I got round to writing up my tour.

[Ben M]

[FONT=&quot]I wrote it for a friends and family, so the start and end are directed at them, but I'll leave it all in as it is. It's long, but hopefully entertaining.
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[FONT=&quot]First off I’m sorry that it’ has taken me this long to write up this report, with one thing and another I’ve been very busy since getting back. Thank you again to everyone who has donated to us, our current total at time of writing is £2,000.70, so we have reached our target! We will, of course, still accept donations, if you would like to donate, our justgiving page will remain open until November 28th.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]This is going to be quite a long report, as it was a long and eventful tour, I’m sure that you’re eager to know what went on in the nine and a half days and seven hundred and twenty five miles. We have a photo album of pictures from the tour which can be found at http://s1018.photobucket.com/albums/af309/rideforheroes/tour 2009/?albumview=slideshow[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]When we set off, the plan was possibly the least detailed plan imaginable, it went like this:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Leave Bristol Saturday, cycle for three days covering approx 200 miles, arriving in Harwich on Monday evening, to catch our ferry on Tuesday morning.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Get to the Hook of Holland on Tuesday at 16:30, cycle south until we find a campsite. Keep cycling until the following Tuesday, going through Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, France and to Strasbourg, covering in total around 700 miles. We would stay in campsites which are marked on our maps (yes we were prepared enough to have bought maps). In Strasbourg we would stay with our friend Claire.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]So without further delay, here’s how it went[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Day 1:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]We gathered early at Freddie’s house in Bristol, and each weighed ourselves holding our bikes complete with kit. Freddie, Bella (his bike) and his panniers together came to 18 stone. Martin, Molly (his bike) and kit came to 14 stone. Ben, Gary (his bike, named by Martin and Freddie) and kit came to 17 stone.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]We set off, waved goodbye by our most dedicated of supporters; most of whom were still wearing pyjamas and rubbing their tired eyes. Less than five minutes later, Ben realised that he had forgotten his map of the UK, a small setback as we were only a few hundred yards from his house, it was a bad omen nonetheless.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Our odometers were reading 12.9 miles when we had our first incident of the tour. Martin tried to “take a racing line” around a corner, which involved him hitting a cat’s-eye, and careering off the side of the road. Freddie looked round to see a very still Martin and he feared that he was knocked unconscious. Upon closer inspection Freddie discovered that he wasn’t unconscious, merely unable to get up due to the weight of Molly on top of him. No real damage had been done; Martin was a little shaken, and was rather more careful whilst taking sharp corners for the next few days.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The rest of the day was a nice meander through British countryside. Martin secured us a bed (yes, an actual bed, each) for the night at his friend Alice’s house in Oxford. We arrived in oxford with a vague idea of where this house was, at around half past five. After a little bit of, almost aimless, meandering around Oxford, Freddie got a puncture. Whilst he fixed it, slowly, Martin spoke to another friend (not Alice, she was at work) to get some directions to the house. It had been a while since Freddie had fixed a puncture, so he ended up doing the job twice due to him bodging it the first time and tearing an innertube. After two or more additional phonecalls to get directions, we arrived at Alice’s house. Alice cooked us a lovely meal, and she has a Lotus Seven, Ben and Freddie had a new best friend.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Total miles covered day 1: 96[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Day 2:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]We set off early and headed East, it was another day of meandering through some scenic countryside, and up some rather nice hills. It became clear that finding a campsite would be difficult. We continued to go east, hoping that Martin’s parents would find us a campsite, or indeed a hostel, on the internet. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]We reached a town at around 6 o’clock and looked for somewhere to stay, but we weren’t in luck. We asked in a shop and they told us that there was a service station on the motorway, so we decided to head for there, not before buying and eating quite a lot of pizza. We arrived at the service station at junction 8 of the M11, and asked for a room. They refused to accommodate us, on the grounds that there was nowhere to store the bikes. Whilst we were stood outside despairing as to what we could do, the lady who worked on the reception desk realised how much of a pickle we were in and took pity on us (we must have looked really rather pathetic) and told us that there was a storage room which we could leave our bikes in, and a spare (albeit rather expensive compared to a campsite) room for us to stay in.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Miles covered day 2: 86[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Total miles covered: 182[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Day 3:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Those of you whose UK geography is better than mine will know that j8 of the M11 is really quite far east. We cycled just 56 miles and arrived at the port in Harwich at half past three. We were booked on a ferry the next morning, but we knew that there was a ferry that sails overnight. We enquired as to whether there was any space, and if we could transfer our tickets. We could with only a small charge as we would have a cabin to ourselves. So that solved the problem of where we were going to spend the night, and saved us a day.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Miles covered day 3: 56[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Total miles covered 238[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]Day 4:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Holland[/FONT][FONT=&quot] was rather gloomy when we arrived. It was also quite a big culture shock, cycling in Holland is rather different to cycling in the UK:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Where there’s a road, there’s a cycle path along side it, usually set apart from the road.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]People use the cycle paths, bicycles are everywhere, cycle paths in Rotterdam were absolute carnage, being cut up by five cyclists simultaneously, whilst being overtaken by a scooter (yes, mopeds/scooters are allowed on cycle paths in Holland) was quite an experience.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]When people say that Holland is flat, they really do mean it literally, the only time when the path was anything other than spirit-level-flat was when the gradient was man-made, for example going over a bridge.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The plan, as you know, was to head south. That meant going through Rotterdam and then we would be on major roads which would take us down towards Belgium. Rotterdam turned out to be rather time consuming, it’s a big city, and we often had to follow diversions (the pictures in the album of Ben and Martin pushing their bikes through a bush was one such diversion).[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]We were stood in a residential street, looking rather lost, when one chap came out of his house and asked if he could help. He and his wife gave us directions, and then they were kind enough to invite us in and offer us tea and biscuits, which we gratefully received.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]We set off again and headed south, now with some sense of which roads we should head on. We stopped at a supermarket to buy some food for supper, whilst Freddie waited outside he was approached by a gentleman who asked him about what we were doing and such. Freddie and he spoke for a while, and Freddie told him that we weren’t sure where we would stay for the night, we had seen a campsite marked on the map and were heading for that, but it was still a way away. We were in luck, as the gentleman was friends with the owner of a small campsite, and it wasn’t far away. He gave us directions, and then offered to take us there (being Dutch, he was on a bicycle). We followed him (at a fair pace) for two miles or so to the campsite, which we would likely never have found with just directions, and he spoke to the owner for us. It turns out that the man was seventy two years old! We were frankly astonished due to the pace at which he had cycled at such a ripe old age, and at his willingness to go so far out of his way to help total strangers.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Miles covered day 4: 67[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Total miles covered: 305[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
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[Ben M]

