Biased Blow-By-Blow - 2026 Paris-Tours

Introduction

Paris-Tours, despite having been run for well over a century, is considered a fairly minor race. And albertnet is considered a fairly minor blog. So this is a great fit. As you can see, the parcours is practically flat:

Those red icons might appear at first blush to be climbs, but I think they’re actually indicators of piles of steaming cow pies on the roadway—which often are a major factor in the outcome of the race. Read on for my unvarnished report that doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to making fun of the riders, the race, or just about anyone or anything that catches my eye.

2026 Paris-Tours – Chartres to Tours

As I join the action, the riders have about 75 kilometers to go. There’s a breakaway of eleven riders with a gap of just under two minutes. The official Paris-Tours website has their own (albeit unbiased, very incomplete, less literary) blow-by-blow that says the riders have entered Indre-et-Loire, the “third and final department on the race route.” Department? Huh?

Peacock didn’t spring for two commentators. It’s just one guy, the kind of mournful sounding dude with the accent—what is it, Australian? I would say it’s Australian except Australians never sound mournful, do they? They always sound like they’re at a barbecue.

Wow, I just took a little “breakaway” of my own (nature calls!) and upon my return there is no commentary at all. Perhaps an audio issue? No, after some time the announcer speaks again. I guess he just ran out of things to say. Or maybe he was on mute.

Wow, a rider gets a flat and there’s no spare bike—maybe budget cuts are hitting the teams, too. Maybe nobody cares about this race. Anyhow, it’s not a terribly slow wheel change, considering modern wheels aren’t even quick release. Can you believe that? Quick release has been available for decades! Before my first race, in 1981, kids were trash-talking each other and made fun of this one kid because he had a Schwinn. The kid sputtered, “Yeah, but it’s a nice one … with quick release!”

The breakaway takes a right turn onto—what’s this? A dirt road! Man, the host towns and villages of this race couldn’t even afford pavement! What kind of rinky-dink race is this?

Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) punctures but at least his team has sprung for spare bikes. I guess it’s because Merlier is a race favorite.

The lead is down to 1:12 with 56 kilometers to go, so I’m not going to try to figure out the breakaway riders’ names. The official website of this race doesn’t offer a start list, believe it or not. (There’s a placeholder page, but it’s blank.) More budget cuts, I guess. Meanwhile, most of the heavy hitters whom I’d recognize aren’t even here … they raced the more prestigious Giro di Lombardia yesterday. It’s considered a Monument, and offers hotel lodging instead of camping, and paved roads, and a proper website. (Consider yourself lucky this blog isn’t operating on a shoestring budget today, with a fixed courier font or something.) Adding to my reporting challenge today is that cyclingnews isn’t bothering with a blow-by-blow. Let’s see what the Paris-Tours live report is saying: “Les échappés approchent du premier chemin de vigne. Il y en aura 9 au programme pour un total de 10 km.” My French is rusty but I think that means, “The chapped racers are approaching the finest vines. There will be a program at 9pm showing the final 10 kilometers.”

OMG, there’s a crash! I think several riders have fallen asleep and drifted off the side of the road into a ditch!

Wow, the image quality was so poor after I cropped that photo, I just cannot handle it. So I fed it to Gemini to clean up. See any hallucinations? Look at the riders’ numbers. It’s a mess.

Looks like a nice, soft landing at least.

Now, at the front, an explosive attack! It’s Lewis Askey (NSN Cycling Team), who was second place in this race back in 2023. I happen to know that because it was the coolest edition of this race ever, with an American, Riley Sheehan, taking a surprise victory. Sheehan was a neo-pro and didn’t even have a contract, but played his cards perfectly. And you know what makes that especially exciting to me? I raced with Riley’s dad, Clark, back in the day! Anyhow, Sheehan (the younger) is a favorite for today, and is now a teammate of Askey’s on NSN Cycling Team (formerly Israel-Premier Tech, who signed Sheehan for a three-year contract after his win here). It’s really too bad we don’t have Phil Liggett announcing today because he would say things like, “Clark Sheehan attacks!” or maybe “Adri van der Poel attacks!”

The lugubrious sole commentator is saying there are 35 hectares of vineyards in this region. I think he’s reading off a card. He doesn’t have the air of someone who has any idea how much a hectare is. He might as well be saying “a bunch of vineyards.” (Note: I myself do not know how much a hectare is. I would guess it’s more than an acre but less than football field.)

