Greetings from Venice!

I think 130 miles via the Offenpass, Pass dal Fuorn, Passo dell Umbrail and Stelvio was perhaps a little more than my system was expecting. Weirdly and for the first time in my life, I woke in the middle of the night absolutely craving water and sugar, I ended up diluting carbohydrate gels with water and gulping it down – not a good night.

It wasn’t until I went down for breakfast that I got a sense of the Rosengarten hotel. We were deep in the Italian Tyrol but the place should really have been over the border in Austria. The waitresses were of that wholesome, blonde variety. They paid us almost no attention, choosing instead to bestow their favours on a group of rather enigmatic, elderly gentleman who were continuing a clandestine conversation under the ever watchful eye of an Alsatian. When after breakfast an earnest young man escorted us down to the cellar ostensibly to collect our bikes, I wasn’t sure we’d ever see each other again.

We escaped from the hotel and straight into the first climb of the day towards the Passo St. Pellegrino in the Dolomites. This was pretty unforgiving as there were few bends or hairpins to offer relief to tired limbs, just straight on up. We made it to the pass by 12:00 and found a wonderful spot for lunch overlooking the mountains. Crouque Monsiure and Coke set us up nicely for the long down hill ride through the awe inspiring Dolomite National Park and out onto the Northern Italian plane.

In the hot afternoon sun we started to engage with the Friday afternoon traffic as we took the main roads towards Treviso. In an attempt to get away from the lorries and crazy drivers we took some back roads around Zero Branco and Scorze but this only resulted in us getting lost and adding a few extra miles to our journey. We made it to Mestre by about 20:00 and started looking for the well hidden turning onto the causeway. Eventually we made it onto the island by 21:00 and after the compulsory photo call by the ‘Venice’ sign we picked our way along the canals and over bridges until we found the Hotel Al Sole in Santa Croche, a stately old house and probably the only hotel I’ve ever stayed in where the rooms were twice as high as they were wide.

We got changed and went out for our celebration dinner at a restaurant round the corner from the hotel. Fish, pasta, very unhealthy desserts, lots of booze and that quiet feeling of satisfaction of a challenging job, well done.

Today’s Stats



Total ride 973 miles


Total ride today 130 miles


Average today 14.3 mph

Greetings from Nova Lavente

The Hotel in Zernez was strictly functional, although when we got in at about 19:00 the beers were extremely welcome.A good night's sleep after our first day of cycling in the Alps.

The following day was glorious as we headed off into the Schweizer National Park, and onto the Ofenpass a 'stiff' climb up to 2150 meters. During a coffee break at the top, the madness descended. We had not mentioned the dreaded 'Stelvio' word but then Chris looked up with a slightly crazed expression said 'why not?' Jeremy and Graham being deeply sensible people declined Chris' kind offer, I on the other hand recoginising that the guy clearly shouldn't be allowed out on his own consented to join him.

Our route took us over the Pass dal Fuorn before we parted company at Santa Maria Val Mustair, Chris and I heading south towards Stelvio. We were immediately into a steep climb on a narrow road with acute hairpins. After about 45 minutes and really feeling the thigh muscles, we came across a cafe and after a short break we continued on up, past the tree line, up into the snow, through the Passo dell Umbrail. As we passed 2500 meters it really did start to hurt, short of breath we pushed onto the top. at 2757 meters, Stelvio is the 2nd highest paved pass in the Alps and it felt like it!

There were very few cyclists up there all with the same glint of utter lunacy in their eyes. The place was packed with motorbikers who looked at us all dressed in our finest licra like we were from a different planet. Then came the long 'Top Gear' descent fantastic, all the way down a tarmac ribbon drapped down the side of the mountain.

Onto Merano, along A roads with trucks roaring past until Chris saw something that looked a lot like a cycle track down to our right by the river. We picked our way through a vinyard and found the track. These fantastic, fast smooth tracks took us all the way to Merano and onto Bolzano at about 20 mph.

So whilst we got through some miles, we didn't get to the last part of the day a 20 mile 1400 meter climb up to Nova Lavente until 20:00ish. This was a tough ride the first part of which was through a long uphill tunnel out of Bolzano. An hour and a half later, in the pitch dark and with about a mile to go, my legs just stopped going round! Shoes off and walk through the slightly spooky Tyrolian forest.

We got to the Rosengarten hotel after 22:00. Graham and Jeremy had been there for a couple of hours and had food and beers waiting, what a day, still the view from the the top of Stelvio will I think stay with me for the rest of my days.

Today's Stats

Total ride so far 843 miles
Total ride today 128 miles
Average speed today 10 mph
Total climb today > 14,000 feet!

Greetings from Zernez

Now you may think that as we were only planning to do some 78 miles, today was going to be somewhat easier than our long rides through France, we'll you'd be mistaken because as we discovered the Alps are rather big and cycling up to and through high Alpine passes is challenging to say the least.

We got away from the Hotel Flyhof at about 07:30 after some more emergency repairs to Graham's rack. Our route took us east along the side of the Walensee into the Alps proper.

We slogged along through Sarga and Grusch into an astonishingly strong headwind at which point Graham managed to find the only pot hole in Switzerland and got the first puncture of the trip - this took some time to fix as the new tube also had a puncture and we managed to lose a vital washer which resulted in all of us on our hands and knees exploring the Swiss undergrowth until the thing was found.

