Fat Tire Paris

Author: ODB

Fat Tire Bike Tour at night through the streets of Paris. This was the best thing we did the entire trip. The company is owned by some Texans, and the tour is lead by some recent Texas A&M grads. Our guide was Max, and Max didnt give a fuck about the French. Max was awesome. We would crowd the one lane streets 20 deep, with goddamn Puegot’s going insane because they couldnt get by us. Max instructed us all to just ignore them, they were French so they could just suck one. We pedaled through the highlights of Paris, the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Champs-Elysees, the Seine, Notre Dame and a bunch of other old and famous French type shit.

It was a bunch of fat middle aged Americans, me, the wife, and two of her Kiwi countrymen who randomly signed up for the tour. I was asked to bring up the rear of the group, of which there were about 20, since there was only 1 guide and he lead the way and I looked like just the asshole to deal with the irate French. The idea was I could keep the heard from getting seperated and Max would always know where the end of the line was by spotting me. No one was supposed to get behind me. Well, about half the people could hardly pedal the damn bikes, and at least 3 of them repeatedly fell behind by doing stupid shit like stopping for yellow lights as the rest of the group went through and hitting the brakes every time a Fiat so much as got within 30 feet of them. I quickly tired of that bullshit.

Mind you, we are often going down 6 lane thoroughfares of Paris’s most trafficked streets, with crazy French assholes cutting us off, and pedestrians darting all over the joint. There is safety in numbers, but these bastards were strung out a few hundred yards apart, single file. Trying to keep a quarter mile of retards together while trying to take in the sites, all the while shooting the entire ride with my GoPro was nearly impossible. I eventually instituted a rule that if you cant keep the guy with the reflective vest (me) in front of you, you deserve to be left behind, and I stopped waiting on them every ten feet. Turns out, we lost 3 people at the Louvre, no kidding (sorry Max). Im sure it built character or something as they had to find their own way back. We eventually made it to the boat where the tour ended with a cruise through the Seine River with complementary wine. Me, 3 Kiwis, and all you can drink wine. The bike ride back to the Eiffel Tower after 2 hours of boozing down under style was an adventure itself. I highly recommend you do this if given a chance. Below are some pics from the trip.

 

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