Tag Archives: cycling

Having re-acquainted ourselves with the New Forest last September, courtesy of waiting on things medical, we had rather optimistically booked ourselves into a year-round campsite there for New Year. New Year in the New Forest: seems almost poetic. At the time of making the booking, I was expecting some temporary incontinence but I was still thinking stress incontinence. As we now know, the level of it was rather more severe following my prostatectomy on 2nd December. In the light of our more complete knowledge, we rearranged our booking for late March. There was, as it turned out, an additional problem at New Year: snow. Towing a caravan/trailer down to the New Forest in snow would never have been an enjoyable or, indeed, sensible task.

When it came to the re-arrangement we lucked out. We went down a few days early and arrived in stunning (for March in England) weather. Traffic was light and the sun was shining – the journey was a dream. With the exception of one day, the run of glorious weather continued for the 12 days of our stay. Unhappily, I wasn’t the only attendee with a damp problem; our caravan, Billy, has come out in sympathy to show moral support. At his recent service, the “engineer” reported the beginnings of water ingress in his near-side rear quarter. If that wasn’t enough, he’s leaking water back out of the pressurized on-board water system into the external container. I know exactly how he feels! I’d just as soon he wasn’t showing quite such a level of support, however.

I wouldn’t normally think that visiting an essentially broad-leaved deciduous forest in winter would be so enjoyable but enjoyable it was. With no forest canopy, all the ample sunlight was filtering through the bare branches of the trees and hitting the forest floor. Additionally, the forest floor’s undergrowth (largely bracken) had died down for the winter and was dormant so the views through the well-lit trees were very good. Of course, different weather would have produced a different story but it was all very pleasant.

We were there over the theoretical beginning of spring and the wildlife was beginning to wake up to its spring tasks. We had plenty of bird life around our pitch feeding on feeders we had taken with us (for the first time). Expecting the forest tracks to be quite muddy, we had armed (legged?) ourselves with Wellington boots and indulged in several nature rambles of 3-4 miles or so. I wasn’t quite as watertight as the Wellies but any leakages were not severe enough to stop the enjoyment. The nature highlights were the year’s first butterflies emerging in the form of the sulphur-yellow Brimstones and I managed to snag a pair of Pond Skaters in flagrante delicto, poor things. Actually, I didn’t notice that they were a pair in a passionate embrace until I loaded the shot on my laptop back at Billy. It’s amazing how blind I can be staring through a view-finder.

The low point was being attacked by a New Forest pony. Commoners have grazing rights and their ponies, plus a few cattle, wander about essentially freely. The ponies are quite famous and are usually very placid, though tourists are requested not to interfere with them and advised to give them a respectably amount of space. In this case, we were giving the pony in question a wide berth but it took it into its head actively to pursue me. It crossed about 60ft/20m of open ground to get to the path down which Carol and I were walking and followed us down the path before turning its rear-end towards me and lashing out twice with both hind legs. The first kick missed but the second was more successful and made contact with my right hip, fortunately only relatively lightly. Had it been my stomach, I’d have been less philosophical about it, I suspect.

We’d taken our bicycles, too, and tried our first post-operative bike rides of any real note. We started with a quite modest 8 miles but very soon thereafter indulged in a 27-mile round trip to Bucklers Hard, an historic 18th century ship building village. Several ships for Admiral Nelson’s fleet were built here from oak trees felled in the New Forest. Since one galleon required about 2000 oak trees, I began to see why there are tracts of forest with no trees at all. Such were the delights of the unseasonal spell of weather that we also cycled to the south coast to enjoy a seaside ice cream, as if we weren’t taking in enough calories in the form of alcohol. (It’s completely unfair that alcohol contains any calories at all.) Not only did we find a particularly splendid ice cream but we were also entertained by a gaggle of paragliders drifting back and forth along the cliffs of Barton-on-sea while we ate it. Paragliders make a wonderfully colourful photographic subject, especially against a clear blue sky.

So, all in all a great time. Like my caravan, I may not be 100% watertight yet but, if, as I did, I can embark on 4-mile walks and 25-mile bike rides without too much in the way of consternation, then life is definitely on the way to returning to my kind of normal.

We decided to move on tomorrow so this started as a day shopping for some essential supplies and filling the car with some essential diesel. Our range on a full tank is about 250 miles and we like to keep our hops around to France to within that limit ‘cos it easier to negotiate filling stations without the added complexity of a caravan strapped on the back. Filling up solo means that we can fill up on cheap supermarché fuel rather than the top-dollar autoroute fuel.