Lunch was in Klosters where of course it had to be Jeremy who asked where HRH stayed when skiing. A rather disappointed waiter said he hadn't been recently which we all agreed was probably a positive aspect of the current round of public spending cuts.

From Klosters to Davos the climbing started in earnest. Then on from Davos up to the Fluelapass at 2383 meters. Now I never thought that I was going to be able to throw snow balls at Chris in June but the opportunity presented itself and how could I refuse. The hotel at the top of the pass was surrounded by snow and was a wonderful sight to behold. Getting up there was hard. I was feeling pretty flaky and breathing very hard by the time I arrived, Jeremy on the other hand who has been rather hiding his light under a bushel when it comes to hill climbing, had already been there for 10 minutes and greeted us with Apple Strudel and coffee - much needed. The trip down to Zernez was a very different matter. Long, high speed sweeping hairpins with no barriers on the edge of the road and lots of surprise roadworks just to keep you on your toes. Anyway, here and safely installed in the Hotel Spoel. Just had a wonderful plate of pasta and thinking about the challenges of tomorrow.

Todays stats:

Total ride so far  713 miles
Total ride today  78 miles
Average speed today 12 mph

Greetings from Weesen (well Fly actually)

We left the Hotel at 07:30 this morning, a late start after a fine breakfast in the splendid surroundings Grand Hotel Tonneau D'Or’s restaurant and headed off towards the Swiss boarder. Our experience of cycling in France has been tremendous. Everyone we encountered was as kind to us as the wonderful roads were to our increasingly saddle sore behinds. Mind you from the vantage point of a bicycle saddle, you get an appreciation for the scale of the country. With twice as much land as the UK and with a similar population, you can go for miles along straight roads through gently rolling green acres without seeing another soul.


From Belfort we headed west towards the Swiss boarder. As we went through Ballersdorf and Wittersdorf the terrain started to get noticeably hillier with a couple of good climbs giving us a hint of what was to come when we got to Switzerland.

After 40 miles we crossed the boarder and got to Basle at 10:00 for some coffee and very, small very expensive ham sandwiches. On the way into the city we made a quick pit stop at a cycle shop as Graham’s gears were starting to play up, the diagnosis was that his rack attachment had shifted and was starting to interfere with the derailleur, we caught it just before the ‘schicksalsschlag’ apparently, which sounds as if it might have been rather painful.


It was great fun navigating through the streets of the Basle, made a change from the long straight French roads. The Garmin came into its own, ‘pinging’ away at every corner and guiding us serenely through the city, then on another 45 miles to Zurich. We stopped for lunch in Frick and after a painstaking examination of the Swiss-German menu and some very puzzled expressions from the waitress, we ended up with what I think were four sort of ‘meat buns’ and a large bottle of ice tea, interesting combination…


Around Brugg we got our first real taste of the mountains with some exhausting climbs and some wonderful long 40mph sweeping down hills.

Without wishing to descend too far into national stereotyping, the experience of cycling through Zurich was as smooth and accurate as an expensive Swiss watch. The city is interwoven with a network of thoughtfully designed cycle tracks which resulted in an easy journey across the city and onto the South Western shore of the Zurich See. We stopped for a coffee near Horgen and then continued our smooth flat 20mph ride along the shoreline, through Bilten and on towards the Walensee at the start of which lay our destination, the Hotel FlyHof.


Got to the hotel about seven thirty, it’s a lovely place by the edge of the lake with grounds going down to the shore. We hid the bikes in the garden and got ready for dinner. It was an excellent meal with a lovely bottle of the local, light chardonnay.

As I head to bed, it is becoming apparent that the bodies are starting to suffer after all these miles, sore knees, bottoms and hands seem top of the list at the moment.


Off into the mountains towards Zernez via Davos, 2500 meter climbs will be something to look forward to!

Today's Stats

Total ride so far 635


Total ride today 130


Average speed today 15.7 mph

Greetings from Belfort

The Hotel had left breakfast out for us in the restaurant which allowed us to get on the road by 06:30, a good thing as we were planning over a 150 mile ride and there was a need to find a bike shop somewhere en route. As we left Les Riceys, we past what I believe was St. Peter’s church, an incongruously large edifice for such a small village - but derelict, a strange thing as we often hear about empty churches in the UK but you never really see a true dereliction with barred doors and broken windows.

It was a misty morning and we made good progress through vineyard lined valleys and villages whose names reminded one of a browse through the pages of the Savoy’s wine list. Our first stop was after 55 miles at the old fortified town of Langres, it was a bit of a peddle to get up there, but the coffee and ham baguettes were more than worth the effort. It transpired that the only bike shop in the town was closed on Mondays and as Jeremy’s makeshift chain seemed to be holding up well, we decided to press on and try our luck in the next large town, Vesoul.

It was another 50 miles to Vesoul and we didn’t get there until about four. On our arrival we contacted ‘Culture Velo’ and the owner agreed to stay open until we got there. The application of some of Jeremy’s mellifluous charm on a little old lady at a bus stop secured us the directions we needed and we got to the place by about four thirty. The bike went straight into the workshop for a new chain and some careful adjustment and half an hour later we were back on the road.

The last 50 miles was tough but more than made up for by the beautiful evening and wonderful countryside. We found the frightfully posh if rather faded Grand Hotel Tonneau D'Or at 21:00, unpacked, washed and went out to an excellent Italian restaurant for huge plates of pasta and an acceptable local Rose.

