Category Archives: Cycling

Blogs I follow that are (more or less) about cycling.

Art, Cycling, My Art, Touring

Bike ride to Scotland: Part 4 York to Eggleston

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Day 3 – 07/05/2003 (Wednesday) York to Egglestone

At least the wind died down today, or if there was any it was helpful, but we did find some hills. After two days in the flat-lands it was quite pleasant to be somewhere with contours.
Actually the first two-thirds of the trip was reasonably flat. I was climbing steadily and there were hills to my left and right but the roads were quiet (excluding the first few km up the A19) and it was pleasant cycling. It was only after Richmond, going on into Co. Durham that it became necessary to shift into the Granny Ring now and then.
Continue reading Bike ride to Scotland: Part 4 York to Eggleston →

Art, Cycling, My Art

Bike ride to Scotland: Part 3 Lincoln to York

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Day 3 – 06/05/2003 (Tuesday) Lincoln to York

This should have been an easy flat day. It was flat, for the most part, but it wasn’t easy. Most non-cyclists think that it is hills that make cycling hard work, they are correct, but only to a certain extent. The thing that makes cycling really hard work is wind coming from the wrong direction. Today I had wind from the north-west. I was riding roughly north-west. This resulted in a very hard day in the saddle. Psychologically wind is harder to deal with than hills. When you are riding a hill you know that sooner or later you will get to the top and at least for a while you can have a rest as you free-wheel down the other side. When you are riding into a head wind you get no relief. You know that the wind will be in your face all day. You have to work harder and you go slower. It feels unfair. All that extra effort and you go nowhere rather slowly

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Art, Cycling, My Art

Bike ride to Scotland: Part 2 Hitchin to Lincoln

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Day 2 – 05/05/2003 (Monday) Hitchin to Lincoln

I underestimated the distance from Hitchin to Lincoln. I thought it was around a hundred miles, it turned out to be nearer one hundred and thirty. Most of the way was flat, well the first two-thirds of the route was across the Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire Fens.

Click for a larger map

On the last third of the route, from Sleaford to Lincoln, I made the discovery, that contrary to popular belief Lincolnshire actually has hills. They are not the Alps, although I did see a sign advertising the head quarters of the local mountain rescue society in one of the villages. This Facebook page possibly belongs to them or their successors. However when the hills arrive in the last thirty miles of a long ride, one that is thirty miles further than you expected, they are hard enough. (The route profile does make them look a bit worse than they actually are).

I had expected the countryside to be a bit boring and unattractive. In spite of the unremitting flatness and the difficulty in distinguishing one stretch of road from the next, I found the scenery quite attractive.
Watercolour Sketch of the Fens

I stopped for lunch in Spalding round about two pm. I found a café selling cheap carbohydrates and refueled. I have noticed that when I am touring, and especially doing longer distance, that my critical faculties as regards food drop off. As long as it fills the hole I am happy.

It was after I passed Sleaford that I entered the Lincolnshire Wolds and the road started to go up. After riding through flat-lands all day riding up the hills was initially a pleasant change. It is not that steep, but you are climbing constantly for thirty or so miles. I kept consoling myself with the thought that I would probably be able to free-wheel the last ten miles into Lincoln. Not quite. Yes I did free-wheel into Lincoln, but not in the gentle controlled way I had anticipated. All the height that I gained in two hours of climbing I dissipated in about three minutes as the road took the short route down a cliff face into Lincoln. You can see it if you look carefully at the elevation profile.


I stayed the night at the Lincoln Youth Hostel (which has sadly since been closed). I was too late for an evening meal at the Hostel, due to me taking about two and a half hours longer than anticipated because the route was thirty files longer than I thought it was. I wandered out into town had a look around and found myself a curry. Very nice it was too.

Part 1 Wallington to Hitchin

Part 3 Lincoln to York >

Art, Cycling, My Art

Bike ride to Scotland: Part 1 Wallington to Hitchin

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Day 1 – 04/05/2003 (Sunday) London to Hitchin

Today didn’t work out that well. For various reasons, some good, some bad, I didn’t actually manage to leave until one-thirty in the afternoon, rather than seven or eight in the morning as I had planned. Never mind, I thought at least I had lunch before I left

Everything was going well, apart from a bit of hassle with the traffic in Brixton, until just after crossing London Bridge. I realised that I might have left the train ticket for the return journey lying on the kitchen table. A search through my bags confirmed that my thought was correct.

“Oh dear” I said to my self, well that wasn’t exactly what I said, but this blog tries to be suitable for all ages. I turned round and went back to London Bridge Station and caught a train to East Croydon, from where I cycled home and retrieved the ticket. I thought that while I was back home that I might as well unload the dishwasher and put the washing, which was now dry, away.

I cycled back to East Croydon and put the bike back on the train, this time to St Albans. My theory was that St Albans was roughly where I would have been if I hadn’t had to go back home to retrieve the ticket.

