THANK YOU, MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE and JOHN – and DAVE

The first thing most people ask, on hearing about my recent LEJOG* bike ride is: “did you do it alone”? The answer is straightforward: No. If I had, I would most probably still be pedalling around in hilly circles in Cornwall. As it was, I was lucky to fight my way out of Wales*.

I know that many people do cycle the 1,000 or so miles solo – also on horseback, skateboard or pushing a wheelbarrow.* However, as someone who admires extreme sports and Derring-Do (generally involving someone throwing themselves off a great height at great speed) from the safety of a gym treadmill, and who gets lost a few miles from home, I needed close guidance and support. This came in the form of:

1 – your loyal support and encouraging messages. The Lourdes Pilgrimage was never far from my mind, truly uplifted me and gave the journey a real meaning.

2 – a great group (22 perfect strangers): 19 fellow cyclists (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John + 13 other lads, 1 young lass + me) + an invaluable 3-man shepherding team*.

From wowee Fowey* to balmy Balmoral and beyond – what a ride it was. I must admit that I did not linger on some of the sights, so intent was I on trying to keep up (or busy wrenching my jacket out of my bike spokes, pretending to know how to fix my chain or attempting to understand my GPS machine) and I was often bewildered by the day’s round up of photos: “did we really go past that – and that?” Thank you, Adrian, photographer extraordinaire, responsible for many of the excellent images, catching the details of the day.

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Thanks are also due to Adrian for chatting me up (so to speak) an arduous Lake District hill, covering topics including Lewis Carroll, our children’s winding trajectories, Christmas plans – anything but the fact that we were navigating a 12-16% climb. I was almost sorry when we got to the top.

Rather bizarrely, amongst all the many discoveries along the route, the one that sticks most is learning about the existence of the World Marmalade Festival, which takes place annually near Penrith. (I prefer Marmite myself and carried a pot around with me during the 2 week tour).

I certainly did not appreciate the Scottish Highlands as much as I could have, but in this I was not alone, as we all found ourselves – whether a muscle man or weedy woman – wrestling with our bikes in a gale gusting at 90mph on the most exposed part of the challenging Cairngorms. I found this quite amusing until I was thrown violently across the road and deposited on the tarmac – luckily mangling my bike more than my body.

The back-up team was invaluable. Undeterred by one being knocked flat by the van door snapping back in a fierce blast of wind (with a gash in the head as a memento), they did not falter, herding us to shelter, manoeuvring the vans as a shield to guide a stranded motorcyclist to safety, kitting me up with a brand new bike and all the time keeping up morale - through “one of the toughest days I have had on all the Tours I have worked on”.

Greatly subdued, slightly bruised– and quite frankly, very scared at the brutality of the wind, I wobbled onwards on my new bike. Bears Grylls I am not. Neither am I Bernie, a team-mate whose eyes glinted with elation at the end of the day, exclaiming “wasn’t that WONDERFUL?” No, Bernie, it was not: the experience was totally terrifying. (Bernie has scaled the Matterhorn, amongst other peaks, which might explain our difference of opinion).

Why pedal up and down for hour after hour – on occasion, in heavy rain, hail or buffeting winds? Why bicycle at all? For me, it is to relive bucolic childhood memories of afternoons spent pedaling around the Suffolk countryside; of simple times - and of total freedom. As an adult, I appreciate this even more. I find everything tastes better, beds are more comfortable; I just feel happier overall after a day spent out in the fresh air – however challenging it has been physically. Cycling is also (generally) less complicated and unpredictable than riding a horse (another happy childhood memory) – and certainly lighter on the pocket.

MEUR RES, DIOLCH, TAPADH LEAT * all for your support towards the Lourdes Pilgrimage*, propelling me on – and to my wonderful fellow cyclists for the camaraderie, banter and general good feeling. And a particularly large thank you and bravo to Matt, Jim and Jon for their patience, professionalism and great company for this memorable 14 days.

I very much hope to pedal down to Lourdes from Paris (via Chartres) next July. If anyone has the time (between 7 - 10 days) and the inclination and would like to join me, do let me know.

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*WALES

Having spent a bucolic morning wending my way through leafy Shrewsbury, musing to myself that my daily post would read “a long, but lovely and languorous day”, things took rather an adventurous turn after lunch as I managed to detach myself from the group and add an extra 40 or so km to the day’s tally. This included squeezing my bike over the Chirk aqueduct and milling with the crowds leaving Chester races: all delightful on a good day but rather alarming when so horribly lost.

It did occur to me, after about 2 hours of solo cycling, that it was odd that: i) Manic Mike or Turbo Tony had not shot past me, as they generally did and ii) all the signposts seemed to begin with LL. Even I, with my shaky grasp of Geography, remembered that the itinerary had stated just one day and night in Wales – and that had been achieved the previous day.

I would just like to state here and now that I have nothing against Wales – except not being able to get out of it.

From then on, it was a fight against the clock to i) avoid being picked up by the support van – thereby negating the LEJOG challenge and ii) battle my way out of the Principality. With my GPS machine up the spout and my phone battery dwindling by the second, it became quite a challenge.

Isn’t it strange how one minute you can be enjoying a convivial sandwich in cosy surroundings and the next minute (or rather, a few hours later – having pedalled determindley in the opposite direction from everyone else) be totally adrift in what appears to be hostile territory?

I would like to apologise to all who may have crossed my path that September afternoon. I really should not be allowed out on my own. All those people messing around on their canal boats: in particular, the people on the barge navigating a long, pitch-dark tunnel who may have heard pathetic whimperings from a blob squeezing itself along the narrow ledge alongside.

Euphoric with relief at, finally, escaping the numerous canal paths - having experienced them fully from every direction with a dooming sense of déjà vu - I allowed myself to admire, from afar, a most attractive viaduct crossing the (Welsh) valley. This (as I found myself wobbling on top of it half an hour later, thanks to a road-block and no helpful deviation sign – even in Welsh) was in fact an aqueduct, with my old friends the canal boats serenely slipping past.

I am not sure what was worse; that vertiginous experience or dragging my bike over repeated humungous roundabouts with as many exits as the Etoile in Paris (think enormous motorway signs and 3-lane traffic rather than cobbles and the Arc de Triomphe).

You can no doubt imagine the intense praying which accompanied my Forrest Gump pedaling. Those prayers were answered - with my ‘phone down to 2% - in the form of Dave, a young man I accosted as he was loading his car in front of what I prayed was his house (it was). Dave had every reason to turn away from this hysterical female, kitted out in an odd attempt at lycra, bike helmet askew, various broken machines hanging off her bike’s handlebars. Instead, he kindly cut short my garbled life story and plugged my iPhone into his kitchen wall, where we both watched it inch up to a vital 10%.

So, THANK YOU, Dave; thanks to you I managed to navigate the last hour and limped in, like a little, bedraggled (but extremely happy) duckling – to the glorious blandness of a Holiday Inn, to be united with the team - all of whom were clean, fed and ready for bed (and, I like to think, pleased to see me).

*NOTES

LEJOG = Land’s End to John O’Groat’s

Cornishman Robert Caryle pushed a wheelbarrow (presumably to transport his suitcase) in 1879

PEAK TOURS. https://www.peak-tours.com/

FOWEY – pronounced FOY to rhyme with TOY

MEUR RES, DIOLCH, TAPADH LEAT: Cornish, Welsh, Gaelic for THANK YOU

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AMPLEFORTH LOURDES PILGRIMAGE

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