Tomorrow, Switzerland…

Today’s stats:

Total ride so far 505 miles

Total ride today 155 miles

Average speed today 15.6 mph

Greetings from Les Riceys

The Hostellerie Blanche De Castille in Dourdan was a perfectly acceptable, I’d even say a comfortable place to stay. They were happy to attend to the important business of looking after our bikes but seemed less keen to accommodate our requirements for a 06:30 breakfast, not unreasonable for a Sunday morning I guess. We bought breakfast at a local supermarket the previous evening and bolted it down in our rooms before engaging with Dourdan’s slightly frustrating one-way system by 07:00.

We made good time to Etampes and went onto Nemours for coffee after about 45 miles. The forecast was for rain and this part of our journey through the open expanses of Seine-et-Marne was completed under threatening skies and those short sharp showers that finish just as you’ve stopped to put on your waterproofs.

As we set off from Nemours after coffee, the rain started to come down in earnest. Another 40 rather miserable miles got us through Sens and onto the village of Cerisiers for lunch. This is the beginning of the fabled Department of Burgundy and sure enough, there was a small, wet village market selling food and wonderful wine to the pitifully few, bedraggled passers by. Being Sunday the place was basically closed and we could only find one rather greasy pizza joint which had to suffice.

Thankfully after lunch the rain cleared, we left the planned ‘D roads’ and took to small country lanes through the heart of rural France. Well I guess it had all gone too smoothly, so just to add a little excitement, somewhere near the tiny village of Praslin, late on a Sunday afternoon Jeremy’s chain broke. There was a sort of stunned silence as we all remembered with a slightly queasy feeling, a similar event which required the services of the British Army (or Major Plewes at least) to sort us out.

Some problem with the gears had resulted in one twisted and one broken chain link and unbelievably in spite of all our planning; we didn’t have any Campagnolo 11 speed chain links. We set to work and rebuilt the chain from a variety of 10 speed links and managed to get back on the road after half an hour with Jeremy getting ‘feedback’ from the rest of us every time we felt he was putting the mechanism under too much stress.

As it turned out, the rest of the ride was completed without a hitch and we got to the rather wonderful Hotel Le Magny in the heart of Champagne at about 20:00. Over a wonderful dinner of Salmon, Crème Brulee and some fascinating local wines, Jeremy reflected ruefully that “The bloke in the shop said that when you spend this much money on a bike, you’ve got to really love it, all I can feel is apprehensive!”

Tomorrow Belfort and a bike shop

Today’s stats

Total ride so far 350 miles

Total ride today 138 miles

Average speed today 15.5 mph

Greetings form Dourdan

We all slept well on the ferry and were up early to enjoy a very full if rather expensive breakfast courtesy of Brittany Ferries before disembarking.

We cycled out of the hold into a bright, clear French morning and remembering (Just) to cycle on the right hand side of the road, we made our way inland from Caen along a canal tow path. Within 10 minutes we were confronted by a Centaur tank, guarding the approaches to Pegasus Bridge between Caen and Ouistreham, scene of the famous 6th Airborne Division assault on June 6th 1944.

After crossing the bridge we disappeared onto very quiet country lanes. Getting interestingly lost, we cycled up the same steep hill three times from three different directions before realising that Graham’s innate ability to navigate became somewhat impaired when in ‘some foreign field’

After 30 miles we found the pretty town of Lisieux in the Department of Calavdos and from then on stuck to slightly bigger roads stopping at Orbec after 45 miles for our first proper croissant and café au lait.

We had a very fine lunch of omelette and pasta at Verneuil-sur-Avre after 80 miles and made it into Dourdan by about 19:00 having cycled 140 miles.

I’m finding it a real joy to cycle in France for many reasons but the two that stick in my mind from today's experience are:

• The roads, smooth flat and for the most part new, even the smallest country lanes. Those of you who have to cycle on the UK's pot hole strewn strips of rough tarmac will understand what a pleasure this is.

• The courtesy of French drivers who give cyclists all the time and space they need unlike their British counterparts.

Anyway, Dourdan is a great place overlooked by an ancient castle. A Medieval festival was coming to an end when we arrived and we were met by knights in shining armour and women in tunics and veils of the period. This might have explained why we had trouble getting rooms in the town, the restaurants were pretty busy too. We discovered a café that wasn’t particularly packed although it seemed a little too ‘Veggie’ for our taste. We were given a table under the stairs and got stuck into plate fulls of falafel or something equally ghastly and reflected on an excellent first day… Tomorrow off to Les Riceys

Stats for today are:

Total ride so far 212 miles
Total ride today 140 miles
Average speed 15 MPH

 

It begins....

We all made our way to Chris’ house in the village for our departure and the weather Gods were clearly smiling on us, it was a beautiful afternoon. After the compulsory photo call we were off and within 15 yards of Chris’ front gate my chain came off, within the next mile Chris’s also had chain problems and Jeremy’s gears stopped working, an inauspicious start.

We followed the advice and ‘pings’ of the Garmin Sat Nav into the Hampshire countryside. It guided us south faultlessly even when we passed signs that said “Do Not Follow Sat Nav”. Avoiding Offham which was something of a first for us, we got down to Portsmouth in plenty of time for a good plate of Pasta at Strada on Gunwharf key before making our way to the Ferry.It's a slightly odd feeling cycling over the gangway and into the dark recesses of a car ferry, anyway bikes were all chained up below and we wandered up to the bar for a couple of glasses of finest carbohydrate before bed.

