FNRttC 2017 (that's next year, folks) thinking ride thread

[redfalo]

Interesting stuff, but I cannot commit to anything in 2017 at the moment. First half will be dominated LEL and getting ready for it while not neglecting real life too much. Second half of next year will probably be sharped by move back to the continent.

I'm not at all convinced by the Berlin idea though. Sounds like a logistical nightmare, and the ride across is not really going through the most amazing parts of the country. Berlin is more about the destination than the journey - better fly there, spend a city weekend and hire some bikes to pootle around.

 

[User482]

Is it? 'Cross Country' has possibly an even more restrictive cycle policy than GWR and Mancunians will have to combine two CC journeys (changing in Birmingham) of which each has this policy: "On most of our trains we have two reservable bike spaces and one further space for unreserved bikes."

So given only one service arrives in Plymouth at a reasonable time that could limit 'The North & Scotland' to a total of two riders if they book early enough unless a third wants to push their luck. Or you come via London ...

It's a half-hourly/ hourly service from Manchester to Plymouth (via Birmingham) so even if there were a quite a few riders coming that way, there ought to be enough bike space provided people are prepared to get to Plymouth a little earlier than necessary. My feeling is that riders heading from northern England, West Midlands & West country would be reasonably well catered for, given the likely numbers from those places.

 

[mmmmartin]

I am struck by the difficulty people such as @Andrew will have in getting from t'North to Plymouth.

And comments from @Fubar are very welcome, obvs, as they are from everyone. I'd be interested to hear of your experiences with organising a CTC tour.

The Checkpoint Charlie idea is a possibility, deffo. It'd involve money upfront for a coach from Hoek to the border and from Berlin back to the Hoek, and long days perhaps in bad weather. But it could be done. @redfalo knows Germany better than I do by a long way, and will be correct in saying there are nicer bits. But if Friday-peeps want to ride across Germany rather than in it, then this tour could work. It might well be expensive, wet, cold, windy, and boring but we could make it work. And I think it's an interesting place with friendly people. (@redfalo excepted, obvs )

 

[mmmmartin]

by all means - please do. The intention was to create an easy-ish week, with some days short enough for more enthusiastic riders to dump kit at the hotel and go back out for more miles. And at a time when the weather was pleasant.

quimper-loudeac is 125k and climbs 800 metres, which is a hard day, no doubt, esp with loaded bikes.

the problem is trying to ride south along the brittany coast to quimper, which will be nice, but then then needing to travel the distance to go eastwards to st malo and mont st michel.

and there is the issue of the size of towns: there's likely to be more than 30 riders on this trip and we can - in fact, often have - take every bed in some of these towns (hence the need to go to larger towns rather than smaller ones).

 

[Flying Dodo]

Can I just say that I like cycling in the Netherlands. It has everything that's needed on a tour. No massive hills, good food, good beer, friendly people and decent, actually bloody brilliant, cycling infrastructure.

 

[mmmmartin]

Would folk prefer that? Speak up.

 

[mmmmartin]

I many of those people would sign up for the second suggestion in Germany rather than an easier, less challenging fun tour somewhere

A Germany tour would only ever appeal to a small number - riding 120k every day with a loaded bike in northern Europe with no days off, and an expensive system of logistics is only ever going to attract a minority.

I'll see if I can make Brittany work, but it'll have to wait until the middle of next week as I'm riding around Ostend this weekend.

The ineluctable fact is the Plymouth ferry for the Roscoff start, and that is the fly in the ointment I think - the route can always be tweaked but the start is where it is.

 

[srw]

Would folk prefer that? Speak up.

I don't know Brittany at all. But I trust the judgement of those who have been there that (a) it's a lovely part of the world to ride, and (b) it's not so challenging as to rule it out of being a Fridays' ride.

While the Low Countries are lovely, they're also easy to get to. So far, very roughly, Fridays' rides have alternated between a comfort-zone-stretching tour which is achievable but an achievement (JoG, Bordeaux) and a reasonably easy week either because there are options or because it's reasonably flat (Cherbourg, Low Countries twice). If you think it's possible to construct a tour in Brittany - go for out. I do understand where TMN is coming from; this year I'm likely to find Colonia more of a challenge than I'd like. But respectfully I disagree with her that a tour with two tough days is "not what the Fridays stand for". I think back to the first night and day of LonJoG and the Hell of the North, plus the day through Durham...

 

[velovoice]

Would folk prefer that? Speak up.

Yes!

I do understand all that, sure, but then maybe ... it's not a good route for a Fridays Tour? People can organise trips involving, say, cycling across Germany or Spain (or even all the way to Pisa), and people could decide to join them if that's what they like, perhaps just without the Fridays name on it. But a Fridays Tour is, I thought, meant to be inclusive and achievable by all kinds of people on all sorts of bikes? Sadly, I do see these Tours very slowly starting to slip away from my capabilities every year, as I get older and they get harder, and as the demographic of people who want to do them also shifts.

You say there could be 30 people (and, of course, there's nothing to stop the club saying 'first come first served up to a maximum of ...' although that too would go against what I thought The Fridays stood for), but many of those people would sign up for the second suggestion in Germany rather than an easier, less challenging fun tour somewhere, which would perhaps split the numbers up a bit.

