Easter Sunday Ride

Having survived touring for the day in Brittany in glorious weather! I went out on Easter Sunday's club ride thinking Spring, daffoldils etc but no we had miles of wind, rain & hail!! Never mind the company was good and the route was superb from Topsham - Woodbury - Lympstone - Exmouth (where we were nearly all blown off our bikes!), we managed to get to Sidmouth for lunch where I handed round easter eggs instead of jelly babies! While we sheltered from yet another hail storm! Then back to Ottery for a hot cup of tea, Alyesbere - Clyst St Mary then home. Arrived home at 5.15pm having left at 9.00 am! Johnnie was just beginning to wonder where I was! I had to take a picture of my speedometer as I don't really think I managed to do a max speed of 84.48 miles per hour - do you???!! But the machine read - distance 78.94 miles/average speed 14.97 mph and ride time 5hrs 16min - is it right or not?

We then went to Killerton on Easter Monday with friends and as you can see they all had a great Easter Egg hunt and ate more chocolate - Sadly the grownups didn't get a look in - never mind think of the calories saved less pedalling to do!!

Brittany Trip

Well I made it my first time sleeping on a ferry! We boarded at Plymouth about 10.30 pm and managed to find the cabins which were too small to swing a cat in!! I was sharing with another lady called Lindsay who very kindly had the top bunk in case I needed to run to the loo to throw up as we were just above the engines and that was to prove to be pretty noisy if nothing else!! After not a lot of sleep a very unsavory person came down the corridor ringing a bell at 4.45 am!! That was totally unsociable!! Wearily, Lindsay & I staggered to find the cafe, but could only handle a cup of tea as certainly my stomach was still doing a washing machine impression!!
We emerged from the ferry in Rosscoff at 5.30 am English time - and proceeded to cycle off to coffee in our respective groups!!

As you can see not quite the fuel stop I was after Pain au Chocolat being more my bag than diesel!!

After donning the waterproofs thinking this is it for the duration we arrived for coffee in St-Thegonnec where the sun came out!! We took in a bit of culture after coffee I like the chap sticking his tongue out!! We then wound our way through drizzle up to the top of Col de Tredudon a good 361 mtrs up! After handing round the jelly babies to re-energise everyone we then made our way to yet another food stop! Lunch was at Huelgoat, where one of our party got stuck in the loo and if John had not had his phone on him well we could have left him behind poor chap - he was gone for a long time, but 6 kind knights in shinning armour helped rescue him.

In Huelgoat there were some amazing boulders and a Devils Cave just like something out of Lord of the Rings but maybe not Kirby in tights - well did the Hobbits wear tights?

After we had filled up on pizza we then made our way to Morlaix for tea and cake - my eyes were certainly bigger than my stomach as the choice was like something out of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and superbly scrumptious!!!

The castle was made entirely out of cake & chocolate and the large easter egg on the top shelf had a price tag of 123 euros - just as well it wouldn't have survived in my saddle bag! It was then onto supper in St Pol-de-Leon (I tell you cycling 70 odd miles is great when its just one food stop to the next!) We arrived in St Pol only to hear crys of help from some poor French Lady who had been locked in the public loo behind an iron grill door - what a day for loo stops - the rhyme "three old ladies stuck in a lavatory" sprang to mind - luckily she didn't speak English and our French was pretty non-existant, we abandoned her to some other French ladies and cycled off full speed! Arrived at the restaurant along with the other groups at pretty much the same time, so a great evening was had with about 35 of us admid power cuts etc, then back to the ferry in the dark for another stomach churning evening to dock at 6.15 am on Sunday morning - what a blast - when's the next one Geoff?!
This was certainly the icing on the cake for the last meal in France! Bon Appetite!

Are you going to eat all that in one go Kirby!

MID LIFE CRISIS - OR INSANITY!!!

Hello and welcome to Debbie's Blog - I am new to all this so am not sure what I am doing!! I thought it would be a good idea to keep everyone posted about how my training is coming along for my mamoth bike ride.

History!
I am fairly new to cycling - having been a 10 mile round the block on a sit up and beg bike for most of my life - I suddenly signed up for a charity 300 mile ride from London - Paris last August on my 39th birthday - MID LIFE CRISIS I think!!! Anyway to cut a long story short - I paid my entry fee and here we are in the middle of mass training - oh my GOD!!

In September Stagecoach Bus Company offered to Sponsor me which was marvellous - in return for kitting me out and lending me a wonderful Bianchi Road Bike I am to cycle all the bus routes around Devon! Not a bad deal!!!

After cycling the lanes a few times on my own and thinking I need some company I decided to join the Cycling and Touring Club in Exeter - Great move!! The CTC are a wonderful, friendly bunch who have been so supportive and encouraging and gently pushing up my mileage for me without me really noticing!!

After doing my first AUDAX 106KM on 2nd March - which was very tiring but great fun - I was very glad I didn't have to mapread and could just follow the others! I felt like shouting from all the rooftops I was so happy what a difference from 10 miles round the lanes!!

Since then I have been out with a friend from the CTC, Pippa who is amazing at long distances - she has managed to get me doing 60 miles within the school day which is great - drop the kids off cycle for 6 hours - pick the kids up, what more could one want!!! (apart from sleep!!!) I truly am heading for the looney bin at this rate!

Am off to Brittany today for a weekend with the CTC and we will be cycling 120KM on Saturday so watch this space to see if I can do it!