[FONT=&quot]Day 5:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Just before we were setting off, Ben tried to adjust his seatpost height, in doing so he stripped the thread off the clamp, resulting in the post no longer staying up. Some cross-language-bodging from Freddie and some helpful Dutch guests at the site, along with the owner resulted in a solution in the form of a nut and bolt to temporarily hold the seat post in the correct position, for at least long enough to get us to a bike shop to which they gave us directions. We quickly reached the shop and they replaced the clamp for a few euros, and we were on our way.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]A few miles later, Ben was trying to cross a road, but Gary had other ideas. The rear wheel wouldn’t turn. This was due to the fact that a bungee cord had come loose and hooked onto a spoke then looped repeatedly round his back axle. The result was a broken spoke and a crooked wheel. Freddie was the one who volunteered to cycle back to the bike shop with the offending wheel to get the spoke replaced and the wheel balanced. He was gone for forty minutes or so while Ben and Martin spent the time eating sweets and cookies which they bought from the petrol station opposite where Gary had fallen.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Freddie returned with the repaired wheel and we sat off again, barely two miles had been covered when Ben had a burst innertube. We expect that this was the result of the bike shop pumping the tyre up too hard, but we’ll never know.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]We stopped for lunch at a restaurant and sat outside, so that we could keep a watchful eye on the bikes. When we returned to the bikes, Freddie discovered that he had two flat tyres. He and Ben set about repairing them, whilst Martin, ever helpful, took pictures, one of which is of a sign outside a chemist’s shop, showing the temperature at 38 Celsius.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Martin’s knee was bothering him at this point, so we were making slow progress, we found a campsite somewhere in Belgium. As we arrived we found that the office was closed until the morning. We pitched tent and were immediately offered beer by a friendly family in a nearby caravan.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Miles covered day 5: 45[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Total miles covered: 350[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]Day 6:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]We set off early (before the office re-opened), and Martin’s knee was still bothering him. We stopped at a café for breakfast and discussed the situation. We couldn’t continue at our current pace, as we wouldn’t arrive in Strasbourg on time, and Martin wasn’t able to go any faster as his knee was causing him great pain. Martin decided that he needed a doctor’s advice as to what to do, whether a day or two’s rest would be sufficient to continue.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]We found a nearby hospital, and Ben and Martin went inside and were seen straight away by triage, and sent on to a doctor, followed by an orthopaedic consultant/knee specialist. The diagnosis was that he had severe acute tendonitis, and must not cycle until it is no longer painful, which would be weeks at the least.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]By now it was lunch time, so we discussed over lunch how to proceed. Martin made some phone calls to his parents to tell them that he was unable to continue cycling and to Mr. Parsons (Claire’s father, our kind host in Strasbourg) to arrange getting a train the rest of the way.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Martin was no longer going to be cycling, and he had been carrying the tent, so some load-shedding needed to be done, Freddie and Ben gave spare clothes etc. to Martin and took all of his spare innertubes and his toolkit. Freddie and Martin decided that now was an appropriate time to tell Ben about a “present” that they had given him back in Bristol. Unbeknown to Ben, down the back of one of his panniers was a thick, hardback, and really rather heavy Biochemistry textbook.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]We headed to the train station, and Martin bought train tickets to Strasbourg via Brussels, he’d arrive in Strasbourg later that day.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Ben and Freddie set off, eager to make up for lost time, as by now it was mid-afternoon. At half past six disaster struck, Freddie got a puncture. When fixing said puncture, Freddie discovered that the piece of glass which he had ridden over, had also made a large gash in his rear tyre, so it couldn’t be used. