The Pain au Chocolate Postulate

Nice, Provence – Bastia, Corsica, France

Well, after Mission Impossible and our late dinner we managed to board our 11:45 p.m. red-eye ferry without an issue. Kind of remarkable because a) we have a pretty poor track record with ferries generally, and b) lately we’ve had a really difficult time with online ticket purchases. 

It’s like buying tickets to sports competitions. You make the purchase, but then, after you pay you need to actually get the tickets. Not so easy. They have to email or text you a verification code, and, only after you receive that can you receive your tickets. No verification code, no tickets. 

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had some incredibly stressful moments trying to track down tickets that I purchased this way. Last time I went to a Twins game I made the mistake of buying the tickets online rather than through a ticket agent. I made it to the game – but I’ll just say that I don’t think people over 50 are meant to purchase things this way . . .

Add in the complexity of being in a foreign country where you might or might not receive text messages and emails, and where all the already-confusing instructions are not in English, and it’s a recipe for frustration and anxiety. 

Nonetheless, Diana figured it out, we boarded the ferry and enjoyed a nice quiet night’s sleep in the little cabin we had for the evening. Not that we had one in our room, but it was like a widow into the world of tour boats generally . . .

When we biked off the ferry into Corsica yesterday morning we found ourselves in an amazingly beautiful place. 

Very few people around.

Verdant green.

Snow-capped peaks. 

Lush valleys.

Way beyond on expectations. 

Tons of bikers out here. Many of them bike touring around the island. And at least half of them on e-bikes. 

Which is my main topic of the day . . .

Now, there are lots of opinions about electric assist bikes. But I don’t want to quibble about who thinks what . . . It’s just so subjective . . . I prefer to stick to the things that I objectively know. 😁

That’s why I have taken it upon myself to “scientifically” prove that e-bikes are dumb. 

To start our proof we need to establish a few fundamental facts that we can all agree on. Kind of like two points make a line in geometry. Or, with respect to the Bill of Rights, we find these truths to be self-evident. 

The Facts:

• Axiom No. 1: Pain au chocolate are the greatest and most important food group in the world.
• Axiom No. 2: Unless significant calories are expended, ingesting too many pain au chocolate is not good for your health 
• Axiom No. 3: Riding an e-bike means expending significantly fewer calories than riding a regular bike. 

From there we can derive the important theorems of the day. 

So let’s get started . . .

Because, according to Axiom No. 1, pain au chocolate are the greatest and most important food group, eating more pain au chocolate is a good thing. But in order to eat more pain au chocolate, it is necessary to expend more calories. (See Axiom No. 2). Now, in order to expend more calories, Axiom No. 3 tells us that it is necessary to ride a regular bike. 

Therefore, ergo, it goes without saying, that regular bikes are better than e-bikes and should be ridden at all times – lest you are forced to forego pain au chocolate. 

We all know that this is a fate worse than death . . . A life without pain au chocolate is grey and colorless. Without it, there is no reason to drag oneself out of bed in the morning. 

Just sit there and stare at the grey walls in the grey world . . .

No one wants to live in a grey, colorless world. It follows that e-bikes are dumb. 

And there you go . . .

Seriously, we have been seeing a ton of e-bikes. I bet 60% of the bikes we saw on Corsica were of the e variety. And we saw a lot of bikers. 

And I will say that I’m really not a huge fan. They’re basically quiet, slow motorcycles. In fact, if they were called e-motorcycles I would have no problem with them. But when you call them e-bikes – that’s where the trouble begins . . .

Bicycles are this amazing analog device. With a few simple wheels they allow you to multiply your own power several-fold. No electronics. No computers. No plug-ins. No batteries. Just you and your wheels and your gears. 

Yes, there are a few people who have been lured by the siren of electronic shifting. I really don’t get the attraction. I love the sense that you can disconnect from electronics and computers for a little while when you jump on your bike. Don’t we all get enough of the whole electronic/meta world as it is? A little refuge from the modern world – where there is no chance for an error message, or a text or email you didn’t get. Or, worse yet, of the battery running out.

Why wreck that sense of peace just for a little bit smoother gear shifting – as if gear shifting were some big problem normally . . .?

Anyway, my point is that e-bikes ride the coattails of regular bikes – trading off of the simplicity that attracts people to them – but then they introduce all this complexity – Zen-killing complexity . . .

And then there’s the hard-work hypothesis. This is the idea that you are actually going to enjoy your ride more if you make it happen yourself. Yes, you work hard to reach the top of the hill – but when you get there you feel an immense sense of satisfaction. 

Not so on an e-bike . . .

In the end, I think there’s going to be an awful lot of e-bikes sitting in people’s garages in a few years collecting dust. Because sugar-highs never last that long, and reaching the top on an e-bike doesn’t provide the same sense of satisfaction that a regular bike does.

Alright, I’m done with my rant. 

And if you own an e-bike, don’t worry. It’s all good. I totally understand. They seem so great . . .

But I need to get on to Corsica itself . . .

Beautiful. Stunning. Dramatic. Wild. Tremendous. 

What a great place for a bike trip! 

A little bit more on this Mediterranean island . . . I guess it used to be the (property of?) the city-state of Genoa – a city-state because, after the fall of Rome it took a really long time for the Italian Peninsula to re-coalesce into one country. 

Anyway, sometime around 1760 France ended up taking over Corsica.

So when Napoleon was growing up – right around that time – I think he spoke Italian because that had been the prevailing tongue – but Corsica was officially part of France. My understanding is that later he was always self-conscious of his accented French . . .

Big chunks of the island are held in reserve now. No towns. No sheep or cattle or crops. Just unspoiled mountains. Tremendously beautiful. And they are perfect biking mountains – tons of return on very little investment in terms of sights to behold versus effort to get there. 

Love it!

We met two women – biking on human powered bikes – from Belgium – Zoe and Leen (Lynn in American . . .). Leen lives in Southern France now. They are childhood friends who get together once per year for a bit of traveling. They’ve hiked Corsica before – but this is their first time cycling. They seemed to be cruising along pretty good. 

The campground we stayed at was “interesting” in a very Minnesota sense of the word. No toilet seats. No toilet paper. Really?!? They had barbecue grills but don’t allow wood in the grills. What?!? Only option? Pay them for charcoal. Ten Euro – $12 – for one little bag. Highway robbery! And then, to finish it off, there was some kind of sonar noise that started at about 10 p.m. and kept going until about 4 a.m. 

But, whatever. It was great to cook – steak, green beans and tomatoes, grilled potatoes and onions, a bottle of wine. It’s enough to make you forget all the other problems with the place . . .

Well, that wraps up our time in France. Went quick. Many pain au chocolates – I’m estimating I ate about 37 of them during our brief stay . . .

On to Italy . . . We’ll be starting out in Livorno, we’ll ride through Pisa, before spending a few days in Florence – one of the few places on this trip that we’ve been before. We loved it then. Hoping we’ll love it again now. 

And then from there we cross the mountains to Ancona – where we’ll take yet another ferry to Croatia. Home of Game of Thrones . . . 

Oh, Mission Impossible. It was actually good – or, rather, entertaining anyway – which was pretty surprising to me. Never been a big fan of action movies, but Tom Cruise knows how to keep you interested. 

And dinner? I’m not sure we out-Frenched the French – but we did enjoy a late dinner before our ferry.