Vuelta (the Tour of Spain)—in the same year. There have been some great bicycle racers in the last century-plus, with Merckx at the top of the list—but no one, including the seemingly unbeatable Eddy Merckx, has even tried that one….

Until Tadej Pogačar, the three-tour conquering was considered as plausible as swimming unassisted across the Atlantic Ocean. Now it appears to be just a matter of time. It is pretty much an undeniable fact that Pogačar is invincible for as long as he wants to be—and during the last three weeks he proved it yet again.

That’s not to say, however, that there weren’t some other great bike racers in this year’s Tour, as well as some compelling racing for the prizes other than overall winner. Many of the individual stages were full of competitive excellence, and the final stage on the Champs-Élysées, won by Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands), was as thrilling a finish as any that I have ever seen.

And van der Poel is no slouch himself—winning some of the most prestigious one day races in bicycling, including world championships in road racing, cyclo-cross, and gravel—and he fully intends to add a mountain bike world championship to his ever-growing list of extraordinary achievements.

But all the above are analytical opinions. Interesting to bicycle racing fans maybe, but my pontificating about the Tour details and competitive bicycling in general is most likely becoming tedious reading for anyone who has never followed professional bicycle racing. So, let’s skip on and beyond any more of that and move back to what really matters about yesterday.

Emotion.

I was giddy to the point of shrieking fanboy status as I watched the race go by each of the seven times. My face was frozen in an uber-happy ear to ear grin—at least it felt like it. In truth, my smile was as much as my 69-year-old, weathered-to-petrified face could manage, and to an observer I probably looked like I was grimacing more than facially expressing happiness. But inside I was a bundle of soaring joy.

My heart was a flutter! My stomach was tied into gleeful knots, and my mind raced through every permutation of “THIS IS INFINITELY COOL” that my equally petrified brain could muster!

I felt like I had just won the mega-lottery, discovered the Fountain of Youth, really figured out the meaning of life, brought about world peace, and lost 200 lbs.—all in the same moment that Mathieu and Tadej raced by.

My niece Jennifer—actually she's my cousin but I prefer to think of her as my niece—anyway, my niece Jennifer says that I look happy, as in young boy happy, in this photo. I was young boy happy, fulfilling the dream of a lifetime. That's Tadej Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel just over my shoulder, by the way, breaking away just before the penultimate final lap race to the finish on the Champs-Élyssées. Van Der Poel would win, and for those who might not be familiar with professional bicycle racing names, seeing the two of them go head-to-head is like watching the last Ali/Frazier fight, or Ruth and Gehrig batting in succession in the World Series, or Tom Brady completing a pass to Jerry Rice in the Super Bowl, or Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell battling it out in the NBA Championship game.

—

Near the top of my long list of life’s regrets, is my not becoming a bicycle racer, instead seriously pursuing a couple of other sports. I wouldn’t have ever been a decent road racer, as even when I was at my skinniest, most buffed out-y-est, I was still too big to handle a mountain or even a big hill while racing a bicycle. But I think I could have been pretty okay on a velodrome, and I might have been good at urban circuit criteriums, which are mostly flat.

I even had good friends who were themselves highly accomplished bike racers—Eric Heiden, the Barczewski Brothers, Leigh and Les, the Brennan Sisters, Eileen, Carole, and Janie, Sue Novara Reber, and my Berkley High School classmate, Rick Denman—to name just a few. I wish I would have followed them into riding bikes, competitively, but at the time I was in the “middle of it” with Olympic aspirations as a speedskater and at the same time hoping to become a winning Division I collegiate runner.

Plus, there were some ego conflicts with the local bicycle coaches as well as my never-ending self-destructive war upon male authority, so I chose otherwise even though I really wanted to race bikes.

In the end, though, neither the skating nor the running pursuit panned out, and I ended up playing varsity lacrosse at Michigan State University before giving up sports entirely and turning, literally, to sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. I really sucked at lacrosse—I was by far the worst lacrosse player to ever earn a varsity letter playing MSU lacrosse, but at least I had fun.