Our morning of chores also gave the cloud cover a chance to begin breaking up but break up it did and to work of a lunch of rilletes (potted pork) and bread, we set off on another bike ride round what is, for us, a little-used track taking in Fontaines-en-Sologne. “I don’t want to do another 34 miles”, said Carol. The track she had chosen was certainly considerably shorter at about 26kms/15mls but we had to do about 8kms/5mls each way to get to it to start with. Go figure!

As is the case with most of the routes in this area it was very varied and proved to be a great way to spend the remaining afternoon. Fontaines-en-Sologne is a small town (large village?) with a huge monolith of a church stuck in the middle of what is essentially the town’s roundabout. Were the roads busy, the congregation would most certainly need the protection of The Almighty to make it safely to and from services. Fortunately, the roads are very quiet and examples of congregational road-kill seem mercifully few and far between.

By the time we’d returned we’d completed another 30 miles. We’ve now spent three days cycling what are, for us, considered to be reasonably energetic distances of 23, 34 and 30 miles. Both our legs and backsides know that they’ve done some exercise. It is notable that our three days effort add up to little more than half the distance covered in a single day’s stage distance in the Tour de France. Bravo to those guys!

Our particularly unsettled weather, since the aberration that was Wimbledon fortnight, has been considerably ameliorated by several hours coverage each day of the three-week-long Tour de France. That all came to a stunning end on Sunday when the young Manxman Mark Cavendish, brilliantly aided by his Columbia HTC team, utterly annihilated all opposition on the final sprint finish on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris. It’s been a great Tour de France for us with Cav’s amazing six stage wins and Bradley Wiggins finishing a very creditable fourth. Bravo!

Now we are left wondering what to do as the entertainment ends but the showers and/or threat of showers continues.

One thing I’d been doing is leaping out during commercial breaks stalking butterflies that were visiting our buddleia bush. I’d also been trying less successfully to stalk some Daylilies that Carol has blooming in our garden. One might have thought, since butterflies move whereas plants remain rooted to the spot, that flowers might have proved easier to snap. Not so for me, apparently. Whilst I grabbed a few acceptable shots of butterflies, an acceptable rendition of a Daylily had eluded me.

Today however, with the sunshine intervals being little longer than commercial breaks, the mixture of sunshine and showers combined to provide a suitable subject pleasantly beaded with glistening raindrops. After a little judicious dead-heading by Carol during which the lily pollen attacked her clothing (oops, sorry!), I finally managed to capture a shot that I liked. I’m particularly taken with the tiny bead of moisture sparkling atop the flower’s stigma (that’s the pollen receptor though I doubt any pollen is going to make it through that water).

Most species need a decent summer. Let’s hope the weather improves soon, for us, the flowers and the butterflies.

During this final week of the Tour de France, ITV4 has scheduled several additional days of live coverage on their main channel, as opposed to screening it via the interactive system (the “red button”). This is a mixed blessing. The main ITV4 channel coverage comes swamped with extremely irritating American-length-and-frequency commercial breaks whereas the ITV4 interactive coverage is unexpectedly and blissfully commercial free. The interactive coverage provides 3+ hours of live action with absolutely no breaks whatsoever. On one day there was a notable exception to this rule when there was a terminal break in the final kilometre of the stage apparently caused by an automatic cut-off to transmission. That little glitch has not recurred and the one and only advantage that I can see of the main channel’s coverage is that it is accompanied by the incisive, dry wit of Gary Imlach.

Commercials on most of these “fringe” channels are doubly irritating because the same handful of inane commercials seem to be repeated at every break; there’s little or no variation. An already irksome device becomes insufferable. For sanity’s sake, it’s necessary to find something more appealing to do in these commercial interludes, such as scrubbing the kitchen floor or visiting the dentist for that overdue drilling of a cavity.

Today I was lucky, the sun had emerged after our obligatory downpour, and our buddleia bush was attracting Peacock butterflies. A couple of days ago it had been attracting Painted Ladies and Commas but now it had moved on to Peacocks. Marvellous! Since the Peacock is one of those cooperative butterflies that settles to feed with its wings open, I was in a position to avoid a trip to the dentist by grabbing my camera and sneaking outside to try and snap one. The butterflies were clearly at pains to save me from several trips to the dentist because, initially, they insisted on settling high up and at angles unsuited to portraits. Eventually, however, one did decide to eat on a sunny lower branch and I managed to add it to my Lepidoptera catalogue. Nothing difficult about the shot but it proved to be a good clean specimen.

I wonder what might be next? Red Admiral butterflies are partial to buddleia, too.

