15" frame height made of steel, 26" alloy rims, steel hubs, Kenda tires, 12-speed Shimano gearing, adjustable saddle height, click shift thumb shift mechanisms, POWER rear derailleur, Steel side-pull brakes front and rear. Bicycle arrives 85% assembled. Bicycle saddle, pedals, and handlebars must be installed. Assembly instructions included although dealer assembly is always recommended.
It's a personal adventure story and an exploration of one of France's most paradoxical and least known areas.
On bicycles and with a limited budget, the author wobbles along behind her husband as they retrace the lives of Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVl from their teenage marriage to their desperate escape attempt, and finally back to their rendezvous with the guillotine.
It is also light-hearted account of a very unskilled cyclist trying to pedal over 500 miles, from Versailles, across Paris and through the Marne valley to the birthplace of Champagne.
Their journey took them to many provincial towns seldom visited by tourists, each with its own particular charms and history, from Meaux, birthplace of France's noblest cheese, via Epernay and Reims to Dormans, site of one of the great memorials of WWI.
From peculiar makeshift meals in their tent to occasional gourmet meals, the couple spent three weeks exploring and enjoying a part of France that has the delightful air of the land that time forgot.
While there are some darker moments recalling the events of WWl and the horrors of the French Revolution, it's mainly a happy tale about a couple enjoying themselves and discovering the delights of an overlooked area of France.
The Valley of Heaven and Hell offers armchair travellers an opportunity to enjoy quiet waterways, the annual festival of Joan of Arc in Reims, iconic battlefields, the romance of the guinguettes, and to wonder whether Marie-Antoinette and her husband deserved their dreadful fate.
On bicycles and with a limited budget, the author wobbles along behind her husband as they retrace the lives of Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVl from their teenage marriage to their desperate escape attempt, and finally back to their rendezvous with the guillotine.
It is also light-hearted account of a very unskilled cyclist trying to pedal over 500 miles, from Versailles, across Paris and through the Marne valley to the birthplace of Champagne.
Their journey took them to many provincial towns seldom visited by tourists, each with its own particular charms and history, from Meaux, birthplace of France's noblest cheese, via Epernay and Reims to Dormans, site of one of the great memorials of WWI.
From peculiar makeshift meals in their tent to occasional gourmet meals, the couple spent three weeks exploring and enjoying a part of France that has the delightful air of the land that time forgot.
While there are some darker moments recalling the events of WWl and the horrors of the French Revolution, it's mainly a happy tale about a couple enjoying themselves and discovering the delights of an overlooked area of France.
The Valley of Heaven and Hell offers armchair travellers an opportunity to enjoy quiet waterways, the annual festival of Joan of Arc in Reims, iconic battlefields, the romance of the guinguettes, and to wonder whether Marie-Antoinette and her husband deserved their dreadful fate.
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