Okay, there are only five riders left in the breakaway so I’ll give you their identities. Looks like Julius van den Berg (Picnic PostNL), Matis Louvel (NSN), Stefan Bissegger (Decathlon CMA CGM), Storm Ingebrigtsen (Uno-X Mobility) and Yves Lampaert (Soudal Quick-Step). Only two of these are household names: Bissegger (who was sixth place in this race last year and eighth at Paris-Roubaix this year) and Lampaert (two-time winner of Dwars door Vlaanderen and a Tour de France stage winner).

Oh for crying out loud, in the time I took to type that paragraph, the lead somehow dropped to 25 seconds. Wait … suddenly it’s back up to 57. What the hell, could they not afford a competent splits-tracker? Is it some kid with a stopwatch and a notepad? Now they’ve removed the number altogether. What’s next … a text-based split? It’ll say, “A ways back”?

The footage now is of Axel Huens (Groupama-FDJ) who is solo, trying to bridge up to the breakaway. I was too slow to grab a photo (literally pointing my phone camera at the screen since Peacock blocks screen grabs) so I will have to describe him. He looks kind of sluggish and deflated, slack even, not like you’d expect of a rider trying a bold move like this. I think everyone is just running out the clock on 2026. And now he’s already caught by the group. He looks completely resigned, and bends his head down to speak into his race radio: “Well, it didn’t work. Sorry. I tried.” Here’s a photo, now that it’s too late.

Maybe he wasn’t talking on his race radio—maybe the teams couldn’t afford to supply them today. Maybe he was sucking peanut butter out of his jersey. Peanut butter? Yeah … no budget for energy bars today.

The breakaway reaches the fifth dirt sector. Fifth of the day, or fifth to last? I have no idea. It’s too dusty to tell.

Tudor Pro Cycling is on the front leading the chase, working for their leader, Matteo Trentin, who has won this race three times. I think the Tudor rider on the front is Stefan Kung, who is a total baller whom I’d say has to be considered a favorite himself.

Another rider punctures. Or, to be more precise, his tire punctures. The rider, Simon Goossens, is being a very good sport considering this mechanic is taking forever to change the wheel, and there are at least six or eight bikes on the team car—just none for Goossens.

The announcer is talking about Bissegger and says, “He’s one of those powerful riders.” It’s really a shame I couldn’t be co-announcing this race with him because I could reply, “As opposed to one of those powerless riders who nonetheless makes his living at this sport.”

The peloton hits a steep climb and there’s a huge attack at the front by some Lotto guy, flanked by Askey.

Wow, the peloton is all strung out now, and suddenly the gap to the breakaway is down to 15 seconds, and now 11 seconds … dang, with about 25 kilometers to go it seems things may come back together. But it wasn’t all for naught; because Louvel was in the break, his NSN team hasn’t had to do a lick of work chasing so their two favorites, Sheehan and Askey, will be fresh for whatever happens next.

The peloton is all back together now, and I think they’re sitting up a bit based on how they’re now gutter-to-gutter.

Looks like Merlier still hasn’t regained contact after his bike change. Odd, that.

Now, just before the breakaway is caught, Bissegger attacks! Does he think he can solo for 20 kilometers? Do I think he can? Well, if this were a vlog, you’d see me shrugging right now. Maybe he can solo.

Bissegger’s Decathlon team is at the front slowing things down. Bissegger looks pretty solid.

Now Christophe Laporte (Team Visma – Lease a Bike) takes the front, which is a bit odd since he’s his team’s leader and some lackey should be doing this.

Okay, this is weird: at some point, off-screen, Bissegger was caught, and now it’s his teammate Pierre Gautherat who’s off the front solo. What the hell happened? Did Gautherat just blow by his own teammate instead of giving him his wheel? Did Bissegger detonate or something?

There’s no split but the peloton can still see Gautherat. I’ve never heard of this guy but he does look pretty strong. Not like any of these guys don’t, of course.

Some Visma guy catches Gautherat, dragging another Decathlon ride up with him. The Visma guy is Per Strand Lagagagagagagaggagaga (dang it, they didn’t show his name long enough for me to catch it) and I don’t know who the second Declathlon dude is. Probably it doesn’t matter because the Visma guy won’t work. I can’t blame him—who would want those odds in the finale, two against one?

