Meet Baptise

I’m posting this to cheer myself up, it’s so bloody cold and I’ve been meaning to do write about Baptise for ages!

So, here goes, this is Baptise! Another lovely host who we met in Carpentras, France – about 600 miles away!

We contacted Baptise about 2 weeks before we stayed with him – we needed some help!

Back in Charing, England Stew’s back light had broke. We tried to get a replacement locally but we couldn’t find one – we managed to organise a backlight to be posted from England to Paris. The light was due to arrive on our final day, but Sod’s law, it turned up the day we left! Determined not to miss a second delivery we asked our Airbnb host, Raphael to post the light to Baptise for us! He was happy to oblige, he paid for the postage trusting we would pay him back (we did of course!)

2 weeks later we had the back light on Stew’s bike where it belongs!

We stayed with Baptise for one night, he’s a bike mechanic for an American company called BackRoads. He spoke flawless English – I knew he must’ve been used to speaking with people who spoke English as he used the language so comfortably, including some slang.

His job was cool! BackRoads organise bike tours throughout Europe and Baptise worked in Carpentras where the hub was, he helped service all the bikes that are distributed across Europe each year. His job allowed him to travel too, which is really cool! He had travelled to different branches across Europe to work on the bikes.

Before we left Carpentras, Baptise invited us to his workplace for a tour – there were hundreds of bikes! He did some work on Stew’s bike too as there was an irritating squeak, it sounded like a cricket. It seems to have significantly reduced now!