For me, bicycle racing has always been the most beautiful, complex, fascinating, violent, elegant, and hardest of all—competitive sports. The 2026 Tour de France was the epitome of that statement as well as the old Wild World of Sports intro: “the thrill of victory”—Tadej Pogačar dominating it all, utterly, and exuberantly celebrating when a teammate won a stage as much, and even more so, than when he won himself; and “the agony of defeat”—American racer Sepp Kuss only a few kilometers from winning the hardest mountain stage of the whole tour—only to crash twice at over 50 mph within one minute, with his second dump seeing him smash into, and over a wall and into a section of safety netting, which was the only thing that kept Sepp from sailing hundreds of feet down a vertical cliff—to his certain death.

The sights and sounds of the Tour are an amazing thing to behold on a screen, let alone in person. A string of 160 riders, colorfully clothed, riding through an endless field of glowing sunflowers; the jet engine-level whirring of all those $15,000 bicycles tightly packed together, rolling by at 30 mph; a group of the most elite endurance athletes in the world, climbing a 35,000 foot mountain at a 10 to 15% grade, with the absolute intent of completely destroying each other until only one of them is left at the front, leaving the others to agonizingly melt into the unforgiving tarmac;  a line of riders death-defy-descending a steep, curvy, goat path-sized mountain road that has no barriers—at speeds that sometimes exceed 70 mph—where a car wouldn't consider going over 20.

The whole thing is enthralling, and yesterday I was suitably enthralled.

—

My recounting of this year’s Tour de France would be remiss if I didn’t include a report of our dinner that evening. As we left the Pont de la Concorde, we were still feeling the effects of our “Tour High,” so we felt that we just had to find a suitable establishment to toast our most wonderful experience. We settled on Le Lipp, which is a historic brasserie in the St. Germain section of the Paris Latin Quarter. Rachel and I had dined there before, and we loved it every time.

All the servers wear numbered brass pins on their formal dinner jackets, that denote their place of seniority among their fellow waiters. Being a server in Paris is a highly respected profession, and it isn’t uncommon to meet a server who has graced the same establishment for 50, and even 60 years. Most often, they are paid well, and the servers at Le Lipp take great pride in the food they serve, as well they should—because the food is exceptional.

Everything that came out of the kitchen looked amazing, but we did pretty good for ourselves and in the end, we wouldn’t have traded our plats with any of the other diners.

Our choices were great, the champagne was great, and the bottle of Chardonnay was great as well. Rachel and I kept looking at each other and wondering what we did to deserve such excellence, and luxury.

This dish, as translated literally from the menu, is called, "The Salmon Who Fell Onto a Bed of Spinach." My dear friend Charlene Beinenstock would never eat such a thing—the salmon eggs would literally send her running for the exit!

What was really great was our server who, after noting Rachel’s polka-dot Tour de France mountains-classification replica jersey, shared with us that he had once served the great Eddy Merckx, in the very same seat that Rachel was now sitting in. Our server told us that he did his absolute best to not go all gaga (me paraphrasing) and maintain his composure, as Merckx was his Number One Hero despite being Belgian. But he couldn’t contain himself to the point where it was too obvious, and Eddy, as he made his way to the Le Lipp WC, turned and winked at the star-struck waiter. Coming from the bicycle racing GOAT, our server said that for him it was “the wink of a lifetime,” and a moment that he will cherish for the rest of his life.

I already knew that Ernest Hemingway frequented Le Lipp often, stating in his book, A Moveable Feast, that he enjoyed the cheap yet delicious fare and the affordably priced wine, so me being me, knowing that Eddy Merckx also hung there set my overly fertile imagination over the edge.

As I savored my filet d’herang, I imagined sitting across from The Cannibal—the ever-gracious and humble Monsieur Merckx, as he regaled us with tales of his battles on l’Alpe d’Huez and tearing onto the Roubaix Velodrome yet again—minutes ahead of his nearest rival. All the while that Eddy was mesmerizing us with bike racing history, I was still able to look over his shoulder, and watch the ghost of Hemingway, folding into a large tray of raw oysters, and making short work of a carafe of Le Lipp house burgundy.

Even though they were only in my head, they were a group of moments, along with the whole day, that I will cherish for the rest of my life.

As we prepared to leave, I looked over at Rachel, who was still sitting in what will now and forever be Eddy’s Chair, and thanked her.

“This was a perfect day,” I said, with gratitude welling in my heart.

“Thanks for sharing it with me.”

This blog is dedicated to my friend Richard Denman. I’ve known a lot of bike racers, but none that equal the joie de vivre that Rick holds for the art of riding and racing a bicycle. Now in his late ‘60’s, he competed for decades and still goes on epic bike rides wherever life takes him.