A Passion for cycling: A trip to France

Muddy Funster, Mickael reports on an epic trip that he completed last year

I have been cycling quite a lot this year (2010) and wanted to do a challenging ride. What I had in mind was to go and visit my parents in France but leaving the car at home. They live in a small village called Mont-devant- Sassey near Verdun. This is about 600km from Newbury and the initial plan was to do it in three days with a friend, using our road racing bike. I was however left on my own very soon after we started to discuss the idea, which was going to make the ride even more challenging. My plan also slightly changed since I decided to go as far as I could in 2 days. This would have brought me 100km short of my end destination where my parents would come and collect me.

I did not want to fit any luggage carrier to my bike and known from previous long ride that my back would hurt if heavily loaded. So I went to get the smallest back pack I could get, a Camelbak of 2L capacity from which I removed the reservoir. This was enough space for 3 inner tubes, tyre levers, chain tool and pins, Allen keys, light and batteries, yellow reflective jacket, jelly babies, energy bars, nuun electrolyte tablets, a tube of deep heat, some money and my passport, (no more space for spare clothes and shoes). I was physically well prepared for a long distance ride but was a bit concerned with the navigation side. I spent few hours preparing the route on google map, printing out 39 A4 pages that I attached to the handlebars.

I left Newbury on Saturday, 5th June 2010 at around 8.30am and arrived in Dover the same day at around 8pm. This was a total of 9 hours and 57 minutes pedalling during which time I covered 249km. (This doesn’t include the time I stopped for looking at the map, refill the bottles and have something to eat). The weather was good for cycling: dry and sunny but not too warm. I was uncertain of when I would get to Dover and therefore did not pre-book the crossing. Unfortunately when I arrived in Dover the P&O ticket office was closed and then decided to have a good night sleeping in a B&B before restarting on day 2. The hotel was interesting, (but that is a whole other story).

The next day, I left the hotel just before 8am and headed towards the car ferry's ticket office where I got a 9.30am crossing pass. It felt awkward to cycle up to the crossing gate in the motorbike lane. I was the only one on a bicycle and the first to get on board, (first hill of the day). It is a painted floor in the ferry and then very slippery with the water so I have been strongly advised to walk to the bike rack. The ferry docked in Calais at 11am UK time, 12pm French time and I realised I had a lot to do (over 200km). The ride was a lot more difficult because of the rain and a strong side wind. It was also very hilly for the first 100km and the road surface was very rough. What appeared to be a long journey for French local (from Calais to Arras) made me smile knowing that this was only half of what I was going to do on the day. 8 hours and 32 minutes later, (or 219km), I reached Hirson, where my sister picked me up.

I was quite pleased with the ride since I managed to do 448kms in two days, despite losing half a day on the crossing. The following Sunday I was doing the Newbury sportive; 203km in 8 hours 14 minutes and 15 seconds. I totalled 1508km cycling for June and recorded 9014kms so far this year against my target of 10 000km.

80K Woodcote CX

So my first airing of our new cycle jersey took place last week at the cyclocross sportive at Woodcote. I have done a few sportives over the years but not one that would take in both road and off road sections.
I chose to ride my Salsa Vaya as clearly by virtue of the events name it was suited to a CX type of bike. A quick change of spec from the weekly commuter to the weekend race machine certainly had the required effect, turning it's normally docile but dependable character into a nimble yet comfortable off-road m/c with the benefit of being able to maintain a good speed whilst on road.

Commuter

Racer!

The week leading up to the event had managed to stay dry, this combined with a good hard frost and clear skies meant that most of the early off-road excursions were fast and dry. The route really was spectacular combining rolling hills, picturesque valleys with plenty of quaint little villages. I was aiming for a gold standard, which was something in the order of 3:45 for my age group....old! All was progressing well until I had a puncture at around the 55K mark, and due to a number of administrative issues (Old self adhesive patches that weren't adhesive and a pump with an intermittent ability to inflate the tyre) meant that I lost in the region 20 mins repairing it but more worryingly I left myself with no other options should I get another puncture. The remainder of the course was as enjoyable as the 1st and now with a warming sun the off-road sections were much softer, wetter and looser but the bike felt great throughout. The last few miles was a bit of a time trial affair to make up for lost time but finally I came in at 4:00.
Fantastic well organised event with lots of detailed information and good course marking. It was ran by the 'cycle events organisation',  who also run the Trail Break and Southern sportive events.
The event's web page is here http://www.cxsportive.com/

A bit of an intro.......

Initially we set up The Muddy Funsters so that we had a name that could be entered  into the team/club box of Gorrick MTB race forms. A very informal affair, but a label that made us feel like part of a team. 
From two or three of us in the beginning we are now in the order of fifteen or more strong with all abilities, all disciplines, all types of motivations but most importantly all cyclists. By creating this blog I hope that it will allow us to share and record our experiences both as a group and individually.
To increase our need for belonging we have now had some jerseys made up. Emblazoned upon which are some of our favorite 'performance enhancers' and so additionally hope that these musings will provide a way for them to keep up with our activities.
We have entered a number of events for 2011, primarily the Bristol Bikefest, Bontrager Twenty Four 12, and The Welsh Ride Thing. We will also have a presence at some Gorrick, Southern XC and no doubt a number of Sportives. 
I hope to get a a few more links set up pretty soon, once I've worked out how to do them.
Cheers for now, Paul