Tour 2010 – North Sea Cycle Route (2-week section)

North Sea Cycle Route.

We’re doing about —————————— this much. It’s all flat.

Hurray! Holiday time approaches! We’ve decided on the Netherlands-Germany-bit-of-Denmark section of the NSCR. It’s a 6,000 kilometre route from Scotland-Harwich, Belgium-Denmark + Norway, Sweden, across the sea to the Shetlands and back to Scotland. Some people do it all in one heroic go, others do a bit on their holiday, then come back and do a bit more.

Billed on their website (www.northsea-cycle.com) as ‘the world’s longest cycle route’ going through 7 countries etc.

Really though,  I want to write about how I plan a route. It’s me that plans. Grimsdale only gets into the detail the week before, in his role as bike mechanic. I’m the routemeister to begin with. I LOVE planning the route, a discovery I made 15 years ago when I researched and plotted our progress across France on the first ever biggie: Roscoff-Santander. I spent evenings and weekends through  winter poring over the French road atlas wondering if we could do it and following a route provided by a couple of CTC (Cycle Touring Club) members.

Since then, we generally make a joint decision about where  to go. I plan the route and organise the holiday. Grimsdale sorts out the bikes and, once on the road, he takes over as map supremo.

So, here’s where we’re up to so far. Since this is a 2-week and a bit summer holiday, first I have to look at a rough route we might be able to complete in the time, fix the start and end points (though not necessarily in that order), then work out a rough, but realistically accurate route for the distance we think we can do.

First thing to sort out: How to get 2 bikes fully loaded for touring with camping gear to the start point of a route, then  how to get everything back home again? Can we reasonably manage the distance in between in the time available? Umm, maybe …. bit scarey.

Winter headwarmers

6cm of snow when we woke up today, so no cycling.

Can you still cycle in winter? Course you can!! (see www.copenhagencyclechic.com/ for the stylish way to do it).  Out here in the Peak District it’s a bit different.

For longer rides than a city commute, all your extremities need to stay warm, comfy and wrapped up in lightweight gear. It took me quite a few winters and some right miserable cold days before I worked out the best way to stay warm. Let’s start with heads.

Helmet, buff & headbands

Look no hat! It’s ears that get really, really cold in even the mildest cold weather due to the windchill factor. I’m not a fan of hats when I’m cycling – how do you get the right combination of snug and secure enough not to blow off when speeding downhill, or irritatingly slipping down over your eyes without being too tight? I dunno and I don’t like a hot head. A headband of some kind plus helmet is the winter combination I like best. Both my headbands above, are shaped so they’re wider over the ears for a cosy fit.

My favourite is the purple fleece from North Face, but after many years it’s getting a bit loose.

The black one is lightweight, lovely & snug, with velcro wrap-around closing so you can get just the right fit. It’s made by Parrot, who made good very good quality cycle gear by mail order from Northumberland, but they dont seem to be around now. Just one thing – its got the brand name ‘Parrot’ stamped across the middle of the forehead. I speculate that the designer was a clever but tough Georgie mountain biker that no one would mess with. However, when a red-faced fat girl comes steaming towards you with ‘Parrot’ stamped across her forehead, you’d probably laugh, wouldn’t you? I find this thought a bit off-putting, so only wear it with the helmet on top.

The red thing is a Buff, a stretchy tube that you can pull up and wear as a hat or a headband.  I prefer it as a neck warmer, no flapping ends, you can pull it up over your chin in hail and snow. Crucially, it matches my bike!

Cold, stoney, still snowy

Knotbury from Hollinsclough

Cold, snow still on the Staffordshire Moors and a lot of pushing along the stoney track to 3 Shire Heads. Rushing streams, chickens and horses. Parked at Longnor and cycled to Hollinsclough then crossed the A53 down to Three Shires Head. Time was, we’d have gone door-to-door and added another 30+ miles. None of this wimpish old-aged driving out halfway. Last time we cycled to Three Shire Heads was 1992.