I was feeling a bit lost today. It’s a day off in the Tour de France so there was no racing to watch this afternoon. Mind you, after a particularly exciting start to Le Tour last week, the weekend’s stages in the Pyrenees didn’t seem to provide much actual racing, either. All but one of the main contenders seemed uninterested in chasing down any breakaways and were content to plod home (relatively speaking) and maintain the status quo. Everyone seems to be waiting for a showdown, hopefully in the Alps but at least up the killer Mont Ventoux on the penultimate day. Somebody should inform the team managers that cycling is of itself worth absolutely nothing and that the entire team becomes worth something only when/if entertainment is involved. Fortunately the Pyrenean scenery was stunning in the glorious weekend sunshine. Let’s hope a few flat sprint stages back across France in the coming week inject more life into the proceedings.

Since we also had clear calendar and were effectively thumb twiddling, we decided to brave the forecast showers, some of which might be heavy, to go and see if there was any activity at Whipsnade Zoo. It would, after all, be one of our last chances for a civilized visit as it is fast-approaching the time when it becomes a no-go zone courtesy of the summer school holidays. I can’t help but think that Wimbledon fortnight was summer and that, since the weather now seems to have resumed normal service, the poor little rugrats have rather missed the boat, but I digress once again …

Most of Whipsnade’s inmates appeared similarly unimpressed by our blistering July temperatures and were mostly subdued. A group of people on what I imagine was a keeper experience day did get the small-clawed otters jumping around with excitement as they threw them pieces of dismembered rat for lunch. I decided I didn’t really want a picture of a painfully cute small-clawed otter rather ruining its image with a rat tail dangling from its mouth as it chewed its way through the pelvic girdle. Patience was rewarded by a decent photo opportunity as we made our way towards the exit past a few emus that were clearly having a collective bad hair day. Mind you, the rain probably wasn’t helping their coiffures.

After the emus became bored with posing, we added a completely new critter to our collection when we made a rare excursion into the so-called Discovery Centre, which seemed like a reasonable place on a relatively quiet day to escape the cool and damp. In a pleasantly calm and quiet atmosphere, an impressive sail-finned lizard was basking under its sun lamp, and who could blame it. I didn’t really notice the stunning blue colour of its eye until we returned to process our efforts.

We’ve had more interesting days at Whipsnade but I did come away with something.

With no fewer than five excursions into foreign territories, this year’s Tour de France seems more like the Tour d’Europe.  It kicked off in the Principality of Monaco before whizzing across southern France whence it heads into Spain. Things start favouring the maniacs who like cycling up mountains as it heads back up the Pyrenees into Andorra, before crossing France again and popping into Switzerland and Italy for a couple of stages, just for good measure. The guys are going to have to change money – Switzerland doesn’t do Euros. Due to the overall distances covered, It also seems quite a disjoint route with many transfers using trains and planes between finish and start points.

Be that as it may, with the added spice of the return of Lance Armstrong, it’s been a very exciting first few days. Watching live TV coverage of the tour for several hours a day is largely about regular doses of stunning French scenery to sate the desire to be in France oneself but, being quite keen on cycling myself, I do like watching the professionals at work. Having already given me a good injection of Provence, yesterday’s team time trial, the first I’ve seen, was particularly nail-biting and spun us through some very pleasant scenery in one of my favourite areas, the Languedoc. [Note for the future: Montpellier looks worth a visit.]

The team time trial was sandwiched between two very long flat stages of 196 kms/122 mls. I can’t help but wonder at the ability to cycle such distances day after day at average speeds I can only dream of, subsequently to finish at sprinting speeds that I certainly cannot dream of, even going downhill with a following wind.

With what is currently effectively a dead-heat for the yellow jersey, one featuring that man Armstrong, I wait with bated breath for today’s 196 kms of stunning scenery towards Perpignan.

Well, there goes another Wimbledon and another Great British hope. I’m not sure Andy Murray actually wants or appreciates English support given his previous comments concerning English football but thanks for the nerve-racking, Andy. I spotted another comment on Twitter that made it quite clear that there is at least one Scot who vehemently dislikes the English supporting Andy Murray. According to this idiot, it’s OK for the Scots to (mis)manage the country’s parliament but the English are not allowed to support a Scot. So much for a United Kingdom. Oh, and this ardent Scotsman so loves Scotland that he lives in New Zealand. Go figure! Actually, I much prefer to watch a tense final in which I don’t have a partisan interest so it’s better for both parties that Andy Murray didn’t make it. Unfortunately, the somewhat extended Wimbledon Mens’ Final rather scuppered my plans to watch the first road stage of this year’s Tour de France live so thank technology for video recorders.

