May 2024

Manufacture Berthoud Cycles
Texte : Jean-Acier DANÈS

I'm in Fleurville, with my heart set on the summer ahead.

     I'm in Fleurville, with my heart set on the summer ahead.
   During the winter, everything I was doing was about maintenance: heart rate, power meter and head unit updates, happy rides where we held our breath and checked our bikes and fits.
   In May, we get together again. New peoples with whom we've become accustomed to riding over the winter become friends. The tweaks and adjustments we've hesitantly tried are beginning to show their worth: the big tires have found their perfect pressure, the gears and cogs on the cassettes and cranksets are lining up, and light hymns are playing in my headphones. Pleasure arrives like a leaf carried by the warm wind; less than a treadmill, summer is a reward to be cherished.

champs campagne à vélo en bourgogne

Photographic credit: © Philippe Marguet

    While in Fleurville at Berthoud Cycles, I met up again with the team at this Manufacture where I'm so happy to spend time. Since this diary pays tribute to landscapes, there are two that should not be forgotten: the one through the filthy window of the speeding train; a landscape of pink-tinted river arms, of wet meadows just emerging from their beds. It's 7 a.m., I'm on my way from Gare de Lyon to Manufacture Berthoud, and in my carriage to Le Creusot, people are working on their computers, proofreading documents, checking a lot of things I frankly don't understand, eyes squinting at an English-French presentation that uses useful, serious and often dull words. I sometimes have the habit of watching the platform at the end of the train, as if my bike were there (for once, I'm traveling without a bike). I'm light, with nothing but a small backpack and my phone: something's missing. I travel very much alone. I look around me, people are going about their lives and are indifferent, which must be the rule on public transport. The train bombs through the hills of central France, the landscapes give everything to grasp attention and to be looked at. Yet, a few rows ahead of me, embarrassed by the sun, a lady yanks on the window curtain. The aisle of seats darkens a little. I'm left with my piece of porthole.

    I savor the distant views of windmills and combed meadows with gravel passages. I can already hear them crackling under the tire sidewalls. In the train all I can hear is snoring and whispering, it's early and we're all together but anonymous. We've woken up early, in unison, to cross a stretch of country. If everyone in this carriage were on a bike, by now we'd already know each other's names, know bits of each other's lives, and be able to judge each other's “shape” by the way they ride, encourage others and move through the country. Nothing, but the train that carries me: I take back my night and my dreams in my hoodie.

paysage bourgogne à vélo

Photographic credits: © Philippe Marguet

    When I woke up, I thought of this sentence from Philippe (one of Berthoud's fairy godfather, who often comes across this diary):
“There are three stages in the life of a cyclist, the first steps without wheels [...] then the pride of the first few metres without hands, with the little tap of the pelvis on the saddle to orientate the free handlebars, and finally the first full night pedalling under the stars.”
At first I think he's right. Then I correct him. In my opinion, there aren't three stages in the life of a cyclist, but five: you have to add the first mountain pass you climb, and the step where, finding a perfect balance with your bike, through a kind of symbiosis, you start dreaming that you're crossing landscapes when you become bipeds again. I dream of ancient journeys, bathed in mist, and of golden villages in the early morning. I dream of the alchemy with this machine that multiplies us and on which we can feel so whole.

    I'm honoring a second landscape on arrival at the train station: the one announced by a big smile on the platform. Coming to La Manufacture is all about sharing your passion for cycling.
    Philippe escorts me to Berthoud from Le Creusot TGV through wonderfully quiet, undulating roads, which we pass through Saint-Gengoux and then Cluny. I love “roller-coaster” roads where there aren't many long, flat stretches. Every bend is an invitation to wander, to discover a new slope, to join avenues of trees and ride along paths through farmhouses. From time to time, we avoid a car by skimming the grass on the side of the road. And off we go again. The air is cold and tingling because it's early. A large roe deer jumps ahead of us, the sky at large has been rubbed with a fresh and zesty Cologne and the earth smells of hedgerows in bloom and shrubs budding. Names of places: Autunois, Côte Chalonnaise, Clunysois, Maçonnais, these roads are cradles for the vines, where every hour change delights the eye of the demanding herds, which wander from one hillside to the next.

    A few moments and a few belgian waffles later with Marjorie, Christophe and Frédéric, I'm sitting behind glass on a hometrainer that's fixed inside the Manufacture. Behind the overhead noise of the laser-cutting machine, which moves back and forth without a care in the world, I'm pedaling without moving forward, riding an ultra-adjustable weird kind of a bicycle, but my journey is immense: in my head, I'm looking forward to the millions of pedaling strokes that will come, to all the countries and feelings that this bike will allow me to discover.

champs en France près de fleurville à vélo

Photographic credit: © Philippe Marguet

    Standing in front of the bay window, I feel like I'm in a harbor master's office or a ship's cockpit, observing delivery trucks passing in the distance and listening to the sound of the train, immersed in the adventures to come and the sensations to be found. We are doing a bike fit, looking for an optimum performance, an ideal setting, an interaction between my body and a machine. It's thrilling to be the hamster spinning on the spot, to see your position and comfort change, to get closer to a natural rhythm. On the wall, a map of grape varieties in the area and glossy tool watch me. As I leave, I make a note in my notebook:

‘On my way back by train. Three facts, to lift your head, at 300 kilometers per hour:

- How difficult it is, at lunchtime, to choose your pizza in Pont-de-Vaux. So, the more people who visit the Berthoud team, the more the delicious pizzaiolo of Pont-de-Vaux will be able to work his dough like his humor (a joking character he kneads like his dough, every day, and adds a little hot sauce as he pleases).

- - That we all have our preferences, when it comes to sports equipment, for example. Not always good ones. It's a bit like going to see a doctor or pharmacist and proposing a diagnosis or asking for medication: it's so often a mistake. It's important to talk about a condition, to give a raw, unadorned account of what's going on, not to interpret, to let the analysis and advice come - not to be afraid to try. How often do you make a mistake when you think you know, how often do you bypass reality. I'm riding big tires now, the pressure has dropped to 4 bar and all the roads and curves have changed.

- - How good it is to learn to look at the lines of a bike: straight lines, diagonal lines, curves and serpentines, the clattering that you can feel, the rubber that shakes and the leather that develops a patina. Lines of life. Carbon bulges and spins between the legs.’

paysage bourgogne à vélo

Photographic credit : © Jean-Acier Danès

    The month is drawing to a close and I'm behind my screen, following the Giro finale. I see bikes that change and roads that hold surprises for even the most prepared. I think of the landscapes, passes, restaurants and factories I've yet to visit. And I get back in the saddle to ride fifty kilometers to Vincennes, rather than cooped up at home on a home-trainer. With the secret hope, perhaps, of stumbling across an unexpected marvel and knowing how to welcome it.

    Happy journeys to you all and see you soon, on this journal, for the June article. Before then, feel free to follow me on Strava or Instagram.

Jean-Acier DANÈS, auteur de Bicyclettres (Éditions du Seuil).

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