Another windy Wednesday

22/2/12/
I would really like to know what I have done to offend the cycling gods. A very simple plan to cycle to Diss to meet Lesley for a coffee becomes a test of will and endurance. I knew it was a wee bit breezy when I set off. Our prevailing wind is South West and it as the journey progressed it decided that prevailing was not good enough. Wednesday was clearly scheduled as the day when it would conquer the Eastern counties and lay flat everything in its path. Not content with mere wind a good soaking with horizontal rain added to the general warm , fuzzy " I love cycling" vibes my body was busy transmitting to my brain.
 So a trip that normally takes 50 minutes took well over an hour and entailed a  major sense of humour loss on the way . Luckily , I bumped into (metaphorically , not literally) Felix, Diss's excellent busker and was cheered by listening to him. In the interests of testing all  aspects of the French excursion, I then found Lesley in the coffee shop and re-fueled with caffeine and croissant.
Circulation and humour revived I headed for home and , yes, payback time. Tail wind all the way. No records broken but a much happier home run in a rather more respectable time.
Pedals still fine. Again bike and I remained attached when we should have been and not when not. However, I did realise the hard way that breathable shoes are not waterproof....Duh!

23/2/12
More progress on other excursions - I have found a B and B near Sandown run by a lady called Edwina. I was a bit worried that we might be made to listen to Strictly Come Dancing tales of woe with our full english breakfasts but the surname doesn't match so I think we will be OK.

A prayer to the god of tail winds

As I lay awake on Tuesday night listening to the wind hurling rain showers against the bedroom window , I thought "B....r". Of course in the absence of snow and ice nature had to conjure up something to obstruct our plans for the first decent cycle in a few weeks. One of us is made of very strong Celtic stuff so , undeterred by a relatively feeble display of English weather , we set off in a steadfast North Westerly direction. The theory being that it is better to battle a head wind on the outward leg and have the luxury of the wind on our tails as we coast towards home and a hot bath/shower.
Wash Lane does a good impression of a mountain bike course without the mountains but despite its best efforts I stay united with my bike through the spoke deep mud and wheel swallowing potholes. At each junction my internal alarm screeches "feet" at me and I disengage in a very unsmooth and unsophisticated manner then lurch forwards with awkward foot shufflings and mutterings.
As we head up Cheney's Lane and on towards Wymondham via Tacolneston and Spooner Row there are times when I swear we make no forward progress whatsoever. It is like being the stationary car in one of those telly adverts featuring a wind tunnel. All we need is John Hurt to do a voiceover about our spectacular lack of intelligent design and failure of aerdynamism at that point. The wind is SO bad that are even a few stretches of road where we fail to keep up a conversation.
We persevered via Morley and then let our lowering blood sugar and caffeine levels guide us to the Station Cafe in Wymondham for re-heating and re-fueling. After a very civilised interlude and customary map discussions we head for home via a new to us dead end road with a footbridge over the A11. This brought us out to the east of Silfield and then on to Wreningham, Toprow, Hapton, Forncett St Mary and home. (We also discovered a new dog walk venue - Long's Wood Wreningham.)
My mileometer is on the wrong setting so distance covered has to be decided by a mixture of higher maths and wishful thinking - but we reckon we managed about 30 miles.
So the verdict on the pedals - there is something both pure and slightly sinister about being a part of the bike or it being a part of me (discuss?) It certainly feels more efficient and I can understand why they are necessary for proper cyclists who wish to average 30mph during their ascent of alpine passes. I will certainly continue with my attempts to conquer my fear of them.

And amazingly -splat count zero. Beginner's luck combined with sheer terror I assure you.

Getting there

As well as thinking idle thoughts about the comic genius of Eddie Izzard we are starting to put some flesh on the bones of the Le Mans trip. We have booked a ferry crossing - so far one way only from Newhaven to Dieppe. I tried womanfully to make the booking online but ended up causing the system to need a lie down in a darkened room when I tried to explain, very patiently , that I was not imagining that 3 of us would be riding one bicycle and that I really did want to book passage for 3 people with , guess what, 3 bicycles...I ended up speaking to a very charming french lady who set everything straight and confirmed it really wasn't my fault. So counselling included in the ticket price. A bargain!

