Low Roller
Well-Known Member
- Location
- East Yorkshire
This has only happened to me twice in all the years I’ve been touring.
First time I took the advice of a French cyclist (**** !!) who said that rather than go the flat way from St Etienne to Lyons I should go over the Col de la Republique. I pedalled 400 yards uphill then pushed the laden touring bike for 6 hours up around the hairpin bends to a campsite two thirds of the way up.
Second time I had meandered across France, Spain and Portugal and was stood on a hot July morning in Porto station wondering which was the quickest way to go home. Quite randomly I chose a train going east for 125 miles. It cost £5 and was the finest train journey of my life - a single track railway following a canyon along the river Douro. I just wheeled the bike onto the train and had the third class carriage to myself. The terminus was 60 miles from the Spanish border. It was like a one street cowboy town, but no people, dogs, horses and definitely no saloon. The next two days were purgatory because of the lack of water. Interestingly, part of the journey was on highly elevated brand-new dual carriageways paid for by the European Union and used by one car every 10 minutes.
( As an off-topic aside, this dual carriageway should have been built in England along the east coast. From where I live it takes 90 minutes driving along picturesque scenic roads to get to the motorway network, and these roads are cluttered with pesky cyclists in their little lycra shorts and bulging calves and the men are just as bad)
What’s your worst trip?
First time I took the advice of a French cyclist (**** !!) who said that rather than go the flat way from St Etienne to Lyons I should go over the Col de la Republique. I pedalled 400 yards uphill then pushed the laden touring bike for 6 hours up around the hairpin bends to a campsite two thirds of the way up.
Second time I had meandered across France, Spain and Portugal and was stood on a hot July morning in Porto station wondering which was the quickest way to go home. Quite randomly I chose a train going east for 125 miles. It cost £5 and was the finest train journey of my life - a single track railway following a canyon along the river Douro. I just wheeled the bike onto the train and had the third class carriage to myself. The terminus was 60 miles from the Spanish border. It was like a one street cowboy town, but no people, dogs, horses and definitely no saloon. The next two days were purgatory because of the lack of water. Interestingly, part of the journey was on highly elevated brand-new dual carriageways paid for by the European Union and used by one car every 10 minutes.
( As an off-topic aside, this dual carriageway should have been built in England along the east coast. From where I live it takes 90 minutes driving along picturesque scenic roads to get to the motorway network, and these roads are cluttered with pesky cyclists in their little lycra shorts and bulging calves and the men are just as bad)
What’s your worst trip?