The Cabins were small and perfectly adequate; we were all in bed before 11:30. Thankfully Graham’s snoring seems to have improved considerably since our last trip but Chris’s deodorant should be made illegal in such small spaces, tomorrow France!

Today’s Stats

Today’s distance 63 Miles
Average speed 15.7 mph

All set - 1 day to go

At 15:00 tomorrow we’ll set off from Streatley and with luck and a following wind in the early evening of Friday 11th June we’ll to be bumping down the narrow backstreets of Venice to our final hotel after over 1,000 miles of unsupported cycling. We’ve taken it easy this week, no cycling apart from a very gentle 50 miler last Saturday, our attention has been on final planning for the trip. The final route is:

A-B Streatley to Portsmouth
62 miles 2,146 ft. climb
C-D Caen to Dourdan
140 miles 3,291 ft. climb
D-E Dourdan to Les Riceys
138 miles 4,081 ft. climb
E-F Les Riceys to Belfort
146 miles 4,990 ft. climb
F-G Belfort to Weesen
130 miles 3,684 ft. climb
G-H Weesen to Zernez
73 miles 8,737 ft. climb
H-I Zernez to Nova Levante
95 miles 7,717 ft. climb (Non-Stelvio!)
I-J Nova Levante to Venice
119 miles 6,411 ft. climb

Everything is ready, our daily supplies of carbohydrate gels and bars have been sent off to the hotels en route, bikes are serviced, tickets checked and bags packed. Needless to say whilst you’ll be basking in glorious sunshine here in the UK, the weekend weather in France is forecast to be truly awful, so do think of us peddling through the torrential rain!
 
We’re not only doing this cycle to ameliorate our various mid-life crises, the other reason is to raise a bit of money for a couple of good causes:


THE BRITISH HEART FOUNDATION

THE UPKEEP OF AN HISTORIC LOCAL CHURCH AT ALDWORTH, HOME OF THE ALDWORTH GIANTS

If you would like to assist with this latter objective, please BACS whatever you feel you can spare for one or both of these great causes to a dedicated bank account, sort code 40-22-14, account number 61218913, using your name as the reference. If you have a preference as to which cause you wish your donation to go to please add ‘BHF’ or ‘AC’ as appropriate. (e.g. REF: BILL SMITH AC is Aldworth Church and REF: BILL SMITH BHF is British Heart Foundation). The default where no preference is stated is 50% to each cause.

If you make a donation please take the trouble to complete this Gift Aid form and return to Graham at g.burfoot@countrywidegrounds.com so the charities can reclaim tax and increase your donation by 25% or more. (See http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/charities/gift_aid/declarations.htm )

Thanks and keep you posted!

Major Plewes and the case of the exploding derailleur – 10 days to go

If you’ll forgive me for picking up on last week’s theme, according to a long-held theatre superstition, a bad dress rehearsal, means you'll have a terrific show; let’s hope so…

This week’s plan was to complete a couple of back to back 100+ mile rides to ensure bodies, bikes and kit were fit for the purpose. For Saturday’s ride we thought we’d have another look at Portsmouth. Graham planned a challenging route by literally drawing a straight line from Streatley to Portsmouth and then use every highway and byway to keep to that line. The result was a wonderful ride along tiny country lanes and through rustic, summer villages. Main roads tend to follow valleys of course; our route ignored this practicality and took us over lots of good big hills, hard work on what proved the hottest day of the year so far.

Now somewhere near Basingstoke Jeremy’s rear gear mechanism developed an interesting ‘click’. Thinking it wasn’t too serious; we agreed to continue slowly to the nearest bike shop. Big mistake - just outside the tiny village of Chidden the offending derailleur exploded in a shower of rather expensive carbon fibre. The bike was totally shagged, not only had the gears disintegrated, they had managed to bend the bike’s titanium frame as they departed this world. The only course of action was to remove what was left of the gears and set up a ‘fixed wheel’ arrangement to get us to the next village.

We made it to Hambledon and to cheer himself up Jeremy wandered off to the village shop to buy chocolate and regale a rather under whelmed Miranda Hart of Sport Relief Million Pound Bike Ride fame, with tales of his cycling heroics. As Chris, Graham and I studied what was left of the bike, we were joined by the remarkable Major Andy Plewes. By a stroke of luck the good Major who lives in the village, runs the Royal Marines Cycling club and there’s nothing he doesn’t know about the sport. After an exhaustive examination of the damage, the carefully considered verdict was handed down; the bike was indeed completely shagged and as he was just off to compete in a time trial, he offered to give both bike and rider a lift to the nearest station. We disentangled Jeremy from Miranda, loaded him into the Major’s personnel carrier and waved him a fond farewell.

Reports of Jeremy’s journey home are somewhat sketchy although it’s clear that after travelling for some hours he found himself back at the same small Hampshire railway station from which his journey had begun in the company of a young Romanian woman who only seemed capable of repeating “I have a boyfriend”

What was left of the team continued on down to Portsmouth and after the briefest of pauses at Gunwharf Quay which was packed with Saturday shoppers, we headed home. We followed the same route on the way back, stopping for some fairly ordinary baked potatoes at the The Harvest Home in Denmead. We got in shortly after six having covered 135 miles, climbing nearly 6000 feet at an average speed of slightly less than 15 mph. All in all a challenging day.