Today, with Wimbledon a distant memory, I settled down to enjoy unfettered live coverage of Stage 3 of the Tour de France on ITV4’s interactive satellite service. We’d normally have been enjoying La Belle France ourselves over June and into early July but this year we changed our behaviour and enjoyed a terrific walking tour of Corfu instead. As a result and as a Francophile, I’m feeling a little starved of French scenery and culture. Today’s stage from Marseille to La Grand Motte was to go through some very appealing Provençal scenery that would address at least one of those addictions.

The usual form of a flat (non-mountain) stage in the Tour de France is a leg in which a handful of riders breaks away for most of the race, gets caught by the pack (le peloton) just a few kilometres from the finish, then the sprinters take over in a mad scramble for the line. One has to admire these guys; they can ride 100+ miles cruising at 25 mph, then finish at speeds of 40+ mph over a short dash. I can sometimes cruise at 15 mph over considerably shorter distances.

Today’s flat stage did not follow the usual form. After 3½ hours glued to ITV4’s interactive satellite coverage, cross-winds resulted in its building up to what has to be the most exciting finish I was about to see. The peloton split and the speed built inexorably as the leading contenders began jostling for the upper hand. The excitement of the commentators built up, too. I was on the edge of my seat with less than a kilometre of the 196 kilometres remaining. Then, suddenly … BLAM – there it wasn’t. Cataclysmic change! An inane episode of some ancient series drivel replaced the Tour de France coverage. I pressed all the buttons I could find that would do anything on the controller but all to no avail, it was gone. Ended. Cruelly snatched away in the dying seconds.

At 5 o’clock the transmission apparently automatically switched itself off. Brilliant! Does the BBC break transmission in the middle of the 5th set at Wimbledon? No, of course not. The BBC reschedules other programmes, switches them to another channel, does anything but destroy the excitement of the finale. Would someone care to note the lesson from the professionals?

Still, I got to see a lot of Provence.

This week turned into something of a week for services. I began by making a booking for Billy Bailey’s next service way out in the future (1st Feb 2010). This was just because the caravan agent is apt to get very busy and Billy’s next service is time-critical.

On Thursday it was the turn of my mountain bike which had, since my slightly embarrassing excursion on it into the Grand Union Canal, developed an irritating noise related to the pedal speed, cadence in cycling speak. I’m happy to report that, after a “B service” at Phil Corley’s in Milton Keynes, which included a new chain, new rear gear set and new bottom bracket, all now seems well. Memo to self: try to stay on the canal tow path in the future.

On Friday it was the turn of our much loved but recently somewhat neglected Mazda MX5. He’s 10 years old now and had had neither his 9- nor 10-year service. Tut, tut! In our defence, though it’s technically no excuse, we do only about 2000 miles a year in Mazzie these days. Now he knows we still love him.

Most of the services this week have, of course, been thundering over the nets in Wimbledon at the “All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club”. It’s typical isn’t it? The Club’s world famous, show case tournament is frequently plagued and delayed by good ol’ English rain. The year after the Club eventually bites the bullet and installs a multi-million pound retractable roof over its exhibition Centre Court, we have yet to have a rain delay. Great stuff! In a change to the norm, this year I can sense all the commentators almost willing a thunderstorm to occur just to provide the brand new television spectacle of watching the roof mechanism swing into action. What a fickle world. Worry not, Wimbledon is unlikely to have a completely dry fortnight.

Actually, I can’t see how much help keeping play going on a single court would be to the scheduling of a tournament occupying 20 courts for much of its time. Still, I’m sure it will help with other events. We’ve also noticed that the extra overhanging structures supporting the roof seem to worsen the high contrast between bright sunlight across one half of Centre Court and shadows of the retracted roof cast by the westering sun across the other, when, as this year, said sun actually deigns to shine. Some of the players, dazzled by the brilliant northern European sun, seem to be struggling to see balls screaming at them at 120 mph out of the relative darkness. I can’t think why.

One such player yesterday was the inventively named Mardy Fish. Having been fortunate enough to spend a considerable time in America, I’m familiar with the difficulties caused on the west of the Atlantic by the letter “T”, pronunciation of which is frequently transmogrified into a “D”: water becomes wa-d-er, for example. Mr Fish’s parents have clearly been very farsighted in solving this pronunciation issue and, rather than calling their son Marty, changed the spelling to match the pronunciation that would inevitably result: Mardy. Very clever.