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Being the eternal optimists (read: unprepared amateurs) that we are, we hadn’t brought a spare tyre with us, what sort of a puncture would destroy both tyre and innertube? We got our answer in the form of the bottom of a glass bottle on the road near Gringolm. As it was half past six, no shops would be open, we were a mile past from the nearest small village and there were no campsites marked on the map for another twenty or so miles. So we sat there for five minutes, eating sweets, in pleats of laughter, the stickiness of our situation brought about a laugh-or-cry response. We regained our composure, and decided what to do. Ben stripped off his panniers and headed back to the small village. There weren’t many people around, or any shops, but he saw a gentleman getting home. Ben explained our near hopeless situation to him, and the gentleman agreed to help. He was persuaded mostly, no doubt, by how utterly pathetic Ben came across.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The gentleman, whose name was Jean Claude, we think, drove Ben to try and find a bed and breakfast. With the help of some police officers and a café owner, they eventually found a hotel. Jean Claude arranged a room for the night for us and then drove out to collect Freddie and bring him to the hotel. We owe many thanks to Jean Claude, because he went a long way out of his way for us, spending half an hour or more helping us.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The hotel turned out to be a centre for agricultural tourism so we had an apartment, with fully fitted kitchen and spare room, to ourselves. We were also provided with a large breakfast the next morning (which we also ate for lunch). It was rather more expensive than staying in a campsite, but we had no other option, so we just had to put up with watching TV for the rest of the evening, followed by sleeping in a warm bed.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Miles covered day 6: 55[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Total miles covered: 405[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]Day 7:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Of course we still had the problem of needing a new tyre, so Ben cycled the 7 miles to the nearest large town to a bike shop, and came back with a rather snazzy blue tyre for Freddie, as well as a spare one (in red) for if such a scenario happened again.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Fresh from a good night’s sleep in a bed, and with a hearty breakfast inside of us we set off. By now we had lots of miles to make up, having covered just 100 miles in the past two days, fifty or so short of what we had aimed to have covered.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]We made good progress and got to the town of Bastogne, near the Luxembourg border in relatively good time. There was a campsite marked on the map nearby, so we stopped to buy some supper and breakfast in a supermarket and headed to find it. After over an hour of looking, we hadn’t found the campsite which was so clearly marked on the map. So we did what we became rather accustomed at doing, we asked a stranger for directions. He knew where we were talking about, and gave us directions to the campsite on the map.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The “campsite” it turns out, we had seen before, and quickly dismissed. It wasn’t a campsite in the sense that we had been used to, it was instead a travellers’ park, full of mobile and static caravans. It looked, for want of a better word, “rough” and we didn’t think that we’d be very well received, or that our expensive bicycles would be safe. So we decided to give it a wide berth. This left us with two options: go back to Bastogne (by now we had dubbed it “Bastard”) and look for another expensive hotel, or to camp rough. Our wallets made the decision for us as we were running low on Euros after our luxury the previous night, so we started looking for a discreet spot to pitch our bright blue tent.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Eventually we dragged our bikes through a wood and up a hill to the bottom of an empty field. We knew that if we left early the next morning we’d cause no problems to the farmer and hopefully we wouldn’t be noticed. We slept that night with the tent-peg-mallet close at hand.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Miles covered day 7: 101[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Total miles covered: 506[/FONT]
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[Ben M]

