A weekend in Somerset for the 3 Amigos

Last weekend the three Amigos decided it was time to test ourselves with 3 days cycling in a row in the west country, so we arranged to stay with John Mc Donald and his lovely wife Gill who turned out to be a fabulous hostess attending to all our needs, she didn't sit down all weekend. It was like staying at a really good B&B.


This Mare and foal are also staying at the top B&B.


We were stuck in some bad traffic on the way down on Friday so our first ride was rather short 16 miles, but goodness me there are some killer hills round here not least of which is the first half a mile to go up out of Johns driveway. After that it was down hill for a while and then a continuous uphill stretch for 3 miles. The rest of the ride was shorter ups and downs, and all in glorious scenery.








Day 2 again of course starts on the very steep 1/2 mile out of the driveway a long stretch down hill and then a killer, or so we thought, we were glad to get to the top where Sally had her seat adjusted by John, only to turn the corner and see this.





Not only did it start off very steep, but it continued for another 2 miles or so. John kept saying Tim looked like a policeman on his bike, and looking at this picture I can see why, all dressed in black with pockets full of kit, he had just climbed a very steep hill in this picture though.


















It was always worth the climb as you get scenes like this at the top.



For lunch we stopped at a lovely pub by the river Exe and the chip score on this occasion was 4 saddles.


The afternoon proved to be much harder than the morning, but the scenery was fabulous. I was defeated by a hill on Exmoor near the end of the ride, this is the first time I have walked the bike up a hill for months and it rather upset me, so John said we will do a shorter ride tomorrow and you and I will cycle down it and up again .











So here we are at the top of said hill, having a rest while Tim sucks in his stomach claiming to have a six pack and I show off the fact that my legs are still white as the driven snow even after weeks of exposure to the sun.






Day 2 was 44 very hard miles after which we had earned a glass of wine while one of Gill and Johns dogs, called Henry cuddled up to his teddy bear on the setee.


Day 3 was to be 24 miles, bsically back to the hill where I failed in some rather wet drizzle, then to the pub and back again.





You can see here in the picture of John how much quicker he is up the hills, I am the tiny speck in the distance behind him, and the other picture is me looking very happy at having made it without dismounting this time.





We met some carriage drivers on top of the moors who had met at the pub for a drive around the hills.
When we reached the pub just as it opened we were told they were fully booked and that we could not eat there, the next pub was 4 miles away in the wrong direction. We must have looked very fed up and disappointed because the Landlord went off to talk to the Chef who kindly agreed to let us squeeze in, so in the end we had a lovely roast beef lunch, much needed after all that rain.




A massive thank you to Gill and John for their hospitality, and I must say that John put us all to shame with his speeding up the hills. He thought he was unfit until he met us. Our average speed over the weekend was about 8mph shameful, I know its hilly but John apparently averages 12mph around there. We have just 5 weeks to go, will we be fit enough? John will.

Victory in the 1er Etape of Le Tour de Mid-Kent!

David Vant takes the "maillot jeune" in the sprint stage of the Le Tour de Mid Kent. Helped by the fact that he was the only registered competitor (i.e. the only one who knew he was in a race), he completed the stage (shortened to 23 miles due to time constraints) in record time. Racing past familes out for a gentle ride, the odd kid on a BMX and one old granny on a mobility scooter (obviously trying to gain an unfair advantage), he averaged 14.25m mph over gently undulating terrain. The one climb was a modest one up to Le Col de East Sutton.

Despite being so far ahead of the peloton, the stage was made all the more difficult as he had no lead out man to help pace him to the final sprint finish. However, completely unchallanged, this did not matter as he crossed the line in first place.

Making full use of a six day rest break, the second and final stage will take place next Saturday and will be a mountain stage, climing Mt Les North Downs. Le grand depart will be in Canterbury with the finish line being 35 miles later at home.

It will take some doing to lose the maillot jeune now!

Hippy Days

Just a relatively short 25 miles this weekend. Followed a well trodden path up on to the Pilgrims Way at Detling. The Pilgrims Way basically runs along the North Downs, about half way up them.

From Detling it was into Hollingbourne, across into Harrietsham before crossing the A20 and heading to Sandway, Kingswoos and East Sutton. Thought I would stop at a tea room outside East Sutton for an ice cream but strangely, the owner was sitting in his van, the tea room door was open, there was a "welcome" sign outside but the gate to the premises was closed. Thouyght this was bizarre so loitered for a couple of minutes so hopefully he would see me so, parched, I headed off to my next rendezvous.

The mate who I visited in Dover a couple of weeks back has a VW Dormobile and there was a festival for these near Leeds Castle. He, along with 1,000 others took his Dormobile there for bit of a weekend bash. Having blagged my way past the entrance which, despite the fact I was in cycling gear, proved harder than I expected as it was clear I was not going to be staying the night.

