Piled in the corner of a folding table at the Carpentras flea market: a lifetime of randonneuring accomplishment. Spanning 1965 to 1985, M. RICHARD, Louis to his friends, was a member of multiple cycling clubs, though mostly rode with the Excelsior Club of Marseille. He was fond, like many of us, of the flèche vélocio. His 500km routes were particularly ambitious, though the card photographed was closer to the minimum 360km. Louis and his team departed the historic hotellerie near Plan d'Aups, east of Marseilles, at 8pm on Easter Sunday, 1965. They travelled northeast, through the night, to St Maximin before turning west towards Martigues, Arles and Alès. Around sunrise on a brisk Monday morning, they crossed the Pont du Gard, a towering first century Roman aqueduct. The team, warmed by the sun on their backs, climbed though the fortified village of Uzès, pressed on to Barjac and over the Rhône River to Orange. As the sun set they traversed a series of small canals signaling the team’s arrival at their destination in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue Among the trinkets, a number of audax medals, and a brevet card from the 1971 edition of Paris-Brest-Paris Audax. At the bottom of the heap, a short stack of circa-1960s Brevet des Provinces Françaises cards, some completed, others not yet. FFCT, now FFVelo, still homologates "BCN-BPF" tours, and a map of now required site can be found here: https://veloenfrance.fr/defis/bcn-bpf Reviewing the map we imagine that Louis had an alternate motivation for his flèche route: He was working on a "Brevet Cyclotouriste Nationale", designing his course to cover the BCN controls of Sainte-Baume, Martigues, Arles, Uzes, La Roque-sur-Cèze and Pernes-les-Fontaines. Also pictured, a populaire card dated April 7th, 1968 and issued by Le Cyclotouriste of Lyon, said to be the oldest cycle touring club in France. A few years back, Jenn and I stumbled upon their office on a ride from Paris to Toulouse, via Burgundy and Auvergne. Their old sign still hangs above the door at their new location a few blocks from the address on the card
