One week to the mountains

So it’s just a week until 12 members of Les Veloistes Gentils set off on the club’s 2009 adventure, cycling 630km from Perpignan to Biarritz. But as this image shows, it’s less the length of the ride which is a challenge, more the height. The highest point on the ride (weather permitting) will be the Col du Tourmalet at a shade over 2,100m. In all, between sea level by the Med and the same on the Atlantic coast, we’ll be climbing (and descending) more than 9,500m. Which sounds like a lot to me.

In addition to the Tourmalet, we’ll be crossing three famous Tour de France cols, the Col de Portet d’Aspet (1,069m), Col de Peyresourde (1,569m) and the Col d’Aspin (1,489m).  I know for a fact that the latter three cols are clear, and while there’s every chance the Tourmalet will still have a decent amount of snow cover, the invaluable local knowledge provided by Chris from Pyractif gives us hope that we might be able to sneak our way over (if the legs keep going). I’m hoping I’ll be able to thank Chris in person as he may well join us for the leg over the Peyresourde and Aspin.

Final preparations are underway here at Les Chapelles. I bought 96 litres of Vittel this afternoon (it’s the water of champions you know), along with numerous cereal bars, sachets of fruit compote, loads of individually wrapped sponge cakes and a huge amount of Haribo. Should keep us going for a couple of days at least.

Thanks must go to holiday company Pure France which has helped with some sponsorship, and sll those people that have already dipped their hands in their pockets and donated money to our two charities, Action for Children and CHASE. You can still sponsor me of course! You’ll find my Just Giving page here.

I’m hoping to post a few pictures and words here during the ride itself - if I can find wireless access - and also tweeting now and again.

The Tourmalet, take one

All things going well, I should find myself at the top of the Col du Tourmalet in the French Pyrenees twice in 2009. I’ve already ticked off one visit: a couple of weeks ago while skiing with the family. This picture shows the view looking west from the Tourmalet, which is 2,115 metres above sea level. I arrived by chair and button lift.

The second visit will be a tad more difficult, as I’ll be arriving under my own steam by bike. That’s if all the snow has melted by early May, which is absolutely not guaranteed. And that I can actually make it up the damn thing. Plans are well underway for this year’s charity bike ride by Les Veloistes Gentils, which I’ve mentioned a couple of times before. We’re travelling from the Mediterranean coast near Perpignan to the Atlantic coast at Biarritz, starting on May 3rd.

One thing common to both visits will be that the journey down from the top will be significantly more fun than the journey up there!

We’re raising money for two charities this year: Action for Children (the new name for NCH which we supported last year) and CHASE. Both are extremely worthy causes. I’ve set up a Just Giving page here – any donation, however modest, will be very gratefully received.

Wish us luck!

Les Veloistes Gentils

Anyone who has spent any time at all on this blog or, indeed, around me over the past year will know all about The Bike Ride. The result of a drunken chat between me and my old mate Mark (original back story here) it turned into something rather more significant and worthwhile, as ten men good and true raised nearly £12,000 for charity by cycling from London to south-west France. More stuff on the adventure here and here.

As you can see below, we had such a fantastic time (and have clearly forgotten about the tired bits) that we’ve decided to do it all over again in 2009. Slightly tougher route this time though…

One thing that we did decide during the ride this year was that our happy little band needed a name, and that name is ‘Les Veloistes Gentils’. We went for a French one because France plays such an important part of what we get up do and, frankly, it sounds cool.

‘Veloistes’ isn’t actually a real word. The French word for bike is velo and the word for cyclist is cycliste, so we’ve combined the two. Nice, huh? The most literal translation for ‘gentil’ is ‘kind’, but it actually means slightly more than that. ‘Gentil’ is about kindness, sure, but also generosity and respectfulness. All round good stuff. And it certainly describes every member of the little equipe that we formed this year. One member of the team, young Tim, has designed the rather lovely logo that you can see here and which will adorn the jerseys next year. There are even rumours of tattoos…

It’s an exclusive little club and one of which you can only become a member by participating on one of the rides, which I very much hope will be an annual event for many years to come. Les Veloistes Gentils already looks like it will be expanding in 2009 as we’ve had a few more sign up for the ride. Who knows how large it might become in the future?

Next year’s ride

It’s almost six months since our intrepid little gang of very amateur cyclists set off from Hampton Court on our jaunt down through France to St. Emilion, but I’ve bored you about that before.

Ever since we finished the ride there’s be an appetite to do it all again next year, and after mulling over the potential route for a while, I think I’ve finally settled on it…and it’s something of a cycling classic. While starting in England was nice to do this year, to a man the lads weren’t that bothered about including a UK stage in next year’s ride. The lighter and more respectful traffic along with the better surface of French roads and, frankly, the adventure of being in foreign climes on our bikes has resulted in an agreement to both start and finish in France.