I found my mate, he was the one flying the Union Jack off a 20ft portable flag pole - so quite easy to find! I was greeted with a bottle of San Miguel which, in that heat, was the most welcome greeting I could ever have wished for. "Hippy Days!"

I stayed about an hour before heading off to my next stop, watching a bit of cricket on The Green. Bearsted CC (my club) was only 5 miles way across country and so it was a pleasant ride and another welcome chance for a bit of refreshment before heading finally for home.

Sunday saw the bike go in for its pre-trip service. I was planning to do this whilst we were on holiday but now the idea is to take the bike with us to Spain so I can continue my training there.

Henley avoiding the regatta

For todays bike ride we met at my house.


We crossed the Thames at Aston taking care to Avoid Henley regatta and all it's traffic.
And here's another wobbly i-phone picture of the view as we passed through Hambledon.




A quick stop while Sally phoned ahead to see if her brother was at home to make us a Pimms as we would be passing his house.


Next for my shocker, we were now to make a severe climb up hill to Ibstone, this was a long and very steep climb, luckily mostly in shade. There is a lovely windmill at the top which was used in the film Chitty Chitty bang bang, and was later owned by Hayley Mills, unfortunately you can't see it very well from this side, it is better viewed from Turville valley.

However here's the view from beside the windmill into Turville valley, well worth the climb, but there was still quite a lot more climbing to do.
As we were cycling up this long steep hill we could see a group of cyclists a little ahead of us, when we got to the top we discovered that they were a Family, Mother, Father with small child on the back of his bike and two girls aged about 6 and 8, oh the shame of barely being able to keep up with them, our excuse is that we kept stopping to take photos.

Now we decided to get a move on through Stokenchurch towards Christmas Common and our eagerly awaited Pimms.
Unfortunately Peter, Sally's brother was out of lemonade but produced a fantastic cocktail made from Grand Marnier, home made Elderflower cordial, soda water and a few other bits and pieces, absolutely lovely.


Next swiftly onwards to The Five Horseshoes at Maidensgrove Common before lunch orderes were finished. This is a pub we have visited before and liked very much. We had a lovely Pizza baked in an outdoor wood oven, and of course the usual chips, all scoring the maximum possible 5 saddles.





The kindly pub Labrador guarded our bikes with his life while we were there, actually, I think he was just having a sun bathe, he was fast asleep in this picture.







We started off after lunch with a nice shady decent through the woods to Middle Assendon, but this was not to continue, Another climb up to Swyncombe and Fawley was ahead. I gave Tim and Sally the choice of this short very steep climb, or a much longer but gentler climb, they chose long and gentle, but there was a short section which was so steep we were almost doing wheelies as we climbed.

As we reached Fawley I spotted this light aircraft in a field behind a vineyard, there's a lot of money around here.

We had a job preventing Tim going into the winery and brewery for free tastings, Sally had to block his way.


Another lovely decent down to Hambledon, back across the lock at Aston, then another climb towards Crazies Hill and finally back to my house for tea and home made cakes, you will have to ask Sally and Tim for a saddle rating for the cakes.

43 miles at 10.5 mph. We were beginning to tire towards the end, but we are starting to feel quite fit although none of us has lost much weight, could it be the beer, chips and cakes?

45 miles round Oxfordshire

First of all bloggers may I apologise for not posting to the blog for 2 weeks, I have been very busy and it has been left to David to do all the blogging.
So today I am posting 2 blogs, one for last weeks ride and one for todays.
Last week we met at our coach Pollyannas house and she planned the route so once again I will not know much about where we went as it's not my area.


Sally had just been to the Isle of Mull for a week and decided to visit a friend for lunch instead of cycling, honestly what was she thinking? Although she did cycle whilst there every day.
We started with giant cups of tea and cakes in the courtyard at Pollyannas parents home.



As it was Tim's turn to pay for lunch he tried to get us to stop at a cheap looking pub with football on TV, but we ignored him and Poll's chose a much nicer one where we could see this church through the fence behind the pub, and it was flying the St George cross flag, this of course was before we were slaughtered by the Germans in the world cup.









We had to wait rather a long time for our customary chips, forcing Tim to have to buy a second round of drinks.
The chips were rated 4 saddles by Pollyanna and Tim but I wasn't so impressed and scored them 2 so that averages them out at around 3.5 saddles.



I have discovered that if you take photos with an i-phone while moving you get this strange wobbly effect to the picture as seen in this over the motorway shot.
We also passed a field of wind turbines, I don't know why people don't like them I think they are quite attractive. We will get very close up to a massive field of these in France, that's if we take the same route as the last time I pedaled to Paris.






We have now been trained in cycling etiquette, so here is Tim kindly pointing out a pot hole.
A quick break in Charney Basset to call Sally and invite her to join us for tea back at Pollyanna's, then 5 more miles home.

And here we are again drinking giant cups of tea joined by Sally after her leisurely lunch.
45 miles at an avereage of 10.5 MPH.