This is an account of a week I just spent in normandy doing a recce for a trip with 50 cyclists in June. It is slightly disjointed as it consists of bits I wrote for the club blog. But I can't be bothered to rewrite it all. Here goes: End of Friday May 17 Worked out a fantastic ride. On lanes that, in the unlikely event of seeing a car, you ride on the right. Saw about three cars in an hour this morning. Lighthouses. Waves. Big sky. Huge lunch. Massive gentle downhill to Cherbourg. Pretty villages. 20 minute ride to restaurant that does great grub. Full of locals. All v friendly. Four courses five peeps wine cider beers etc cheese dessert. E23 each. Ride back was uphill but seemed downhill. This may have been a cider-related conundrum so a further investigation may be needed. Also looked at The Chateau proper. Think big rooms. A different era. Animal heads on walls. A Grand Piano (not sure if in tune....) Bells that can be rung by pulling on a rope. Unfortunately there is a French flag hanging in the hall. But we can burn that if we want to. Or replace it with A Proper Flag. End of Saturday May 18 72 miles. Magic lanes. Flat coastal lanes no traffic. Great sea views. Lovely lunch stop discovered. Dellzeqq and Gordon now determined to get bread every morning as the boulangerie lady is v gorgeous it seems. Now noshing Huge Salad in the house. Been v sunny. All have red faces. Agent Hilda says this is all hard work. Our sacrifices are innumerable. End of Sunday May 19 V different day. Rained much of the time. Heavy sometimes. Also headwind. dell worked out a very pretty way to the flat roads of the coastal area. gordon is a fab navigator in this maze of tiny lanes. agent hilda now unnervingly quick on hills. Road on the return was a real delight. Many hills but all very short ie rolling wooded meadow type green countryside. Lush forests. Cows. Small rivers. Lovely riding. 50 miles. Also found delightful village with fish and chip shop. We ate in a crepe place. I had good fish soup. Dellzeqq had oysters End of Monday May 19 Dellzeqq has led Gordon off on a wild escapade with the intention of scoping out 100 miles of the hilly west coast before the forecast heavy rain arrives. The remaining three are not lazing around after getting up late and having a leisurely breakfast and saying how nice this is when The Headmaster is away. There has been quite a lot of planning under the watchful eye of the Grizzled Tough Old Gnarly MileMuncher left in charge. Mice seems to wear the responsibility lightly. End of Monday evening Early night all round. And it is a national holiday so everything is shut inc all bars shops supermarkets etc etc. Mice and I managed to find a couple of boulangeries before they shut so it is bread with cheese and some poncy foreign puddings. Pavlova, macaroons in various colours, choccy sweeties some sandwiches. And not much of that yellow fizzy stuff left either. Lunch was rather nice and the market at Bricquebec on the Monday seems to be on Dell's list of delights for Le Tour. Gordon was awfully cheeful after his Calvados after lunch. I managed to discover a delightful route back to the chateau via a lovely tarmac lane that soon deteriorated into a steep hilly rockstrewn nightmare with pushing bikes up hills. I don't think that will be on the agenda for Le Tour. End of Tuesday May 20 V early start and beasted by Dellzeqq out of the chateau by 6.30. 5.30 in proper time so almost nighttime. Long slog but road quite good. Nice lanes on the west side. Very good tarmac and windy twisty descents. Absolutely fab views of huge sandy bays and I wish I had packed my budgie smugglers for a quick dip. Hills were short and no problem even for an old fat bloke like me. Nice lunch place discovered by accident is on the itinerary deffo. Tomorrow is cleaning then A Last Massive Celebratory Gourmet Nosh at the local place then a glorious swoop down the hills to the boat. Mark the chateau owner might carry the luggage down in his car. A great trip and well worth coming. Have found some super rides and eateries. This business of riding in forrin parts is no worry at all in fact it is suprisingly a lot better than in Dear Old Blighty. Johnny Foreigner is astoundingly respectful of cyclists, quite amazingly so. The Real Thing is going to be a real laugh. We popped into the bike shop today. They have a huge range of kit and bikes and are really nice (they shook hands with us as we arrived - not like Halfords at all.....) and they seem to know what they are doing. Agent Hilda acquired a nice new top but Mice opted to return in June and get something. On the Wednesday we lunched and went on to the ferry. A great trip.

Overnight from Brussels to Ostend, and how to do it.....