ice ice baby

`11/2/12
In a fit of bravery I remove the shoes from the box and yes they still fit.  Paddi very kindly fitted the scary pedals to the beloved bike and even though we are still skating up and down our track I felt honour bound to go for a trial pedal. With every down stroke I said "feet" and with every upstroke I said "ice" and somewhere in between I remembered to breathe. So going at approximately 2 miles an hour and repeating that mantra I manged to negotiate our potholes,snow and black ice in one piece. This is rather more impressive than my first ever outing on a bike without stabilisers when I turned round to smile at my anxious parents and promptly ended up in the roses. OUCH! Steering is still a bit of a challenge particularly whilst chatting. I am so glad that there are many straight avenues in the french countryside. Of course the trees lining said avenues may prove interesting particularly post - prandially...but I will respect their space if they respect mine.

12/2/12
Lesley and I made an executive decision to wimp out of the Long Melford trip due to everything outside being encased in a carapace of frozen rain. So once more a trip through the frozen countryside with the slavering beast .He was as full of bravado as ever and studiously ignored the roe deer stag we encountered on our travels.
Random thought - Eddie Izzard is the sort of mascot for the Olympics volunteers and I just wondered if I were to encounter him in a canteen type setting I would have the guts to tell him he needed a tray....(watch Dressed to Kill if you are puzzled).

Looking forward to Wednesday and a proper christening of the new kit. I will do a splat report afterwards...

Sunday post

8/2/12

As snow stops cycle play again, Lesley and I meet in town for all essential caffeine and scheming. The latest wheeze is to combine an U12s rugby match at Harlequins with a visit to the Bike Show at Sandown Park followed by an attempt to cycle most of the way home. Sounds simple superficially but there are also the thorny issues of making it to first base and avoiding any form of train travel on a Sunday. More schemes and stratagems needed but we will get there.

Suitably fortified with coffee, we head to the bike shop. This is one of many environments in which I am totally out of my depth. At lunch times the place is haunted by skeletal chaps who delight in spending their hard –earned break time ogling bikes and bits of bikes that cost more than my pension fund will earn in a lifetime. Sometimes they cluster in corners for earnest discussions about sprockets and three spoke wheels but mostly they are a solitary breed. They regard obvious novices with great suspicion.

When I first bought my beautiful and beloved bike I figured I had two options:

1.Try and look like I know what I am talking about in a vain attempt at being cool or

2. Be natural i.e. ignorant and unashamed of that ignorance.

As option 1 crashed and burned before I even set foot in the shop ( I arrived by car) I chose the wiser option 2. So henceforth I go straight to the counter, explain in very basic terms what I need and hope for the best. There is always a fleeting look of despair in the assistant’s eyes but then they do try their best to translate my lame request into proper bike vernacular and hunt down the required item. By this time I feel well and truly smaller than my shoe size. However, today I made progress. I felt a small glow of pride when I managed to utter a relevant question about alun keys in relation to my new semi-nerdy shoes – more of which later. Even the assistant cracked a wry smile.

Of course there is no point having nerdy shoes unless one has scary “pedals” to go with them. I put pedals in inverted commas because they bear as much resemblance to a normal pedal as a domestic cat bears to a cheetah. Boy are they lean and I suspect rather mean when I forget to disengage. We agreed that it would be best for their tension to be at the minimum level to start with. Mine,of course, will be ratcheted up to the maximum whenever I use the new set up.

A couple of disguised proper cyclists ( they were in normal clothes) asked me about my decision to switch to grown up gear. When I explained about our proposed trip they did manage not to laugh and suggested pre race fun and games like sprinting down the Mulsanne straight. Let’s just get there first is my view.

So home james with my new toys. I will let them sit on the kitchen top to acclimatise to their new surroundings before I attempt to launch forth in to the Norfolk countryside.
Wimp , Moi? Oui!