But we still needed a proper ‘journey’, so the one we’re going to try is cycling from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. If you click on the little map above you’ll get a clearer view of the proposed route…and those of you who know your geography (or, indeed, your cycling!) will also know that it’s rather hillier than this year’s ride. In fact, it takes in two of the Tour de France’s most historic climbs, the Col du Tourmalet and the Col d’Aubisque.

There’s a lot of excitement amongst the group, plus not a small amount of anxiety. These aren’t small hills! I get particularly nervous when I look at the route profile and the numbers on the left-hand side of it. In this year’s ride, we didn’t get more than 200m above sea level…and 200m doesn’t even appear on the scale of next year’s profile! And given I live in one of France’s flattest regions, training might be an issue…

Still, life’s nothing without challenges. We’re starting the ride on May 3rd 2009, which is four months before my 40th birthday, so this might be a last hurrah before a steady slip into sedentry middle age…

700km, two punctures, one crash, a lot of Haribo

Supping a cold beer on a sunny Tuesday afternoon in St Emilion…it’s remarkable how the pain and effort of a near 700km bike ride over five days melts away. 

It comes right back the next morning though, I can tell you.

Regular viewers will know that for the past few months I’ve been organising a charity bike ride between London and St. Emilion.  Well, last Friday was the day of reckoning as the ten riders gathered at Hampton Court Palace along with our trusty support vehicle driver Nuts (not his real name…).

To cut a long story short, we all made it to the finish.  We had one crash – spectacular but no serious injury – two punctures, a little bit of rain, plenty of sunshine, a lot of laughs and some extremely sore limbs.  We’re all very aware of where our perineums are and have boosted sales of Sudacream and Haribo to new highs (Haribo soon to be repositioned as the elite athelete’s energy boost of choice).  British drivers are as dangerously impatient with cyclists as French ones are respectful.  A fresh baguette filled with butter, cheese, ham and Dijon mustard is the world’s best lunch, without question.  Vittel is the water of champions (but Chateau d’Yquem ‘95 is otherworldly). There are some extraordinarily good and generous people around.  There’s a deeply meditative quality to the sound of ten well-prepared road bikes whirring along an otherwise silent French country road in the sunshine.

I can’t wait until I get the chance to do it again.  And best of all, in addition to having an amazing trip, we raised somewhere in the region of £10,000 for charity. 

Can’t be bad.

It’s been a while

I know, I know.  I’ve been lax.  Reasons have been (1) quite a bit of work on, (2) family holiday to Spain and (3) the impending charity bike ride.

Yes, this time next week I’ll be a few kilometres into the 650 or so that lie between Hampton Court Palace and St-Emilion, wrapped in Lycra resembling that in the picture to the right and accompanied by nine other like-minded middle aged fellas.  Tension will no doubt be high…Lycra’s not designed to stretch quite that much after all…but I’ll actually just be relieved to get on the road.

I’m a relatively organised fella, but organising the ride has been quite a logistical challenge.  It sounded easy enough – ten blokes on bikes, a van in support, a ferry crossing and a few hotels en route – but the details…oh the details.  I won’t bore you.

I was in London last weekend and managed to get some training in.  I picked up a new bike from Condor on Gray’s Inn Road, met friend and fellow-rider Mark at his office near St Paul’s and then followed him home to Wimbledon.

Excuse my blasphemy, but Christ on a bike!  And even he’d have filled his nut-hugging shorts.  I haven’t cycled through London traffic in years and doing so during Friday rush hour on a brand new bike was one of the hairiest things I’ve attempted for a while.  Still, we arrive safely and met up with a few of the other lads for a training ride around Surrey last Saturday.  Great fun, and everyone seems to be getting quite excited about the ride.

I’ll be looking forward to landing on French shores next Saturday morning and finding some quiet country roads where motorists respect your passion for cycling rather than resent it.

As I’ve mentioned before (and the eagle-eyed out there will see the logo on the jersey above) we’re doing the ride in aid of NCH, one of the worthiest charities I know.  You’ve still got time to sponsor me – you can do so here.  I’m not far off my target…

I’m hoping to find the time (and the internet connection) to blog a couple of times on the way, and I’ll also try to send the odd tweet.  You can follow me on Twitter here.

Bike ride route…finalised

My regular reader(s) will know about the charity bike ride I’ve been organising.  Others can read about it here. 

At various times over the past few months I’ve been poring over maps (old fashioned offline ones, too) trying to finalise the best route for our little peloton to take on its way from London (well, Hampton Court) to St. Emilion.  Some aspects of the trip are set in stone.  For example, we’re on a ferry from Portsmouth to St. Malo and will also be stopping at my house for one night.  Beyond that, it’s pretty flexible.  Not too flexible, though, as my general route planning methodology has been based upon the flightpath of the crow.

As luck would have it (or not) the third stage of this year’s Tour de France starts in St. Malo and heads to Nantes.  We’re not planning on going quite as far as Nantes in the one day, but can at least cover the first 85km of the stage as we make our merry way south. 

