Cycling UK Forum

Boab wrote:Put me on the list as a possible candidate. 50 seperated got all the touring kit on a dawes galaxy....leaving on friday to ride the trans am this summer...so next year I may be up for this.

Good luck with the Trans AM - would love to give that a go - I'll drop you a line with contact details to keep in touch.

Mike.

kevgroome wrote:Hi all - I'm similar age to Hudson 1984 also with my own business and grown up kids so very flexible on time and dates.
I've done a fair bit of cycling in the French & Swiss Alps + off to cycle the Cote d'Azur next week unsupported.
I tend to travel between 50 to 80 miles a day but use a racing bike with minimum of kit and stay in B & B's or cheap hotels.
I'd certainly be interested in joining up!
I'm based in Northampton so not far from 'hardcore' Norfolk cyclists.
Please keep me in the loop.
Kevin

Will do.

Hudson1984 wrote:where do you do your long sunday rides? I live in norwich but really not keen on riding with the clubs - all seems a bit too serious for me but would really like to start increasing my mileage.

also back to the beginning - French I can order beer in french so we're sorted there at least 2 weeks would really be my limit of taking time off work, they don't like to let us have too much fun so 2 weeks really is the max I could do.

as to the trailer, Yep would be nice to borrow one and see how it goes but I think i'll just buy the carry freedom and have some weekend testers so if you ever fancy some short trips this year I could probably do with the additional experience before hitting mountains....i mean we don't even have sizeable hills here!!

Two weeks with the weekends is 16 days....might be a squeeze as I would expect the Spanish/French ride to be 14 days without a rest day, but might possible if you got the train back from Dover or we could do San Sebastian instead of Santander which would save a day or two.....

As for the hills, believe me there is nothing in Norfolk to prepare you for the kind of thing you'll find touring in real hills and mountains. I cycled across Wales in a day and even that didn't prepare me for Devon - the hills there are just ridiculous - but it's not a bad starting point or you could try the Peak District which is a bit closer, but whatever you do, I'd recommend getting a lot of practice in...

ANTONISH wrote:I've done this trip starting from Santurzi(?spelling) the port for Bilbao . The main part was to be the pyrenees raid route. Didn't care for the ride through Northern Spain so I eventually got on the Euskatren(Basque railway) to Hendaye (change at San Sebastian/Don Ostia). No charge for bikes, get into the normal carriages, bike goes in door space like South Eastern trains.
I would advise learning 200 basic words of a country you intend to visit and an approximately correct pronunciation. This can save an awful lot of playing about with phrase books . If you keep your eyes and ears open you will pick up more, together with useful phrases.
I prefer to travel alone or with one good companion who is compatable in terms of physical ability - I find the larger the group the greater the possibility of disagreements and also you will need to stop more frequently (p*******s, calls of nature etc)

Sounds like excellent advice - I'll try and get some basic vocab under my belt before I go. Can I ask what was wrong with the Northern Spain part that made you get the train? I was toying with the idea of a week in this region later this year, so it would be nice to know what to expect.

Hudson1984 wrote:if your looking for an additional windger count me in

i'm still quite new to cycling so really looking to spread my wings with cycling in general let alone amazing trips! but for the record im 27, also from norfolk no kids but a job that likes to see me work away.

if you fancy giving a noob some pointers on long distance cycling i'd be a happy student. Really wanting to make next year insane with an end to end and LEJOG of my own.

out of interest do you do it with a tourer or road bike with support van etc. Mainly because i've only got the allez and currently thinking of getting a trailer to suit touring needs

You're more than welcome, but we may need to recruit at least one optimist or we might end up throwing ourselves overboard on the ferry at the thought of those Pyrenean switchbacks. I'll be more than happy to share my limited but hard-earned experience with you and the plan is to go unsupported as having the missus in a van behind me just seems like cheating unless I was going for some kind of speed record (which, believe me, is never going to happen). I did Aberystwith to Lowestoft in 4 days on an audax bike with just rear panniers, staying in B&B's, but built a steel framed tourer for the end to end which was loaded with front and rear panniers and a tent on the rack. Which one i'll be using for next year depends on whether I'm camping or not. On the subject of trailers, I'd suggest you borrow one, fill it with as much gear as you can and then try a few days somewhere where they have hills before setting off on a long tour with one. I've never tried one, but I'm pretty sure that if I'd had one last month, I'd have given up on the first day in Devon. There was a fella setting off from JOG with a trailer when we got there and I just felt REALLY sorry for him.
Drop me a PM with your contact details and I'll be in touch.

Any more loonies out there?

.

Having done coast to coast in 2011 and end to end last month, I'm now about to start planning next year's madness. I'm looking at getting a ferry to northern Spain, crossing the Pyrenees and then up through France with a ferry to Dover and possibly taking Route 1 from there home to Norfolk if I'm not worn out by then.

I did the end to end with a mate of mine, but as his wife has just had their second, it'll be some time before he's allowed out to play again, so I need to find some other poor fool (or better yet, fools) to put up with my incessant whinging and very loud snoring for a couple of weeks.

I'm happy to consider camping or B&B's or a mixture of the two and expect the trip to take approx 2 weeks at around 60 miles a day (averaging 10mph), plus travelling time at either end. I own my own business so can be flexible on dates and timings.

I'm a married man with two kids, aged 49 and not an axe murderer (yet) I love my biking but also like a glass or three to unwind after a tough day in the mountains. I don't speak a word of either French or Spanish and am planning to "get by" by talking loudly and pointing.

Anyone interested, just drop me a line.

I have a 5703 chainset and have swapped the inner sprocket for a 26T TA chainring which works well. It gives more evenly spaced ratios than the original 30T and is much better for climbing.

Jonboy wrote:I have 30,38, 50 front; 11-34 rear. I have never used the inner chain ring despite having ridden two fully loaded tours, Calais to the Med and LEJOG.
If I were building the bike again from scratch I would just have a double.

Conversely, I recently did a 4 day tour with only a light load and found that even the 26 front 28 rear combo was too high for some hills and have just changed to mountain bike gearing to give me 22/34 for loaded touring. It depends on what your natural cadence is as much as strength - just watch any pelethon and you'll see different riders pedaling at different speeds to achieve the same road speed - the answer is, as the post above says, trial and error to find what works well for you.