Now whilst Major Plewes clearly had a staring role in the adventure, if there’s a real hero of the piece it has to be Neal Bromley, owner of Trailjunkies, organiser of our huge local cycling community and purveyor of finest bicycles to the gentry. On Saturday evening we had been invited out to a dinner party and whilst we were enjoying the excellent food, the company and Chris’ utterly futile attempts to explain to his wife the benefits of having a husband who worked all week and then spent all weekend out cycling - somewhere in a nearby workshop Mr. Bromley was re-building Jeremy’s bike so that he would be able to make day two of our final training weekend. Sure enough, at six o’clock on Sunday morning with a very few hours sleep and stupendous hangovers, there was Jeremy with a completely re-built bike – Now how’s that for customer service!

Thankfully Sunday’s ride was rather less eventful, we headed South again towards the New Forest via Whitchurch stopping at Stockbridge for breakfast at Lillies a nice café with fair to middling scrambled egg and very small tea pots. We continued south to Dunbridge before turning for home. An excellent Lunch at the Shears Inn in Collingbourne Ducis then onto Hungerford and home. 115 miles at an average 15.5 mph.

A 250 mile weekend and some very good lessons learned which include; if your bike starts making an unwelcome and unexplained noise best stop until cause has been found and remedied. As this problem wasn’t one we could have really prevented, on reflection, we think it might be wise to compile a list of all the bike shops and taxi companies en route!

Dress Rehearsals - 15 days to go

I think last week’s bit of storming contributed to making Sunday’s ride a hugely enjoyable day out in Sussex, the first time we have visited that fair county. To date our rides have taken us West to Dorset, East to Kent and North to Northamptonshire and I have to say, it’s one of the real joys of these rides that we get to really see and appreciate this sceptred Isle, this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England…!     

Pursuing the theatrical theme, I’m reminded that with 15 days to go we’re getting into the serious business of dress rehearsals. For this ride, we kitted our bikes out with all the gear we will be taking. Each of us will have nine litres of carrying capacity, a Topeak 2 litre handlebar bag and a seven litre Carradice saddle bag. With such limited space, we’ll be taking literally one tee shirt, a pair of shorts and ‘flip flops’ for the evening - there won’t be room for anything else by the time we’ve included spares and tools, waterproofs, mobiles, maps, first aid kit and other essentials. 

Our route took us south to Petersfield, where we had breakfast at the excellent Cloisters Café. En route we encountered a member of the lost Garmin user’s society. Claire had been wandering aimlessly through the lanes of Hampshire since her trip computer expired. In his inimitable style, Graham gave her directions to Southampton and we all went on our way. After Breakfast we headed for Midhurst before returning home via Liphook. A ride of 125 miles completed at just over 15.5 mph and with total ascents of 4,500 feet so pretty similar to one of our non-alpine riding days when we get to France.

We are pretty much all organised now. We managed to sort the route out just in time to get the accommodation we need, hotels were getting pretty full by the time we came to book. We’re all set apart from the first Saturday night, 5^thJune. Perhaps because this weekend sees the Journées des Jardins in France where thousands of public and private gardens are open for free visits, every hotel in the country appears full. We could only find two rooms (one with only a double bed!) in Dourdan, Jeremy is desperately praying for a cancellation or two!

So we have hotels, tickets, bikes and all the kit we need, we’ve even agreed how we are going to get our bikes back from Venice! Next week end will see our last serious training sessions with two back to back 130 milers, then we’ll take it easier until its time to go.      

A matter of 'Storming' - 24 days to go

We had a row this weekend. It was about how we were going to get our bikes back from Venice. Interesting I thought, after spending so much time together how we can still get all bent out of shape by something so trivial? And the answer, well I think we’re probably still “Storming”. Allow me to elucidate.

I thought that when a bunch of guys came together to do something like cycle to Venice; a strong cohesive team would quickly form. Well I was wrong; initially we were simply a group who shared a common purpose. Rather like being in a queue for a cash point machine; you all have a common objective, you’re prepared to follow a few rules and conventions so others around you don’t get upset, you might even have a nice chat to pass the time - but clearly you’re not in what I would call a team.

With cycling it’s possible to continue as a ‘group’ if that’s what you want, after all road biking’s a pretty individual business. Providing you’re organised enough to meet up in the morning, getting to the destination is mostly a matter of personal fitness - you don’t really need others to grind out the miles. It’s not until we started getting into each others’ motives, started having to support each other at the end of a 150 mile ride and began to share the work of planning and organising the trip that I noticed a move from ‘Group’ to ‘Team’.

In my dark and mysterious world of management consulting, there’s a model that helps understand the development of teams. A psychologist called Tuckman recognised that teams go through four stages of development; forming, storming, norming, and performing. I can’t help wondering what Mr. Tuckman might make of us, let’s see…

Step one was pretty straight forward, Graham, Chris and I were sitting in the pub one evening reminiscing about Land’s end to John O’Groats. We decided it would be fun to do something similar. We thought a mutual friend, Jeremy might be interested, he was and several curries later we had a plan to go to Venice, voilà we were formed!

The big picture is that we had to work through whether we all wanted enough of the same things to make the trip viable and enjoyable. It emerged that we all seem to share a central need for a big physical and mental challenge. We all have other requirements of course; ranging from sightseeing, through drinking wine to creating a different focus in life – but nothing so incompatible to raise the likelihood of the thing falling apart. Then comes the storming, which if you want to develop a sense of team, you leave out at your peril. Storming is about drinking beer, challenge and conflict. Hence, our row! It was actually quite tough to get a working set of objectives and agreement on who would do what with regard to planning and organisation. As we wrestle with these agreements, my sense of comfort around being in a team increases.