“Who’s gonna win this Paris-Tours?” the announcer asks dolefully. This is his go-to filler technique: the rhetorical question. He’ll ask this twenty more times before the end.

The trio is caught. The peloton is pretty big now, though I note Bissegger has gone out the back.

“We don’t know who’s going to win,” the commentator says somberly, pointlessly.

They hit a short climb and Decathlon attacks again. A group of six quickly has a decent gap. It includes Askey latched on the back. “Is this the group that’s gonna win?” the commentator asks woefully. Ooh, Laporte is in there, a race favorite, so this could be the move, with only eight kilometers to go. It’s flat from here on out, and paved.

Weirdly, we’re not getting any useful footage now … just the countryside. What happened? Did the camera bikes run out of gas? Or did broadcasters’ contracts get abruptly canceled to cut costs?

Okay, the riders are back on the screen. Five chasers are now bearing down on the breakaway. They latch on so we’ve got a group of ten, with about five kilometers to go. Behind, the rest of the peloton looks disorganized. They need little pencil caddies, and day planners.

But what’s this? The lead group is now screwing around, looking at each other, not seeming committed. Very odd, with less than four kilometers to go. We’ve got Jasper Stuyven (Soudal Quick-Step) in there, Laporte, Paul Lapeira (Decathlon), Florian Sénéchal (Alpecin – Premier-Tech), Toms Skujins (Lidl-Trek), and Per Strand Hagenes (Visma – Lease a Bike, the rider I formerly referred to as Lagagagagagagaggagaga, for which I apologize).

The group is fracturing and reassembling like an amoeba. Cripes, I’m getting a little lost here. If somebody would just solo, that’d make my job easier.

Skujins goes early! Per Strand Hagenes counters, and blows by him with about a kilometer to go! My prayers are answered!

Strand Hagenes is giving it his all! But it’s terribly close, Stuyven bearing down!

Strand Hagenes is holding strong! He looks over his shoulder, gauging  the gap! So does Stuyven!

Strand Hagenes has got this. And just ahead of the line, he does a very strange victory salute:

It’s kind of an “everybody just calm down” kind of gesture. Reminds me of standup comedians who try to shush the crowd so they can start their monologue.

Strand Hagenes finishes his salute with the classic “Oh no, did I leave the iron on back home?” gesture.

Stuyven rolls in for second place, just barely ahead of the group sprint which Laporte takes handily.

Now the footage is of everybody milling around. This is normally where we see a lot of hugs. Not so many today; everyone just looks tired and kind of let down. Then the footage changes to more groups coming over the line, as if we cared. Weirdly, a small bunch rolls in with two Astana riders sitting up and clapping. What are they celebrating? Their team didn’t get a rider in the top ten. Maybe they’re just glad the season is over. But couldn’t they save their applause for, say, the dinner table?

Here are the results.

Strand Hagenes is being interviewed.

INTERVIEWER: Congratulations on your win. [Yawns.] The, uh, power you had was impressive.

STRAND HAGENES: It was a good day, I didn’t feel the best, but we kept fighting. Lot of the guys were watching Christophe so I found a good moment.

INTERVIEWER: It’s a good victory, also the team’s victory.

STRAND HAGENES: We messed up in the beginning by not being in the break but the guys went all out to bring it back so we could still go for the win.

INTERVIEWER: This is a race dear to your heart, you won in 2022 in the U23 category.

STRAND HAGENES: I like the race, I’m always suffering a bit in October. [Shrugs, like they’re just talking about what he had for breakfast.] It’s an interesting race where anything could happen.

INTERVIEWER: Walk me through that victory salute, with the palms toward the asphalt, patting the air. What was that about?

STRAND HAGENES: As a professional rider winning a race, I want to use the platform to advance the public good, to put my moment of fame toward raising social awareness of important issues. And I think victory salutes are getting out of hand, with riders practically beating their chests, repeatedly punching the air, or pointing at themselves as if to say “Me, me, me!” It’s as though the sport is shifting from an emphasis on character to building this giant persona, and I’d just like to dial that back a bit. So that was my way of saying “Everyone calm down, it’s just a bike race.”

INTERVIEWER: So if you’d been holding a football, you wouldn’t have spiked it in the end zone?

