La Bicyclette en Rose

We wanted to walk in the woods, but a bicycle race blocked the looping road that led to the path. The riders sped past us, forty or fifty of them in a pack, in neon spandex, no sound except the whooshing of their spinning wheels and the gust of wind in their wake. A handful of spectators cheered them on.

Farther on we saw that a small festival was taking place, with a beer garden and food booths near the finish line, and a giant screen was set up in the amphitheater where, post-race, footage from the Tour de France would be projected into the balmy July night.

Loudspeakers blared jangly noisy atonal music, and my companion, newly versed in the particulars of French bicycle racing, said,

"Wouldn't it be better if they were playing a nice little French tune, like this —?"

He began to hum La Vie En Rose.

I imagined how a shift in the music would change this  scene dramatically, in this park where old growth firs still grow and eagles nest. And if I'd had the capability, I was feeling mischievous enough to shift it up myself — flip a switch, hook up my iPod and play a Pandora French cafe music station.

Think anyone would've noticed?!

Crank up the volume, here's Edith Piaf to serenade the bike race —