During norming the objectives and agreements become a working reality, you find ways of coping with people’s eccentric behaviours; Chris going off on a political rant every time we go past an election poster, Graham’s determination to keep wearing the most revolting pair of see-through shorts known to man, Jeremy’s inability to communicate with any woman under the age of 50 or his remarkable views on quantitative easing. Then there are the problems and frustrations caused by bad or missing equipment, there’s agreeing to take on each others’ tasks when you’re simply over stretched, perhaps a question over someone’s fitness or motivation. Gradually as we work through these trials, our communication improves and consensus and cooperation becomes the central theme and we start to perform as a team.

Last Sunday saw the 9th annual running of the Hairy Legs Challenge, a local competition consisting for a 5k run a 20k mountain bike ride and another 5k run. Whilst we’ve all endured this ritual torture, this year only Chris and Jeremy chose to participate. To save our comrades legs for the trials of the following day we agreed we should keep Saturday’s ride to a gentle 100 miler. Winchester for breakfast at the excellent Café Monde returning via, you guessed it, Overton! Kingsclere and Newbury.

Helpful advice from a forebear - 31 days to go

I was wandering through the less visited byways of amazon.com recently and discovered a book entitled “The road to a healthy old age: Eassys Lay and Medical” written by my Great Grandfather and published in 1914. Intrigued, I purchased a copy and discovered this 19th century Bournemouth physician to be a man of wit and wisdom. On the subject of cycling, he considered it “good if done very carefully, but cycling up stiff hills and against strong head winds to be very dangerous”. If today’s ride was anything to go by, I feel I’d have been something of a disappointment to him. We rode the 50 miles to Chipping Norton into a strong North Westerly and completed this 95 mile ride by climbing the dreaded 16% gradient of Streatley Hill and they don’t come much “stiffer” than that.

The trip to Chipping Norton was our second ride for this Bank Holiday weekend. On Saturday, with Jeremy still in Russia, Chris, Graham and I had decided to head south. There’s a café at Newlands Corner in the Surrey Hills where the quality of the scrambled egg is only equalled by the breathtaking views of the surrounding countryside. Needless to say when we got there it was closed so desolated, we continued onto Godalming where as it turned out, we found some equally good eggs served by a delightful Czech girl with no front teeth. The return via Aldershot and Hartley Wintney completed the first of these two 95 mile rides, both at an average speed of 16.5 mph.

In the light of my Great Grandfathers advice to stay away from “violent exercise and unguarded strains”, I thought with a month to go until our departure, I’d take a moment to reflect on the programme to date. In February we put in 396 training miles, in March 717 miles and in April 851 miles. This reasonably gradual build up seems to have been effective in allowing us to return to a serious cycling regime without incurring any major injuries.

When we trained for the Land’s End to John O’Groats ride, as relative newcomers to the sport we put in too many long rides too early and paid the price with a series of ailments from inflamed Achilles tendons and several episodes patellofemoral syndrome, or ‘cyclists knee’. Thankfully, a brilliant local sports physiotherapist called Amanda Watt kept all our parts in reasonable working order on that occasion. This time we have had less cause to occupy her waiting room, although we haven’t been complete strangers. I’ve had to be helped through the after affects of last year’s back operation on a slipped disc, Jeremy’s shoulder seizes up from time to time as it has more metal in it than a Sherman tank after a skiing accident and Chris has had to get a hand and arm sorted out after a rabbit chose to decapitate itself in his front wheel causing him to describe a gentle arc into a hedge.

So ‘health’ seems to be holding up and ‘fitness’ is getting there, in fact it’s been interesting to see the increasing efficiency of the ‘system’ by monitoring calories burned per mile over the past few weeks. Although we’re not there yet, if we put in some high mileage with lots of hill training over the next three weeks, become a little more conscientious when it comes to diet and nutrition and tempting though it is, ignore my forebear’s advice to consume lots of good port wine as it “keeps up the heat and helps the flagging appetite”- we should be OK...



Well that’s about it for this week apart from disappointing news on the hotel booking front. Our preferred hotel near Belfort is full and the one in Weesen only has a couple of “Romantical” doubles available. I think I’ll be staying with the bikes on that particular evening.

All roads lead to Overton - 40 days to go

If in 1805, Admiral Lord Nelson had used a Garmin cycle computer to guide him to Portsmouth for the start of his last, fateful voyage on board HMS Victory; I think there is little doubt we’d all be speaking French today.


We attempted to kill two birds with one stone on this weekend’s training ride. Firstly we thought we’d go down to Portsmouth to see what the ride to the ferry might be like and secondly we though we’d try some gentle satellite navigation by allowing Jeremy’s Garmin cycle computer to lead the way.

A route from Streatley to Portsmouth of 63 miles was duly loaded into the device. After 75 miles and with only the slightest hint of schadenfreude on Graham’s part, we were still exploring previously uncharted areas of Hampshire countryside. Try as we might to persuade the little gadget to take us to Portsmouth, it seemed fascinated by a place called Overton and attempted to take us back there on three of four separate occasions.

The Garmin is supposed to give a little ‘ping’ to tell you that your turning’s coming up only in our case, we got a little ‘ping’ to tell us we’d just missed it. We discovered that only by travelling at less than 10 mph would it ‘Ping’ in time to be vaguely useful - which conveniently enough, provides this week’s excuse for a our continually decreasing average speed on these rides; a sedentary 15.8 mph for this outing. With Jeremy mumbling something about incompatible file formats, it was with considerable relief that Chris and I once again placed our trust in Graham’s homing pigeon instincts, which have served us so well over the past few years.