Anyway, if you’re interested, here are the routes mapped out on the wonderful Sanoodi:

Day 1: Hampton Court to Portsmouth

Day 2: St. Malo to Redon

Day 3: Redon to La Roche-sur-Yon

Day 4: La Roche-sur-Yon to Les Chapelles

Day 5: Les Chapelles to St.Emilion

Wish us luck.  We should arrive in St. Emilion on May 6th.  There’s still plenty of time to sponsor me, and you can do so here.

Sore arses and other ailments

Last year my old mate Mark and I decided that we needed to undertake a grand physical challenge while we were both still in our 30s.  We decided that - as we did when we were at school together – it’d be a good idea to cycle from Mark’s house to mine.  We grew up in Hertfordshire, and the distance from Codicote to St. Ippolyts was about 10km.  In fact I imagine it still is.

The distance from Wimbledon – where Mark now lives – to my house in France is about 750km, depending on the Channel crossing you take.  It’s unlikely that I’ll be back by teatime.

Still, a challenge is a challenge and we’re doing it.  Not only that, but we’re going past my house and all the way down to St. Emilion, which seemed like a suitable place to collapse.  We’re starting on May 2nd and should arrive on May 6th.  We’ve even managed to convince some similarly middle-aged friends to come along too.  In all, there’ll be 10 of us hauling our generous backsides onto the unforgiving saddles of road-racing machinery of varying quality and vintage.  Should be quite some sight.

It’s all for charity of course.  Our headline beneficiary is NCH, and a very worthy one it is too.  Ken Deeks gave a moving speech about NCH’s work at The Flackenhack Awards last year and I can’t think of a better cause for which to be riding.

You can sponsor me here personally (all contributions very gratefully received) and if you represent a company and feel that having your logo stretched across ten slow-moving arses would be good for business, then I’d love to hear from you.  There’ll be room for the biggest of logos, I assure you.

Oh, I’m also after the loan of a van for a week.  Long-wheelbase Transit size.  Ta.

Simply brilliant brand

I received a lovely piece of direct mail yesterday.  And it’s not often that those words pass my lips (or my fingers).

Here’s a picture of it.  It’s from one of my favourite brands - Rapha - which makes fantastic, top quality cycling clothing.  So it’s a bit of a niche thing.  But I’m into my niches. 

Rapha’s very much an aspirational brand for me (I’m into my cycling at the moment, too).  In fact, it’s completely aspirational as I don’t own a single piece of Rapha kit!  It’s quite pricey…but you just know it’s going to be worth the money.  I spoke to a bloke once who’d tried on one of Rapha’s jackets.  He said that on the peg it all looked a little odd – long arms and back, zip off centre – but when you put it on and sat on a bike it was just perfect.  Then his eyes glazed over.  It’s that sort of stuff.

Is this sounding a bit sad?

It’s just that Rapha hits so many spots with me that I can’t think of another brand with which I have the same sort of relationship.  I can remember quite vividly the first time I read about the company – an article in Management Today a few years back.  I visit the company’s website and drool regularly.  And now I’ve got a lovely little A5 booklet I can tuck under my pillow.

Everything about the brand is understated.  The clothing itself, obviously (none of your day-glo lycra here) but everything else reflects that too.  The website’s great.  It captures the passion that some of us (and I’m by no means as bad as it gets) have for cycling with some fantastic editorial content and images.  The DM piece is exactly the same (as you’d expect).  The first 18 of its 31 pages contain some brilliant photos and an article written by Tim Krabbe, a Dutch novelist well-known in cycling circles for his classic book The Rider.  Only then are a few of the products presented.  Cool.  It even smells great.

The fella who founded Rapha, Simon Mottram, used to be a brand consultant, so you might expect him to get it right.  But he’s also a fanatical cyclist, which I think is just as important.  Honestly, I’m racking my brain and I can’t think of another brand that’s so compelling.  Well, to me, at least.  It’s obviously an individual thing based on personality and passions – I’d love to know if anyone else has a similar relationship with any other brands?

Anyway, if anyone’s wondering what to get me for Christmas…

Me and my bicycle

Via Davies, I’ve just joined new niche social network Me and My Bicycle.  It’s been started by Ben Ayers who writes the New Media Curious blog. 

Funnily enough, just after signing up I noticed on Ben’s page a message about the site nearing a hundred members and that, “the hundredth member when they do show up is in for a treat. Haven’t thought about what they get yet apart from the glory and being able to tell their grandchildren etc etc etc…but it will be pretty fookin good.”

And guess what?  I’m the hundredth member!

I’m quite into my cycling at the moment.  The countryside round here is fantastic for getting out on the bike…which is just as well, as next May I’m organising a charity bike ride from London to St Emilion and need to get considerably fitter if I’m going to make it…

Best of luck to Ben with the network.  I share his interest in niche audiences, so it’ll be interesting to see how this one develops (and, as it does, how quickly commercial organisations become interested).