Great little adventure. It's worth thinking about a repeat, hence I will include details that might be useful next time but inexplicable this time. Getting to Brussels is easy. Eurostar is pricey but quick. Slower, cheaper and adventurous way is train to Dover, ride to the ferry (newbies to Dover's road system and its several thousand huge lorries need to check this bit in exact and great detail before you go), then ferry to Dunkirk. When booking this try to get a 24 hour return for a motorbike, this is £22 but for a bicycle it is £30 return. Phone them and they might give you a return for £22 with the bicycle. Then ride the 33k from the ferry to the train station at De Panne. I had met two Belgians and they were doing the same, so this is obviously a popular trick. We had a strong following wind and a few nav upsets and it took two hours. There is a choice of routes for the first section: the traffic-free coast route along the top of a sea breakwater that avoids the industrial town and the housing and traffic, and takes you in an arc around much of the town and takes you to the shopping bit of the town, or the direct route on roads with traffic through the housing section. On the way out I went along the breakwater, which was great because there was a strong following wind. On the way back with DZ and Agent Hilda we took the more direct route because of the shelter afforded by the buildings. The distance is about the same, I think. At De Panne railway station I paid €19.70 single to Brussels Central and €5 for the bike. On the train, talking to the Belges I met at Dover, I learnt you can buy a carnet of 10 tickets, each valid for a journey from any Belgian train station to any other, for €79. This could be used for 10 people on one trip, or five people going on two trips, etc. it would be a cheap way for 10 members, of perhaps, a cycling club, to go from De Panne to Brussels, for instance..... Think warm night, straight roads, flat country, cycle path for mile after mile, good company, chewing up the distance like we were Gods Of The Cycling World. Everyone else was asleep and we owned the world. The N9 was a navigator's dream, just follow it. Ghent was still awake and the upmarket 24 hour restaurant, complete with uniformed waitresses, clean loos, warmth, and general civilisation was lovely. This particularly because it had chosen to put itself exactly where Agent Hilda had a disagreement with the tram lines that had terrified us every time they appeared. I paid €7.50 for an enormous spag bol with ham and cheese that took ages to eat. Thoroughly recommended. After this we followed the canal. Forget English canals with muddy towpaths and overhanging branches and tiny bridges. These were big enough for oceangoing vessels, and the towpaths were perfect tarmac with signs. DZ had the foresight to buy a good map, which saved us big distances and big embarrassment. Recommended. We left the canal at one point and went by the roads and by a chance in a million found ourselves in a village I knew well, having spent three hours trying to find the campsite. So I was full of confidence as I bravely led across the bridge and down a side road and into a trading estate before my confidence waned slightly as I couldn't remember which alleyway to ride up. I managed to conceal my total loss of faith long enough for the right alleyway to turn up and lead confidently back on to the canal path. In Bruges we were gasping for a sitdown and a coffee and the genius of The Fridays manifested itself when one of our number (no names, no packdrill) muttered something about knowing an all-night drinking den he used to frequent and rode off to find it, to return five minutes later with the whereabouts of a fine dining establishment so posh it would have passed muster with Mice. Think afternoon teas for €19.75, think carpets, warmth, polite staff and brilliant coffee. Recommended. After Bruges we stuck with the canal. Think orange orb of sun rising slowly out of the mist, no wind, trails of mist wandering across fields, cows in the distance, the occasional duck breaking the undisturbed water. The Calais breakfast stop was excellent and the staff didn't even laugh as I tried to pronounce the words for Large Breakfast. The longest tram journey in the world may have been great but I was dozing for some of it. At De Panne we incurred the wrath of a bus driver by being impertinent enough to ask to put our bikes on his (very long and bendy and empty) bus so he could take us to Dunkirk. So we rode off into a slight headwind, me in front by far enough to make a bit of a nav error and correct it before DZ and Agent Hilda arrived. The road is straight and the nav easy, and was made easier by the fact that the local marathon was about to run along it so we sneaked past the barriers just before they closed to all traffic and no other vehicles disturbed us. In Dunkirk I accosted an unfortunate taxi driver, and after dismantling the seats in his taxi and smearing chain oil over his roof lining, we decided three bikes would not fit so he drove off. It's amazing how polite he was. Nav to the ferry port was easy enough providing I paid attention, which was difficult as I had had no sleep and my bottom bracket was screeching like a banshee. We arrived safely at the ferry and found comfy seats where we donned non-smelly clothes and scraped the muck off our faces. The ferry journey was good and these DFDS ferries are often much less crowded than the Calais ones so I slept, stretched out, on a comfy sofa for an hour. After the convoluted ride to Dover station my odometer showed 211k, which I felt was not bad for an old fat bloke with no sleep. The best £70 I ever spent. Many thanks to all, esp Swarmcatcher and her sister who seemed to be just as fast and experienced in milemunching. We were a good team and for an action-packed 24 hours in forrin parts, you couldn't beat it. It was certainly better than my alternative, which was to go to Wembley and watch Tunbridge Wells FC lose to some northerners.