After cycling 88 miles we eventually got to Portsmouth for an extremely civilised lunch of pie and mash in a pub by the Historic Dockyard. For the return journey we followed the country lanes that the Garmin should have lead us down on the way. A lovely ride on a beautiful April afternoon through Hambledon, Corhampton, Farringdon, Basingstoke, Aldermarston and home. 151 miles and back by six in time to go out for a Chinese with Manda and the kids.

Mid week training continued apace with Chris getting a couple of 25 mile rides and some running in, Graham trying an 80 mile commute to work for the first time this year and Jeremy and I following our usual regime which included another trip to Reading Velodrome on Tuesday evening.

The route to Venice is more or less settled now with the only remaining question being whether we attempt the famous Stelvio pass on day 6. There are now two schools of thought; Chris and I who being in our forties, believe that you’re only young once and that climbing over a 9,000 foot pass after having peddled nearly 900 miles is an eminently sensible idea, Graham and Jeremy on the other hand think we should go with a perfectly acceptable alternative which is 30 miles shorter and involves about 3000 feet less climbing. Whilst I’m not entirely clear about the reasons for their reluctance, I’m convinced that Jeremy’s concern relates to a fear of finding himself heading back to Overton should he be forced to rely on his ##~&*!@!! Garmin. At this stage, I think we’ll plan both a Stelvio and non-Stelvio route and see how the mood takes us when we get there.

This week will see us booking hotels and sorting out racks, bags and carriers for the bikes. Keep you posted!

Planning begins in earnest with 46 days to go

It's funny how we become so accustomed to certain aspects of our environment that we simply don't notice them anymore. As we set out last Sunday morning through the Oxfordshire countryside, there was an eerie unreality about the perfect, gin clear blue sky and the uninterrupted natural harmony of the dawn chorus. The absence due to an Icelandic ash cloud, of any aircraft, their noise and their tell-tail vapour trails, was having an unexpectedly profound effect on our world.

Sunday’s ride saw the four of us reunited for the first time in a few weeks. With holidays behind us and travel commitments unusually benign, we thought we should put a good ride in. Leaving Streatley at 06:00 we headed off to Cheltenham for breakfast via Farringdon and Lechlade, the return journey taking us through Cirencester and Fairford. A most enjoyable 125 miles in glorious sunshine all be it at a rather stately average of 16.4 mph, this due in no small part to the after effects of a couple of rather good parties in the village on Saturday Night.

This week saw us start to get to grips with maps, compasses, and an excellent website called Bike Route Toaster as we realised that if we don’t agree the route, it’ll be too late to book any decent hotels. Youth Hostels and formule 1 hotels are out - we’ve all had the misfortune to try them.

Our plan is to do the trip unsupported and we’ll be carrying only absolute essentials; tee shirt, shorts, tools, spares, phones and of course the essential chamois cream (don’t ask). We need to have our hotels booked not only to ensure that we have a bed for the night but also so we can send them Red-Cross parcels full of essentials for the following day’s ride, you can imagine the sort of thing, protein drink powder, carbohydrate gels, underpants etc. We did a similar thing on our last expedition; Graham weighed various powders out into small plastic bags before wrapping them up and sending them off to the various hotels. I'm sure you can see where this is going…. The package received at one hotel in Scotland had split and whilst we didn’t actually have the Drug Squad awaiting our arrival, eloquent and persuasive explanations were required to preserve our liberty.

We haven’t been entirely idle and have in fact booked the start and finish points for the trip. We’ll be cycling down to Portsmouth after work on Friday 4th June and taking the overnight ferry to Caen. All being well, we’ll spend the following Friday and Saturday nights at the Hotel Al Sole in Venice before flying home on the Sunday.

The challenge this week has been to sort out the bit in the middle and we’re now well on the way. Whilst we have yet to agree the finer points, the broad plan at this stage is:

Day 1 Caen to Sonchamp 133 miles
Day 2 Sonchamp - Laignes 147 miles
Day 3 Laignes - Belfort 146 miles
Day 4 Belfort - Weesen 128 miles (Into Switzerland)
Day 5 Weesen - Zernez 67 miles (big hills)
Day 6 Zernez - Margreid an der Weinstraße 104 miles (Into Italy and more big hills)
Day 7 Margeid - Venice 131 miles

 According to one of Jeremy’s gadgets, this route requires us to climb a total of 38,368 feet or exactly 9,339 feet more than the height of Mount Everest – is this possible for four men of a certain age?

Whilst others concern themselves with minimising impossible distances and ludicrous climbs, I have become aware of another, altogether more insidious problem. Day 3 will see us cycling through what is unquestionably the greatest wine growing region in the world; I recall with a certain unease the devastation caused by coming within drinking distance of the Clynelish distillery as we cycled through Scotland, The idea of completing 143 miles in one day through Burgundy will require more self control than I for one could possibly muster.

Week beginning Monday 5th April. 54 days to go

So once again, training was all a bit disjointed this week. Jeremy got back from the Canaries suffering the consequences of having eaten one of those lukewarm tuna ciabattas that seem standard fare at airports these days. His ‘cycling camp’ appears to have been a success, He reports that the mountain training has given him legs like ‘tree trunks’ and that breathtaking scenery (see photo) gave him the strength to keep up with the peloton of finely honed German athletes.