[FONT=&quot]Day 8:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]We got up early, had a hasty breakfast and set off for Luxembourg. Luxembourg was really quite beautiful. In the morning we rode in hilly forests until we reached the bank of the river which forms the Luxemburg-Germany border. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]We followed this river down until Remich; where there was a bridge across the river. The bridge was closed. We wanted to spend the night on German soil, and we could see a campsite on the opposite bank of the river, so we continued for ten miles or so until the next bridge, crossed over and headed back to the campsite that we had seen. After finding it (which was surprisingly difficult) we pitched our tent and sat down for supper, rather pleased that we had crossed Luxembourg (in almost the longest way possible) in a day, and that we had had each meal of the day in a different country.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Miles covered day 8: 96[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Total miles covered: 602[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]Day 9:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]We cycled for perhaps half an hour before entering the final country of our trip: France. It had only taken ten minutes of that half hour to realise that it was going to be a difficult day. There was a strong wind blowing in our faces which slowed us down and sapped our energy. The terrain, as we could see from the map, was hilly, the entire day we were riding up and down rolling hills. Due to the wind, each downhill felt like riding on the flat, this was incredibly tiring and demoralising.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]When we started to see signs for Strasbourg we started to cheer up. We cheered up even further when, mid-afternoon, we saw one sign that said “Strasbourg 113” being continental and in kilometres, that was of course only 70 miles. With it being only Sunday, that meant that we would arrive in Strasbourg on Monday, a day ahead of schedule.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The problem was that it was Sunday. In France, as we were discovering, on a Sunday the only places which are open are petrol stations and bars. We were reminded of this every time we cycled past a bar with people sat outside. They looked happy; they had, presumably, done some grocery shopping the previous day. We hadn’t. We stopped at a petrol station, and bought some food, a pack of biscuits and a loaf of bread, and continued on our way with our not-so-hearty supper in our panniers.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Time was starting to progress, we were getting tired, and we were twenty miles or so from the nearest campsite marked on the map. Then we saw a sign for a campsite. This campsite turned out to be the answer to our prayers when we discovered that they had a café where we could buy a proper, hot supper. Then, when paying for our pitch we were offered freshly baked produce for our breakfast the next day. Result.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]We pitched our tent and consulted our map. We were in Phalsbourg, thirty miles from Strasbourg. We were to finish at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg city centre, so we spoke to Claire to get some directions, as we knew that Strasbourg would be a large and busy city, difficult to navigate.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Miles covered day 9: 86[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Total miles covered: 688[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]Day 10:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]We arrived in Strasbourg early, around eleven o’clock, and quickly discovered that Strasbourg was, as we had thought, a large, busy, maze of a city and also that our directions were rather vague. After much cycling in circles, in tram tracks (apparently one isn’t allowed to ride along tram tracks) and trying to locate signs for “palais de l’europe” we came across a tourist information centre. In there the staff told us to “head that way, across the river” apparently giving more detailed directions would have been too much effort.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]We found the finish line and were greeted by Martin, Claire, Mr. and Mrs. Parsons. We took some photographs of us in front of the Council and its flags, and then headed off for a celebratory lunch.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Miles covered day 10 (morning): 37[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Total miles covered: 725[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Daily average: 76 miles[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]We had a lot of fun on our trip and it is a chapter in our life we will always remember. There were points at which we were both physically and mentally drained but that were the point of the trip; we wanted to push ourselves and take away a sense of achievement. It was a great shame that Martin didn’t make it all of the way; all three of us were absolutely gutted when we learned that he couldn’t continue. He has all but recovered now so will, we hope, be back on his bike soon. Thank you all for donating, we are very proud to have raised two thousand pounds for such a worthwhile charity.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Ben, Freddie and Martin.[/FONT]