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Three Not Very Hairy Bikers Head for France
(or Ls , Belles and a beau)


5/2/12

Sitting in my eyrie gazing at a snow-covered garden must be
the perfect time and place to start putting flesh on the idea of our French
adventure.
How is it that in the
space of a year we have gone from considering a 65 mile cycle to be a once in a
year major event to grabbing the chance to cycle from home to the Loire?
Cycling has definitely got right under our skin and whilst we have all enjoyed
today’s gorgeous snow, I feel slightly miffed that we haven’t had the chance to
do one of our little Sunday excursions..
Lesley is very good at spotting a chance to combine a long
cycle ride with family outings and jollies. So naturally when Shaun mentioned
that he was planning on another Le Mans
trip on his motorbike, her mind turned to“ how can we work a cycle ride in with
that?” It was but a short hop from that thought to “ I know – let’s cycle from
home and meet him there” . Simple.
So we made a few tentative first steps – bought some books
and maps and began to think we might just be able to do it.
The first thing we booked was a place to stay near Le
Mans. We knew we had to leap in to action swiftly on
that front as the weekend of the 24 hour race is the busiest for the region’s
hotels. So now we know exactly where we are going there are just a few details
to fill in along the way and many questions to answer such as:

-
Can we really share a room with Luc and his post
cycling feet,
-
How many pains au raisins/chocolats can we consume in a
day and not return home 10 stone heavier than when we started,
-
Is there a Green Flag rescue service for bikes or can I
just text Bev and rely on him to get me out of trouble as always ,
-
How do I square the circle of being in France
and trying to look acceptable with the likelihood of arriving in most centres
of civilisation looking like sweaty betty,
-      
-
Just what is the right balance of alcohol to
paracetamol to make one immune to saddle sores?

I also wondered about a few little sweepstake style
competitions to entertain our friends as we wend our way South. My first few
thoughts are:

- How many times a day will I crash because I forget that I
am attached to my bike,
- What will be the difference between our planned mileage
and the actual distance we cover?
- How many times can my legendary map –reading skills let us
down before Luc and Lesley throw me in the nearest ditch,
- Dare I mention the P word and how many between us? ( ie
punctures not hedge visits)


All reasonable suggestions for other competitions will be
considered. I am planning on each of us nominating incidents along the lines of
“comedy moment of the day”, “most attractive bonjour/bonsoir”, “crash of the
day” , “best sunburn/panda eyes “ and so on. You get the picture.

6/2/12

Route planning and training planning are coming on apace. I
am slightly concerned that my lovely maps of Normandy
and the Loire are missing a few crucial details like
contour lines and patisserie locations. We are doing our best to avoid places
which seem to involve the words Alpes or Montagne but I have a funny feeling
that our choice of Norfolk as our
home and training base may come home to roost as we glow our way up hill and
down dale with panniers full of vins and fromages. Training a bit banjaxed by
the weather so I ventured on a lovely snowy walk with Marley as a substitute
for a dash round the block. Several comedy moments ensued involving snow filled
ditches and Marley doing springbok impressions with me clinging on the lead and
having to make a swift choice between a face plant in slush or a hand plant in
a snowdrift…

7/2/12
We are planning to do our first longish training ride on
Sunday – to Kentwell Hall in Long Melford. Neither of us has snow tyres and I
feel there is a definite risk of permanent loss of extremities if the
temperature doesn’t climb a reasonable way above zero. Wearing 2 pairs of
everything works pretty well but there is a limit to the number of layers one
can wear and also expect some form of forward motion. Whilst cycling in cold
weather I set my brain on “idle” mode and end up producing Heath Robinson ideas
for, in particular, maintaining circulation in my feet. All I need is some
sticky back plastic, 2 empty washing up liquid bottles with the tops cut off
and a few milk bottle tops. (Or am I getting confused with the space rocket I
made in year 5?) .
I have just received the welcome news that the hybrid shoes
I ordered are now in stock and ready for collection. Sadly hybrid does not mean
that they have jet packs in the heels to provide extra thrust at crucial
moments. Apparently to the casual observer they will look like normal walking
boots while we are strolling around Giverney but beneath their humble exterior
they are in fact nerdy bike shoes which clip on to pedals in a scarily similar
fashion to the ones worn by proper cyclists. The potential for disaster in / on
my incapable feet is huge. I shall have to affix a HUGE sign to my handle bars
saying “FEET” at least for the first 6 months of their use. Now where did Luc
put his skateboarding knee pads?
Again , no chance of a cycle and certainly no-one could be
for tennis so Lesley and I headed off across the frozen landscape with Flynn
and Marley. I rapidly discovered that my wellies are as grippy on ice as a one
woman luge on the Cresta run so Marley and I did a good impression of lads out
at 2am on Prince
of Wales Road. It was a good chance for us to get
up to speed with the planning and try to work out the next steps as well as our
usual agenda of putting the world to rights and discussing developments in
unified field theory.

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