MORE...GOOD WEATHER CONTINUES.

More Autumn Cycling

 Since my last post I have been out cycling every day in the brilliant Autumn weather that we have been having. The temperatures have been setting records for this time of year and the autumn colours are fantastic talking of which- now that I know about Rantwicks 'SARATS' competition I have an added incentive to get out into the wonderful Dorset countryside.  Apparently this good weather is set to last for a few more days and judging from how packed the beach at the end of our road was today I think that everyone is out enjoying it before it all changes to bad weather.

Our campsite pitch near Gibraltar

 As I have said before, the weather was pretty hot during the Spanish sections of our ROCK2UK ride. We stayed at a campsite on the Spanish coast about five miles from Gibraltar and our pitch can be seen in the above picture. The ground was rock hard and we had difficulty getting the tent pegs into the ground....a problem that we had throughout Spain. At one site Dave managed to get hold of some special 'rock pegs' and they certainly worked well but they were far to heavy for us to continue to use them after Dave had returned to the UK. I love nice grassy pitches and as you can see we had no grass at all. Back home in the UK there is no way that I would choose to camp on such a rough surface but throughout Spain we had no choice.

JD & I with Dave (the broom wagon)

 The above shot (taken by a willing passer by) shows the three of us at the start of the ride. Being on the coast  the temperature here was cooler than we were to find it further inland. At this point we had no idea how difficult this first days ride was going to be.

The Rock from the road to Ronda

 As we travelled further inland you could feel the heat building up. None of us are used to this level of heat and it proved to be a major problem for us throughout Spain.

JD winching up the road to Ronda

 In this picture of JD winching himself up the road to Ronda you can see that he has taken his helmet off. Now this is something that he would NEVER normally do but the heat was proving just too much for him. Because I don't really have much hair to speak of this wasn't a problem for me....and anyway since my crash two years ago I won't ever get on a bike without my helmet on. Perhaps JD should have had his hair shaved off before we started the ride...........

JD & Dave after the first day.

That evening after cycling the longest hill that I have ever ridden..(62 miles Gibraltar to Ronda) we found ourselves at another 'grassless' campsite. In this photo the strain of the days ride can be seen in JD's face.  We had a meal in the campsite restaurant and discussed how best to proceed with the ride given the oven-like temperatures that we had spent this first day cycling through. Because we had Dave with us we were not having to ride with the panniers on the bikes as all our kit was in the wagon. We all agreed that we would not have managed this first day if that had not been the case. It was during this discussion that it was agreed that for the time Dave was with us...we would try and travel as far north as quickly as we could in the hope that by the time he had to return to the UK we would be far enough north for it to be a bit cooler. Also Dave was able to carry more water supplies than we could on the bikes alone....and in these temperatures this was a real and major concern........TO BE CONTINUED

IF YOU INTENDED TO SUPPORT MY ROCK2UK RIDE WITH A DONATION FOR 'CYCLISTS FIGHTING CANCER' BUT HAVEN'T DONE SO YET- MAY I GIVE YOU A GENTLE NUDGE.....
WE ARE ONLY £155 SHORT OF THE TARGET AND IT WOULD MAKE SUCH A DIFFERENCE FOR THIS REALLY GOOD CAUSE IF WE MANAGED TO HIT THE ONE THOUSAND POUNDS THAT I SET FOR THE FUNDRAISING......THANKS IN ANTICIPATION.......

CYCLING THE DORSET COUNTRYSIDE.....

Within  just a few days of returning to the UK I have been out on the Felt cycling around the Dorset countryside. The weather has been great for cycling with very little wind and some nice dry days. This weather is set to continue so I will be out making the most of it.
The first time I got back on the Felt it really seemed odd....after a month of riding the Touring bike the Felt was really light and twitchy but after a few miles it was business as usual and after all the hills that I have ridden on the ROCK2UK I found that I was flying up the steepest hills that Dorset can offer.. Today I even managed to speed past a couple of twenty something year olds on a 20%. I was riding behind them when it dawned on me that I was able to pull out and accelerate past them.......Oh what pleasure!
Now I have acquired a pretty high level of fitness and ability I must make sure that I try to maintain it.....

 ROCK2UK..............
Wow - what a trip that was......Everything went well until we had to actually start cycling...!!!   The weather in Spain was just too hot. I had originally planned to start the ride in September but John was unable to get the time off in order to complete the ride during September so we had to start the ride in mid August....Oh what madness..!!

They do say 'Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun'- well we certainly did that.
After the first days ride from Gibraltar to Ronda we really felt that we had bitten off more than we could chew...The route from Gibraltar to Ronda was uphill for the entire 62 miles....in temperatures approaching 112F the difficulty of what we had set out to do became all too obvious...

Starting in my next posting I will explain how we tackled the problems we faced and also share with you some of the photographs taken during the ride.

BACK IN THE UK...

JD and I are now back safe and sound in the UK.