The usual 200.

Went round the usual 200k on Monday, April 29, so I have the monthly 200k in the bag. I was hoping the 351k from Hull to London Bridge would be my ride for the month but I was out of time. So not looking good for my London Edinburgh London attempt in July.

To Hull and back.........

So. The 8pm train from London to York. Depart from York Minster at midnight with the Friday Night Ride to the Coast. About 50 of us. Ride all night with a stop at a village hall about 4am where a couple of locals serve us with unlimited tea and sandwiches for £6 per person. a bargain. By 'eck it was cold outside. I wore seven layers of clothing on top (admittedly all were thin layers), two pairs of gloves and four layers on the feet. We arrived in Hull about 8.30am, where we had Good Old Fat Boy Breakfasts. Then a short trip across the road to wetherspoons where I had nothing to drink. About 12 noon I decamped to the Ibis hotel (recommended - clean, quiet, cheap, friendly staff). Sleep from 2pm to 6pm. Then eat baked potato and cheese and beans (carbs and fat) plus a pint of something yellow and fizzy (dehydration is the enemy). Sleep well. Wake at 6am, have good all-you-can-eat breakfast. Leave at 7.45am on the Sunday morning. Arrive London Bridge Station about 9.15am on Monday. That, basically, is it.

So what is it like to ride alone for more than 24 hours continuously, eating only cold food and drinking cold water? Horrible.

It started easily enough - sunny, nice day. the Humber Bridge (I've cycled it four times now) is spectacular and the views sublime. I had cycled this route (with some variations) last year in a rainstorm and gales so this year was going to be much better. Ahem. There was a strong headwind all the way, and this kept my speed well down. Of course, I could have fought it but you can't do that for 24 hours. Well, you might, I can't. So I kept going.
Water is the problem. I had made 12 soft white bread rolls with cheese in. I called them The Surprise Rolls. The surprise being that each was identical. These were supplemented by one cold sausage roll and two chocolate biscuits at a garage, plus a pint of milk and a cold sausage roll from a newsagent's.
Navigation was OK - this route is part of the London-Edinburgh-London event coming up in July, and I had the routesheet plus my GPS with the route in it. So I didn't go astray.
I recall arriving at a village in Lincolnshire about 3pm and being slightly daunted by the thought that I had more than 12 hours of this yet to do. In fact it turned out I had more like another 18 hours to go.
As darkness fell I stopped and donned several layers of clothing to get me through the night. With three powerful red lights at the back plus enough reflective strip to start a clothing factory I knew I could be easily seen. In some respects, night riding is safer because there are far fewer cars on the road and they can see you a long way off. But after midnight, in the lanes around Cambridge, I went more than an hour without seeing a vehicle.
At 4am I stopped in a village, ate a roll, drank some cold water and sat on a bench for 10 minutes with my eyes shut. Call it a sort of sleep, but it did make a difference. And again, in a bus shelter in north London about 7am. Eventually I rolled into London Bridge station, and sat on a train struggling to keep my eyes open. Had I fallen asleep then I would not have woken until Hastings, I'm sure.

Now, the next day, I feel a bit better. I was asleep for most of Monday and all Monday night. I don't think I'll be doing much energetic stuff for the next few days.........

Made it, with 24 hours - and 4 minutes - to spare

Did the Hailsham-Folkestone 200k on Saturday and it was really tough. Cold, rain, sleet, snow, headwinds, etc etc. Still, this month's 200k is done, and I had a whole day spare to get it done. I made it round with 4 minutes to spare of the 14 hours 20 minutes allowed, so it was a close-run thing. Four layers on feet, three on legs, five on top, two hats and two pairs of gloves meant I didn't feel cold, just really tired and out of condition. Unless I get faster there's no point in starting LEL. Still, now I am retired and no longer have to go to work, I'll have plenty of time for training. So things can only get better.............

Still too icy......

Have had to resort to going for a run instead of doing the 200k. Absolutely freezing cold with strong wind. Now aiming for Thursday to do the 200k because
A) Wednesday is my last day at work and this would be a good way to celebrate retirement and
B) The temperature might rise above freezing. Or might not.

When hell freezes over.....

Another trip round the 200k of old, so now I have done six months with rides of 200k or more, with six to go to get A Small Badge. It was above freezing when I left home at 5am but not by much. Across Romney Marsh it was absolutely bloody freezing and it was certainly below freezing when I finished in the dark. So when I got home I ran a bath to warm up and could not understand why it wasn't filling up. Then I realised I had forgotten to put the plug in and I had run all the hot water away. So I washed my face in cold water and went to bed and turned the electric blanket up to maximum.

The glamour of audax............