STRAND HAGENES: I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Full disclosure: I freestyled a bit there, trying to capture what was unsaid in that interview. It’s hard to convey the nonverbals in a written report like this. Maybe you had to be there.

Now the top three riders mount the podium. Strand Hagenes is handed a bouquet and a very strange trophy that looks like a kid made it in art class out of some branches he found in the yard. Strand Hagenes stares at it, perplexed.

Finally he sets the weird trophy down on the podium and raises his bouquet in another understated salute. Stuyven looks kind of bored.

Well, there you have it, Paris-Tours done and dusted, and the 2026 cycling season as well. Check back in March when I’ll probably cover Paris-Nice, or visit this site next week when I’ll write about something totally unrelated to cycling … maybe a startling exposé, like the real truth about smurfs.

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From the Archives - Bits & Bobs Volume XXXIII

Introduction

This is the thirty-third installment in the “From the Archives – Bits & Bobs” series. Volume I of the series is here, Volume II is here, Volume III is here, Volume IV is here, Volume V is here, Volume VI is here, Volume VII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume IX is here, Volume X is here, Volume XI is here, Volume XII is here, Volume XIII is here, Volume XIV is here, Volume XV is here, Volume XVI is here, Volume XVII is here, Volume XVIII is here, Volume XIX is here, Volume XX is here, Volume XXI is here, Volume XXII is here, Volume XXIII is here, Volume XXIV is here, Volume XXV is here, Volume XXVI is here, Volume XXVII is here, Volume XXVIII is here, Volume XXIX is here, Volume XXX is here, Volume XXXI is here, and Volume XXXII is here.

What are Bits & Bobs? They’re longer than tweets, shorter than essays, and slightly more formal than graffiti. Back when people wrote letters, and then treated email as a way to send letters, and there were no blogs, I got my literary ya-yas out by stretching the epistolary form into something almost bloglike. This old correspondence is what I now mine for literary snippets that, on a slow news day, can be assembled into these posts.

The different volumes of Bits & Bobs are not organized numerically, alphabetically, or taxonomically; nor are they assembled in order of priority, importance, urgency, or applicability. You can peruse them randomly, sequentially, or as directed by your Ouija board.

The following dispatches were written when I was a Berkeley student.

October 12, 1990

Today’s vocab word is “frame,” in the phrase “frame yourself.” I don’t have the etymology, and it’s possible my roommate B— coined it himself, but I’m quite certain it will see widespread use from here on out since it’s such a useful term—and you read it here first! Anyhow, framing yourself is when you say something really stupid and there’s nowhere to hide. Like when B— and I were in the San Francisco Centre, this huge nine-story shopping center, and checked out this really fancy shoe boutique, not because we wanted or could afford the shoes there but because of the really fly saleswoman. We walk in, expecting to sort of drift away naturally at any moment, but then the saleswoman says to B—, “How’s it going?” He looks at her, totally shocked, as if he’d assumed we were beneath her notice, and doesn’t know what to say. Finally he stammers out, “What?” She repeats her innocent greeting, and he trips over some words and then, to cover, picks up a display shoe and starts asking questions about it. He’s just making it worse, but she is pretty fly so I take a seat and pass the time comparing all these Italian dress shoes to my totally thrashed Nike Air Solo Flights. B— is asking now about whether these shoes would be resolable, and the saleswoman is getting really confused—”Why would you want to? Don’t the soles look durable?”—while B— begins to blush. That’s how you frame yourself. (I could give you numerous examples of this from my own life, but what would I want to do that for?)

November 3, 1991 [from a letter to my mom]

Tonight my homework was reading America Is in the Heart by Carlos Bulosan, and it triggered a random flashback of memory from just over four years ago. You [my mom], Geoff, Max and I were at the Wells Fargo Bank on the corner of Santa Rosa and Foothill in San Luis Obispo, late in the summer of 1987. All of my belongings—which we had miraculously crammed into your VW Jetta for the trip out—were already at Geoff’s old apartment on McCollum where we’d be staying briefly before moving into our own place. Now we were parting ways: you and Max would drive the thousand miles back to Boulder, and Geoff and I would bike to our apartment where I would start my adulthood.

