Auxerre, France / Heritage
Paul Bert's statue looks out over the Saint-Etienne Cathedral and the Yonne River from the middle of his bridge. We propped a Shift 2.0 against the statue plinth and read the plaque. 1833 to 1886. Older than us, but only by twenty seven years. You might be wondering who Paul Bert is and what he has to do with us. Well nothing. But we’ll get to the point soon, promise.
We were on our way to Morzine for the MMA Triathlon weekend: Montriond, Morzine, Avoriaz, which Buzz Performance puts on. We'd also built a couple of photoshoots into the trip while we were out there. London to Morzine is 672 miles and around eleven and a half hours of driving, including the Channel, and nobody was doing that in one day. We needed a stop roughly halfway. Troyes is the obvious one, it sits right in the middle of the route, but we wanted somewhere that didn't already have a pitch ready for Google Maps. Somewhere a bit more for the independently minded. Auxerre wasn't on the list until it was. Airbnb booked. Destination set.
We arrived and immediately jumped on our bikes: Jake, Shift 2.0, Nate, Shift 2.0, Gina, On&On Adventure, and went out hunting for dinner, which turned into pizza. Not the most French outcome of the day, but the right one after eight hours in the van. We took to the streets. We stumbled upon the old town. And stopped in awe. Of course we had to get some shots of the bikes in the process:
Shift 2.0 | Rue Garede Neige
Shift 2.0 | Pont Paul Bert
[If the image below looks right to you, you’re on the wrong size bike and you should get a bike fit through us when you purchase a Pearson to ensure the bike is right for you.]
Riding through the streets was how we found him. Pont Paul Bert, the bridge and the statue sharing a name, a nineteenth century physiologist and politician who researched barometric pressure and altitude sickness, work that ended up underpinning modern diving and aerospace technology. None of which has anything to do with bikes. But it's part of what we like about being at Pearson, working out how much the brand has actually endured and evolved through time. We’re older than the Eiffel Tower. We're older than the internet. Older than the passport. And here's a man who's older than us by less than three decades, his name on a bridge in a small city most people couldn't place on a map. It's hard to find much record of Pearson in a history book. It's a lot easier to find history here and prop a bike up against a statue to make this point.
We have a rich history in cycling. A big story to tell. Hopefully soon we can tell more of it whilst still looking forward to the future. Paul Bert's research laid the groundwork for modern technology used today. Although we were making bicycles fourteen years before the first Tour de France stage, we can't yet say for certain whether our manufacturing did the same ground laying work. What we can say for certain is that Harry Pearson's decision to move Pearson manufacturing into full-time bicycle mode created a tradition and legacy that has been passed through four more generations since. If it wasn't for Tom and his son Harry Pearson, we wouldn't be here today...
~
The Shift 2.0 held its own on the ancient cobbled streets. Auxerre is lovely. Lots to see and lots to learn. You should visit. Go to Cannelle Vintage Café for the best coffee and breakfast in town.
Next up: "The Way There: 02 / Fast and Far, Morzine, and a Forge shoot in the wet."