 

[snorri]

Good to read.
Like most tours, you had your ups and downs but mostly ups. Rotterdam is a large conurbation, sometimes I seem to get through it easily, other times it can be a struggle. You do seem to have had more than your fair share of probs with tyres and tubes, not all tours are like that.

 

[Ben M]

Good to read.
Like most tours, you had your ups and downs but mostly ups. Rotterdam is a large conurbation, sometimes I seem to get through it easily, other times it can be a struggle. You do seem to have had more than your fair share of probs with tyres and tubes, not all tours are like that.

Glad that you enjoyed it

Freddie was on whichever 23mm tyres which came with his bike. Their lack of resistance, along with the amount of weight on such a narrow tyre was, we think, the reason why he got so many punctures, five! All but one were in his back tyre. Me and Martin were on 25mm continental gatoskins and we weighed less hence fewer punctures (one and none respectively).

 

[Crackle]

Reads like a real adventure. More piccies of the bikes upside down than moving .

So, if you had to do it again what would you do different?

 

[Ben M]

Reads like a real adventure. More piccies of the bikes upside down than moving .

So, if you had to do it again what would you do different?

Take a folding tyre, that little episode where we were basically stuck was really funny looking back on it, but it could have been a lot worse. Pack more lightly.

I'm not sure if I would plan my route in more detail in advance next time, we had quite a good time making it up as we went along. We could have done it more quickly if we knew where we were going, but as it was we still made fair progress most of the time and the uncertainty added to the adventure!

Buy Freddie some continental gatorskins!

 

[Ben M]

BUMP, sure some more of you might be interested =]

 

[andyfromotley]

nice read, nice photos, nice trip.

 

[ComedyPilot]

Nice read that, thanks.

I am doing a solo 750 mile tour in May, so will try to do a write up too.

 

[mike1026]

Good read, I like the slide show on photobucket. I was trying to figure out what the actual dates of your trip were. I cycled some of the North Sea Route in in July 2009 and the weather was great untill around the 20 July heavy rain and stormy. It looks as though you had very good weather after you left the Hoek.

 

[Ben M]

Good read, I like the slide show on photobucket. I was trying to figure out what the actual dates of your trip were. I cycled some of the North Sea Route in in July 2009 and the weather was great untill around the 20 July heavy rain and stormy. It looks as though you had very good weather after you left the Hoek.

We started on the 15th of August IIRC. When we got to the Hoek it was pretty gloomy with mist, but once it lifted it was gorgeous (if not a bit too hot) the rest of the way.

 

[Muddyfox]

Sounds like you had a great time ... i enjoyed the read

Simon