I am a consummate planner. I love planning and swear this trait is bound genetically by many matriarchal generations. Part of what I do professionally requires me to think critically about and plan for disasters. Yes, that’s right -- plan for disasters. It all involves big words like contingency and mitigation and planning for worst case scenario.  The big “What if?” if you will.

Having this innate desire to control the uncontrollable, several weeks before this trip, I tried to wrap my cycling partner Lowell’s mind around doing some contingency planning. I had a lot of big “What if?” questions clouding my brain, and I wanted some amount of control over those issues that quite possibly could ruin this ride for us. Lowell, on the other hand, is more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kind of guy. For me, his attitude was rather annoying, as I heard for the umpteenth time, “I’ve done this trip three times, and nothing bad ever happens.” Uh huh. Famous last words. 

I left Seattle with lots of enthusiasm and optimistic about the journey that lay ahead. My expectations for the cycling portion of the trip had been set and my fears allayed. Fear about getting lost on a bike, not being a fluent speaker, being in a foreign country and not knowing the terrain were all part of the mental repertoire I played in my head for weeks before starting the journey.

After an uneventful flight from Seattle to Detroit to Paris, we finally landed 22 hours later at Charles de Gaille. Full of giddy anticipation to grab my bags and head to the train station for the 3 hour ride to Bordeaux, my lack of sleep was present but seemingly suspended by the tide of endorphins in my nervous system.

As we waited for our bags, I asked a multitude of questions about the trip to Bordeaux. Prepurchased train tickets gave us a nice long 2 hour layover at the station, so we had time to relax and take in a leisurely walk to the station which is within walking distance from the airport attached through long quite white corridors. We had all our bags, but one – Lowell’s bike bag. This bag contained not only his expensive road bike, new Syrium wheels (which cost nearly as much as my whole bike), the tent, all his cycling clothing, the charger for the cell phone, and miscellaneous can’t do without stuff.

Contingency planning – yeah, it would have been nice to have right about now. As all the familiar faces of fellow passengers faded from view, we stood alone between snaking baggage carousels – two people, a luggage cart with 4 bags, but only one bike. We stared at each other with a “now what?” glaze and then it started.

“If you didn’t talk me into taking a different airline this wouldn’t have happened” he said.

“Don’t be ridiculous” I said. “Luggage gets lost on all airlines. It was a matter of odds, you’ve done this trip 4 times; it was bound to happen sooner or later. What time did you get to the airport anyway?” I snapped back.

Immediately, we were both tense, irritable, on a “velo vacance” without a velo. We made our way to the claim office and filed a claim with a beautiful brunette agent that looked like a model for Vogue. She explained that Air France would send out an APB for the delayed (no longer is luggage lost – it’s delayed) bike going to every major airport in the world. All of a sudden, my heart sank as I thought of Lowell’s bike, Isabelle, a beautiful black and pink Giant OCR TMobile frame with gorgeous new wheels sitting in a dark airport closet, missing the ride she has done for the past 3 years. Then my palms got sweaty at the prospect of having to ride foreign roads alone. All of a sudden I was wishing I practiced my French more.

It remained to be seen when the bike would appear the agent informed us. With large brown empathetic eyes, her chignon bobbed up and down as we fired questions at her in English and French. She told us most bags show up within 2 days but it could take longer, so we were welcome to come back to the airport tomorrow. We’re leaving for Bordeaux we begged. More bouncing chignon.  

All we could say was “Je comprend” – I understand.

I felt nauseous.