Chris has gone skiing this week with his shiny new bike (and his family). We are getting alarming texts suggesting that he’s doing 40 mile Alpine rides by way of après ski. Still, that’s Chris.

Graham has had a somewhat less athletic week. The trouble with running your own Garden maintenance business is that at this time of year things suddenly start to grow and strangely, this means they need to be ‘maintained’. It would appear that Graham’s meticulously crafted planning algorithms which are supposed to effortlessly direct the right white van, to the right place, at the right time - had the decimal point in the wrong place. The result was confusion, shouting, interesting gesticulations, and only time for a couple of hours on the Turbo.

As for me, now the days are getting longer, I find the 29 mile commute into the office in Maidenhead quite achievable and I managed this a couple of times in the week racking up 116 miles in the process. I’m afraid I can’t give you an average speed as my bike computer received a good wash at 40 degrees on a short spin.

So with Chris skiing and Jeremy still suffering the after affects of his Ciabatta, this Sunday’s cycle was again just Graham and I. A relatively short ride; 70 miles via Thame, Bicester and Wheatley. It was a lovely morning, lots of cyclists out. We came up on one pair of guys all nicely attired in those excellent Foska ‘London Pride’ beer road jerseys. “Do you think we can take them?” asks Graham. We go for it and fly past, desperately trying to make an impressive get away. We thought we were clear however as we sweated up a serious hill coming out of Wheatly, the London Priders glided serenely past us and just to make the point, started chatting to us on the steepest part of the incline about how they were training for the Etape. All in all a good ride, we left Streatley at 06:00 back just after 10:00 averaging a shade over 17 mph, the early finish earning innumerable smarty points at home.

Easter Weekend Training

With a couple of months to go, we have all got to a level where we can ride 130 miles comfortably at about 15 mph. Our challenge now is to ensure we can do this kind of distance for seven days consecutively and at a slightly higher speed. It looks like we can all get fit enough and endurance will be the key so from here on in, its miles in the saddle that will count.

It wasn’t a particularly well coordinated training regime this weekend. Jeremy has gone off to the Canary Islands and according to e-mails is enjoying rather too much sunshine and sangria although he does confess to having hired a bike and hooking up with cycle training camp on Grand Canaria comprising mostly German athletes half his age, so God only knows what state he’ll be in when he gets back. With Chris also out of the picture, Good Friday saw Graham and I heading off to Dorset. I had to go and see the Mother-in-Law, Graham consented to join me for part of the ride. The first couple of hours were fine as we took a route past Hungerford and headed towards Salisbury but then the temperature dropped and the heavens opened. Life became miserable, wet and cold. We received a shower every time a car passed and to add injury to insult, both of us rode into a huge pot hole concealed by a torrent of water and were catapulted off our bikes into a crowd of rather startled Salisbury pedestrians. Saturated, battered, bruised we dripped into a Costa coffee for cake, hot chocolate and frantic phone calls to come and be rescued. Not a great inaugural ride for the new bike which thankfully came out of it rather better than I!

As a rule we tend to try and get our cycling in early so it doesn’t impinge too much on family life so on Saturday and Sunday mornings we were joined by Chris and added to Friday’s miserable 60 miler with a couple of our regular 50 mile training rides to Stokenchurch and back. Much better weather and better speed, we averaged 15mph to Salisbury but improved to 16.9 and 17.3 respectively on the two Stokenchurch rides. A trip to Northampton for me and to Kent for Chris on Monday means that we’ve all covered between 150 and 200 miles this week. About right with a couple of months to go.

Background to this adventure

In 2007 two friends and I all suffering from a mid-life crisis in just the same way, took it upon ourselves to cycle from Land’s End to John O’Groats in seven days. Whilst this trip proved both successful and memorable on many levels; the ride through Glencoe one misty May morning being particularly unforgettable, it was a disappointment in one important respect - it failed utterly in curing the mid-life crisis. In fact it made it rather worse, rekindling an enthusiasm for bicycles none of us had experienced since we were ten years old.

In spite of wise council from our wives who reminded us that when the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy “there is always gardening”, here we are three years later about to do it all over again, only this time we’re being a little more ambitious. The plan is to ride from Streatley-on-Thames, a sleepy village nestling under the Berkshire Downs to Venice. Not only is the journey some 150 miles further than ‘LEJOG’ at a little over 1000 miles, but of course there is the small matter of the Alps and as last time, all has to be done in the 7 days that we’ve been allowed out for (relatively) good behaviour.

For this trip the team has grown from three to four. There’s myself, Sam, a sometime marathon runner and management consultant with a perverse attraction for working in African military dictatorships. There’s Chris, one of nature’s natural accountants, what ever he may say to the contrary. Chris is sickeningly athletic, running the 79 mile Jurassic Coast Challenge last year because no one would go with him on “a big bike ride”. Graham who since our last expedition has acquired a garden maintenance business and is now the proud owner of no less than five white vans and finally the newcomer Jeremy, a frightful grown up with an enormous software company who believes that there’ll always be a gadget available to help answer even the most profound questions of life, the universe and cycling.

What follows is a record of our training and hopefully of the ride itself – planned to start on Friday 4th June 2010. I thought I might start this blog today not only because rather appropriately it’s April fools day, but also because it’s been something of a seminal week in our preparations as myself and Chris have taken possession of our new bikes, a Ridley Orion and a Basso Laguna respectively, joining Graham’s Kuota Kebel and Jeremy’s Lynksey - for those interested in such things.