The last few miles to Cherbourg were covered during a gap in the wet weather....However the wind continued and some of the gusts were really quite scary. On reflection, probably not the best of days for cycling with such dangerous winds but we both wanted to get home.

One good thing was that we managed this last section to Cherbourg without getting caught by any rain.......however - the rain did get us in the end.
With a kind of cruel irony, as we were standing in the queue to board the ferry  the sky's opened and it poured down. JD and I got pretty wet while all the smug car occupants in the queue remained warm and dry. Mind you- I bet that none of them had had a trip as exciting and memorable as we had experienced over the past four weeks.

After a break for the next week whilst I get some rest and try to re-adjust to life 'off' the road I will start to post on this blog again with a series of mini reviews of the overall ROCK2UK trip.

More bad weather!

Last night was a bit of a wild night. Wind and rain off and on throughout the night. This morning gave us more of the same. Due to the continued bad weather we have decided to stay on for another night. The farmers wife has allowed us to move all our gear into an out building and that is where we will sleep tonight. John has even erected his tent in there as can be seen in the photo. Talking of John, he is suffering with a few problems at the moment. First he has an infected left foot. This has been caused by having constantly wet feet from all the rain. His sandals have rubbed when walking as has his cycling shoes when riding. Secondly, he seems to have caught a chill- again caused by being wet through a lot of the time. Our plan is to remain where we are until there is a break in the weather and then we will try and get a ferry back to the UK. The next posting I will make will be to confirm our safe return. I will then not make any more posts for about a week while I enjoy the benefits of R and R. After that I will post a bit of a review of the trip. Thanks to all of you who have travelled with us by way of this Blog.

Almost there!

Yes, we are almost at Cherbourg. It is four weeks ago that John and I left home to set out on this journey. After four weeks of travelling we have almost cracked it. Today we gave ourselves another nice day of meandering along with no pressure of time or distance. In some ways these last few days on the road have been amongst the best. All the hard cycling has been done and we can really enjoy the last miles of the trip. Up to now there was always the thought at the back of our minds of all the miles that were still to be covered. Well those miles have now been covered and I can tell you we are feeling pretty good. While passing through Portbal we stopped for a drink and a bite to eat for lunch. We got talking to two very nice ladies called Maggie and Allison who are over here for a few days cycle camping - they told us about the great farm site that they were staying on at Bricquebec which was about 11 miles away. So that is where we are camping tonight. If the weather is not too bad tomorrow we will complete the last few miles to Cherbourg and camp at a site about 3 miles from the port. We hope to have a day or two in th Cherbourg area before our return to the UK. I will let you know our final plans in my posting tomorrow night.

The Scenic Route.

Today we took the Scenic Route. We just programmed the Garmin for a Scenic cycle route and let it do its magic. We had a late start today- we didnt leave the site at Genets till about 11.00hrs. Just as we were leaving about 60 schoolchildren arrived complete with their pop- up tents and sleeping bags. Good timing on our part I would say- a campsite full of schoolchildren comes just under hell in my book. As we have so much time in hand we have decided to take the last few miles slowly and try and enjoy the scenery in this part of France. Tonight we our at a farm site at Agon Coutainville. This is near the coast and is about level with COUTANCES. We plan on another easy day again tomorrow. Somewhere in the region of 50 easy miles will put us within half a day from Cherbourg. Although I use the word Easy - make no mistake - some of the hills that we have climbed over the past three days have had a steeper gradient than anything in Spain or the Pyrenees. I have had the Garmin show gradients as steep as 22%. With four panniers fully loaded on each bike that is a real challenge. I am proud to report that neither of us has been beaten by any gradient so far- thats because our legs are like steam driven pistons- well that is what we tell ourselves as we grind up each step hill. The weather ya good today as you can see in th picture which was taken about 2 miles from tonights camp site.

Sunny and Hilly and Colder.

Last night was a very cold night and today turned out to be a sunny one. However there has to be a fly in every tin of ointment and todays fly was hills. As far as hills ( rather than mountains) are concerned today was a reasonably hilly day. John described it as f':!.,@?..g torture. Problem is I love hills and John hates them so we had a mixed day dependent on your viewpoint. John told me that he had nothing left in the tank at the end of the day. We are now at Genets. We are staying at the campsite that i stayed at with Peter, Mike and Chris earlier this year. The village has a really unusual bistro. I have been getting a lot of pain from my left collarbone where I broke it in my cycling accident two years ago. Obviously something that I need to get checked out on my return to the UK. It feels like we are on home turf almost as most of the way back now is the route I did a few months ago but in the other direction. Can't believe that we have almost done this. Oh, by the way I met a nice couple from Barnstable in North Devon last night and we chatted about the rock2uk ride. This morning the lady told me that chatting last night had really inspired her husband to plan something similar. I certainly hope it has inspired him to do something. Anyway he is going to check out this Blog and hopefully he will get in touch at some point via the comments.