TMN has expressed very well exactly my thoughts on this. I am already "priced out" (ability-wise) of this year's Viva Colonia tour. (As it happens, we're going to the Netherlands instead, for all the reasons stated above.) I'd really like to think that the 2017 tour will be something I could do. (But if it's not, we'll very likely, happily go to the Netherlands again.)

 

[StuAff]

I do understand all that, sure, but then maybe ... it's not a good route for a Fridays Tour? People can organise trips involving, say, cycling across Germany or Spain (or even all the way to Pisa), and people could decide to join them if that's what they like, perhaps just without the Fridays name on it. But a Fridays Tour is, I thought, meant to be inclusive and achievable by all kinds of people on all sorts of bikes? Sadly, I do see these Tours very slowly starting to slip away from my capabilities every year, as I get older and they get harder, and as the demographic of people who want to do them also shifts.

You say there could be 30 people (and, of course, there's nothing to stop the club saying 'first come first served up to a maximum of ...' although that too would go against what I thought The Fridays stood for), but many of those people would sign up for the second suggestion in Germany rather than an easier, less challenging fun tour somewhere, which would perhaps split the numbers up a bit.

A few thoughts:
I like being challenged when I ride a bike. So do quite a few of us. But not all the time. Sometimes, it's nice just to pootle (relatively) over shorter distances, particularly with you lot. Supporting Team Less Fast and Less Inclined to Do Silly Mileage is not a burden, anything but. Absolutely no reason why there can't be two tours, one better suited to Team Less Slow, and Real Life permitting I'd happily do both.

 

[srw]

Here's an idea: The Checkpoint Charlie Tour
https://goo.gl/maps/ALKrREwxZL92
We cross Germany. From the German border into the heart of Berlin, and we have a whole day in Berlin to savour it.

Looking at the map, and at @redfalo's comments, this doesn't feel like a good Fridays' event. It looks more like a flattish 500k audax for 500k audaxing types. A (Fridays) tour would take in Hanover, Brunswick, Leipzig and Dresden on the way to the capital - all the places with history. I write that not knowing anything about the distances involved, or about the towns except that they were all big centres of 18th century music and therefore must have a history.

Ultimately you and the little helpers are never going to please everyone. You've got to try and please as many people as you think is reasonable, and piss off as few people as you can manage - which will never be none. A flog across Northern Germany might work for a small group of nutters. Another trip to Holland and Belgium would be a good holiday, but without a story and some challenge there will come a time for me (and, probably others) when going on a holiday with a bunch of friends to the same part of the world again will lose out to a week spent elsewhere, possibly not on a bike. Revisiting some of the destinations and distances or committing to laying on luggage transport could, I think, turn Brittany into a widely-acceptable goer rather than a seriously envelope-stretching goer.

 

[StuartG]

I would add my support to @srw 's comments. There are two separate factors here - toughness and variety.

Toughness is the easy one. I once thought I heard our previous leader say something like "Any ride that isn't TMN-able isn't a FNRttC ride". I go with that. I hope any FNRttC leader would go with that. The second is that @User13710 like many of the rest of us would have thought current FNRttC rides impossible until we did them. FNRttC has taken us to new heights and new places. It has revolutionised our view of cycling, the world and even ourselves.

That's why going to new places is so, so important. One of the reasons @Flying Dodo 's ride this year to Shoreham was a great success. That's why I want to ride somewhere new next year. I don't care where it is as long as it is a new experience and TMN-able. Go Dutch in 2018, maybe every other year, but don't let FNRttC lose its mojo by doing the same easy thing easily every year. Reprising great experiences is great (and last year's tour was great) as long as it doesn't become all we do.

So Brittany, Britain or wherever for 2017. With TMN (I hope). And Holland another year.

BTW would reversing the Briitany ride make getting to the start and the long climb (long descent) more attractive?

 

[StuartG]

It would but it would then make getting home more of a pain.

Yes, but its more important we can all start the ride together than get back home at the same time. Staggering departures back from Plymouth would be easier (which would not have peak time blocking at a weekend), some cycling back to St Malo, some maybe using the ride as a spring board to an extended tour in Brittany or back in the West Country. Many options. Just the current proposal offers the prospect of not being able to get on a restricted GWR train to Plymouth on Day 1 would possibly veto the ride for some.

I feel rather strongly about this being currently 'grounded' by DFDS from the Paris ride.

 

[Flying Dodo]

I think there needs to be a general consensus about what a Tour is supposed to be. Some seem to want a "heads down, maximum miles" sort of thing. That doesn't seem to fit with the whole raison d'etre concept of The Fridays, whereby one of the main selling points of the FNRttC is the actual journey itself.

Last year on the Lowlands Tour, at times I felt it was a bit rushed and I would have liked more time to actually look at stuff, and not just have the lovely time wandering about Utrecht.

By pushing for a more challenging ride, you really risk alienating people who ordinarily wouldn't have the opportunity to consider a group tour along the lines of what we can provide.

We should be aiming to be more, not less inclusive.

 

[Flying Dodo]

@User13710 has probably expressed things better than my quick scribblings above on a small phone.

Anyway, I'm off for a (possibly challenging) bike ride on my own around the foothills of Gordes, Provence, before it gets too hot.