The moment held oddly little emotional intensity for me. It seemed completely unrealistic—not because I was beginning a completely new life, but because this lifelong separation originated in a bank parking lot, of all places. Geoff showed all the signs of experiencing a big moment, and you began crying. As I sit here recalling it tonight, I am waiting to see if I’ll finally respond to that sendoff, from so long ago. Back then, I was like the kid in the Bulosan book, too wary of the new struggle I was beginning to bother looking back at my old life. In that parking lot I had slipped into some kind of emotional coma. Riding off, and seeing you drive away towards Colorado, I might as well have been biking to a friend’s house, sure to be back home in time for dinner. But what home? Home was not home anymore.

The impact of the moment never did catch up to me; the delayed reaction I expected never came. I simply wandered off into my future, looking around half-interestedly as though browsing at a garage sale, never thinking to look back over my shoulder. But for one long moment tonight, during which I closed my eyes and almost dropped my book, the accumulation of long-neglected responses almost overwhelmed me. Perhaps if I were a faster typist, or more swift in contemplation, you would be reading a more impassioned letter. As it is, the moment has already passed and I’m ready to get back to my book.

January 8, 1992

Did I ever tell you about The Iciest Chick in the World? This betty is cold fresh, man, we’re talkin’ straight-up stupid-fly. I first saw her last spring on the first day of English 139, and decided to bust out on the extreme extrovert tip. (That worked reasonably well with H—, at least until I took it a bit overboard, right?) So like I said, this chick is totally rad and offhandedly mentions how she was just in Kenya hanging out. Then, another totally dope freak sits down next to her. If I had seen her first, I would have called her the Iciest Chick in the World. But as it is, the friend is relegated to a close, yet also breathtaking, second. Then this dude sits down with them and starts talking, as if continuing a conversation from earlier, so he’s obviously their friend. As near as I can figure he’s not a boyfriend since he doesn’t show one of these fly betties more attention than the other. So now the trick is to kind of chat with all of them, even though my attention is drawn completely to the Iciest Chick. (To give you the idea of her look, she has short, dark hair, kind of like the Zachary’s waitress my roommate and I affectionately refer to as “The Lacrosse Player,” and the stylin’ clothes—and body—of a J.Crew model like we used to gape at in the catalogs that would arrive in the mail, unbidden but totally not junk mail.) Well, I never made it on time to English 139 again, despite my most earnest efforts, and thus never got to sit next to the Flyest Chick in the World again (until the day of the final exam, when she sat right next to me just to mess with me). But all semester long, from across the lecture hall, I’d surreptitiously check out the Iciest Chick during class, whimpering inwardly in hormonal agony, like a dog in heat trapped in a kennel. Since that final, I hadn’t seen her since last fall when I was riding my bike through campus down this hill. As she walked up the other way, I did a double-take, was totally distracted, and almost crashed my bike. Seriously.

Well, I recently saw her again. At the end of the fall term the professor of another English class threw a party at his house, and I attended with my friend H—. And who should show up but The Iciest Chick in the World! So I finally have another opportunity to strike up a conversation, and I feel like the situation is more in my favor now. I have a girlfriend, so I’m free from that stigma that lady-less guys seem to have: you know, that invisible sign around the available guy’s neck that says, “DEFECTIVE,” and the built-in kill switch that gets flipped whenever he screws up and lets on that he’s interested in a chick. You know, how he says “Hey” to her and she thinks, “Oh my god, I can’t even believe this desperate putz is trying to hit on me.” So not only do I have the poise of a guy who is spoken for and not on the make, I’m also there with H—, who is frankly gorgeous. Even though H— and I are just friends, nobody would necessarily know that. So a girl might take a slight interest in me, or at least might not be repelled by me, for the simple reason that I seem unavailable. Not that I intend to capitalize on any of this; it’s just nice not feeling like a pariah.

With all this in mind, I have the confidence to I approach the Iciest Chick, who’s standing with her guy friend—the same dude I’d encountered the first time I met her (and whom I only remember because the fact of his friendship with this girl was a source of bottomless envy). I offhandedly remark, “Say, weren’t you two in English 139 last spring?” The dude laughs in my face and says, “Yeah, but how come you remember? There were like 150 people in that class!”