I decided to push on further. Eventually I decided that I would call it a day when I got to Hitchin, about 20 miles nearer to Duns. Then to cap, what was not the best day of the journey, the hotel I stayed at was not only the most expensive place I stayed at all trip it also, in retrospect, was the worst.

I plan my routes on BikeHike.co.uk which is a great little route planning website for cycling or walking. Your routes can be uploaded to or downloaded from a G.P.S. device if you own such a thing, or printed off if you don’t.

Part 2 Hitchin to Lincoln >

Art, Cycling, My Art

Old sketch books.

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I was sorting through my art equipment this afternoon. Basically looking to see what was worth keeping and what needed to be thrown when I came across a couple of old sketch-books that I also used as diaries to record a couple of trips. For my younger readers, “Keeping a diary”, was a bit like blogging ,except you wrote your thoughts down on paper. Usually no one else read them, not that much different to blogging then.
I thought that I would re-write them as blog posts and include the (better) sketches.
The first series of posts will be about a bike trip I made to Scotland in 2003. Mrs johnm55 had gone off to Canada for the week without me, so I decided that it would be a good idea to go and visit my mum – on my bike.
Day one can be found here

Cycling

L’Eroica

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L’Eroica is a sort of Sportive/Grand Fondo type of event that takes place in the Chianti region of Italy each October. It is one of the events on my list of ‘Rides I would like to do but probably won’t’. Others on the list include Paris-Brest-Paris, The Fred Whitton and the Dunwich Dynamo. Actually I might get round to doing the Dynamo one day.
The event, you can’t really call it a race, started in 1997 as an attempt to draw attention to, and help preserve Tuscany’s ‘strada bianche’. It has been remarkably successful in that respect and has even spawned a race for the professionals, the Montepaschi Strade Bianche. The other purpose of the event is to connect to a (partly imagined) time in the past when cyclists were real men (and women) of steel. The type of people who would and could repair their broken forks using a borrowed blacksmith’s forge, like Eugene Christophe but without the aid of the boy to pump the bellows.
In keeping with this ethos you are not allowed to take part in the event on a bike made later than the mid nineteen-eighties. Many people take part on bikes that were originally built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most participants dress in retro cycling gear appropriate to the bike they are riding. Woollen jerseys and shorts, with a spare tubular wrapped round their shoulders in the style of the pre-war heroes like Alfredo Binda, is the look to aim for.
Alfredo Binda
Additionally, while I’m sure that there is no ban on energy drinks and bars, they are not exactly encouraged. The correct food and drink for cycling is water, or better still red wine (this is Chianti country) and some good bread, cheese and a bit of prosciutto or salami. If you need a caffeine boost an espresso will do the trick.

The video gives a fuller flavour of the event.

Cycling

Cavendish does it.

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Mark Cavendish did what he promised to do and won the UCI Road World Championships: Elite Men Road Race. otherwise known as the World Championships. His is the United Kingdom’s first world champion for 46 Years, in fact he is only the United Kingdom’s second ever World Champion. He went there to win, the British team had no plan “B” either Cavendish delivered or they failed. The British team rode brilliantly, controlling the race from the start. If I had one minor criticism of the tactics it would be forget that ‘Cav’ won, the tactics must have been just right.

Cav crosses the line

In the Rainbow Jersey
In the Rainbow Jersey

He obviously took my advice and had a look at Lucy Garner winning the Junior Women’s Race

Cycling

OK Cav, this is how to do it….

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Lucy Garner destroyed the field in a bunch sprint to win the Junior Women’s Worlds Road Race.

Cycling News report here
Way to go girl.

Cycling

Saddles (and soreness)

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A story to start with, probably apocryphal;

Two people had decided to set of on a long cycle tour, round the world, or possibly round Europe. They met at Tower Bridge in London, as that seemed like a symbolic place to start the tour, and set off for Dover, to catch the ferry to the rest of the world. By the time they arrived in Canterbury they were both thinking of giving up. The pain inflicted on their backsides by their saddles was getting too much to bear.
They had a think about the situation over lunch. Abandoning the tour would lead to humiliation. Wandering in to the pub next Saturday night and greeted by their friends with comments such as ‘I’m not sure I could make it round the world that quickly in a 747 let alone a bike’ would have been too much to take. Besides, they had paid for their ferry tickets and wouldn’t get the money back.
They decided to try swapping saddles, and completed the rest of the tour completely free from pain in the posterior.

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Cycling, Food, Restaurants

My Personal (South) London-Surrey Cycle Classic.

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My Touring Bike.

I spent last Sunday morning watching the professionals taking part in the pre-Olympic test event the London – Surrey Cycle Classic. This week I thought I would give it a try myself. I was in a mood for comfort and not for speed so I took my Touring Bike instead of my “racing” bike. I don’t race, I have never raced, but I call it my racing bike because it is lighter and faster than my touring bike. Bike choice made I headed out into the Surrey Hills.
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