My poise is shaken seismically. What can I say? That I remember him only because he was with her, and I remember her because she’s the Iciest Chick in the World? I’m rescued by J—, a classmate from English 180A, who shows up out of nowhere and gracelessly butts in to the conversation. Even though we’d spent the past semester arguing in class, I suddenly treat him like an old friend. That’s me, Mr. Social. Turns out J— knows the Iciest Chicks’ guy friend, so I’m saved. The three of us chat, just as though the whole point of me saying hi wasn’t the chick.

Next thing I know the food has been served and I’m sitting on the floor at this coffee table, across from the guy friend, pretending to carry on a conversation. My real attention is of course on the Iciest Chick, who is sitting right next to me, fully enjoying my appreciation of her. Just by her presence she’s essentially teasing me, albeit aimlessly, like a cat sharpening its claws on a scratching post. Every time she brushes up against me I think I’m going to pass out. I am hoping this isn’t noticed by H—, who is at a nearby chair, because she’d probably give me endless shit about it later. 

H—, meanwhile, seems totally unaware that J— is transfixed by her, pining for her like he did all semester. He gets up and offers to get the Iciest Chick’s guy friend a beer. The friend says, “Thanks,” and I, not having received the same offer, venture a joke and say, “Yeah, thanks” to his back as he walks away. It comes off perfectly—the Iciest Chick even laughs—except for one thing: as I deliver the line, a small particle of food flies from my mouth. Whether or not the Iciest Chick saw the flying particle, the mere prospect that she did is enough to trample my mojo for the remainder of the evening. I’m just as paralyzed as I was ten years ago when I was chatting up the flyest girl in my junior high school class and my retainer fell out of my mouth. I end up pretending to practically ignore the Iciest Chick while shooting the breeze with the two guys. This always happens. Of course, this is actually the most appropriate thing to do anyway since I do have a girlfriend, after all. My interest in the Iciest Chick is like that of a hunter who shoots big game merely for sport, leaving the carcass to rot in the wilderness. Except that (to correct the metaphor) I realize I’m not a big game hunter at all, just some dumb tourist driven into the savanna by a local guide to look at a lion.

January 14, 1992

Remember summers as a kid? Imagine: it’s a hot day, and without thinking you drop by the neighbor kid’s place and ring the doorbell. Without so much as a greeting he strolls out, maybe you slap each other around a bit, one guy slouches into a lawn chair in the garage where it’s cool and the other rides around in circles on his little brother’s bike. Finally somebody says, “So whaddya wanna do.” There’s no answer and nobody cares, so you just hang out and maybe five minutes later (though nobody’s keeping track), the other guy says, “I know, let’s make some Kool-Aid and go up on the roof.” You get some towels and if you feel like it you actually climb to the roof. Otherwise you set up in the street and lie around in the sun. Most of your attention, what little of it there is, centers around making sure there’s a constant supply of Kool-Aid and ice and maybe that the towel’s damp at all times ‘cause it’s so hot. One moment slips into the next and no plans are made more than a minute or two in advance. Those days are never coming back.

February 25, 1992

We had a spate of vandalism on our street [in a sketchy part of south Berkeley]. Car windows broken out, and tires slashed, including the ones on my girlfriend’s scooter. Eventually the lady next door caught the vandal red-handed. He’s a student at the elementary school across the street, just ten years old.

In other news, my roommate and I went mountain biking and were heading up Ashby toward the trails when we encountered these two grade-school-aged kids riding as fast as they could, one on a tiny BMX bike and the other on a cheap, beat-to-hell Miyata ten-speed. We rode with them for a while, kind of making sure they didn’t get run over, because Ashby is a busy thoroughfare. The kid with the ten speed, who was wearing a dark wool cap that gave him the aura of street cred, which clashed comically with his youth, was really stoked on our bikes and asked if we raced, etc. I noticed his bike’s fork was bent, and told him to come by the Square Wheel and I’d write him up an estimate and fix his bike. He actually did bring the bike in, and I went a little easy on the labor charge. Get this: the bike had a sticker on it advertising the shop it came from: The High Wheeler, in Boulder, Colorado. My first full-time bike shop job!

So you might be wondering if there’s a point to these stories, and there is: turns out both are about the same kid. Days after picking up his bike from the shop, the kid happened to see me in front of my apartment, ran over to chat, and learned that I lived there. I mentioned the vandalism (without letting on I knew who’d done it), and described what a hassle it was replacing the scooter tires, etc. He looked so ashamed I felt bad for him.

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