Pushing down to Three Shires Head

Either the track had got much worse or we’d come a different route last time.

I am a right get-off-and-push merchant myself, but even ironman had to push today.

Three Shire Heads is a lovely arched packhorse bridge over a stream. Walkers, dogs, cyclists. A good lung-clearing winter day. Came back over High Edge above Buxton then down what we’ve always called Cave Dale (cos it’s got caves in it) but I see the map calls it Dowel Dale, beside Chrome Hill to Glutton Bridge.

There’s a nice new deli in Longnor where we picked up some goodies. We missed out our usual visit to the craft centre and coffee shop cos we had an invite to tea elsewhere.

Fun eh?

First bike ride of the year.

Mug of tea at Parsley Hay

The first bike ride in I-dont-know-when. There was the before Christmas cold, then Christmas, then snow, then the after Christmas really bad cold. Not to mention how much weight has gone on. This really is fat girl on a bike.
But it was kill or cure time. Neither of us could face one more day indoors, we had to go out. Straight out of bed and into the lycra so there was no chance of wimping out.  Then cycling worked its old magic. Within 10 minutes we’re bowling along, saying how glad we are we talked each other into it.
Wrapped up warm and heavily flourescent because of the fog, we cycled by road to Ashbourne, birds were singing like maniacs in a tree just outside the door of a farm. Maybe spring will arrive this year after all.
We met two  horses, also out for their first outing. ‘Stop, stop, please’ yelled one of the riders.’They’re just babies, they’ve never seen cyclists before.’ We offered to retreat to a gateway, but the riders said no, babies they may be, but they had to learn about cyclists. Once, years ago, a farmer asked us to hide behind a wall while he brought his cows along a lane. We did. We’re not proud.
After soup in Ashbourne we returned home along the trails – Tissington & High Peak. They’re both old railway lines. Tissington goes in a gentle gradient uphill almost all of its 13 miles.
God! It can be a miserable slog if you’re not fit – and I’m not. Nose poured snot all the way. Look away now if you’re squeamish, the nose-wiping towelling thumb bit on my gloves was completely sodden and there are snail trails of snot all over my legs and shoulders.  Grey all the way but with a numinous bit of sun filtering through from a long way off and the gorgeous sweep of green hills. Last bits of snow left along the edges of the highest drystone walls.
I have never been so fat. The bike is my only hope. And so to the revival of this blog.

So, what happened? The dog died

RIP Smudge. Paradoxically, freed up to go away as often as I wanted to, death of Smudge caused much gloom.

So, now Im 2 big cycle tours in arrears and will have to spend the winter catching up.

Smudge

Things to do on Anglesey part 3

TAKE PART IN THE WELSH DRAGON CHALLENGE

As a cycle tourist I not only bask in the glow of low carbon-planet saving-green goddessness, but over the years I’ve saved thousands of pounds on souvenirs. You just can’t carry it home!!

Once in France we went to one of those enormous hypermarkets and crept out past all the people in their cross of St George T-shirts and piled high trolleys with our 6 or 8 bottles. Then stuffed them into panniers and saddle bags just before pedalling awkwardly onto the ferry.

You can maybe stuff your finds into jiffy bags and post them home (I usually do that with excess clothes once I’ve struggled up a day or two’s hills) but basically, all that flummery and frippery, all those gifts and crafts and goodies just can’t be carried.

You have to think of other kinds of souvenirs. The Welsh Dragon Challenge is one. It works like this…

After a day or so, once the jetlag or post-work stress has begun to evaporate, you start to look around you and think, ‘Hey! they’ve got a funny kind of … (insert interesting foreign feature of your choice) here! Then you photograph it. Every time you see one, stop (it’s easy on a bike) and take a snap.

In Portugal it was 70′s style orange and brown tiling on the outside of the houses. In France you’re spolit for choice – just the general wonderful frenchieness of it all.

On Anglesey it’s RED DRAGONS.

Award points for skill, charm, unusualness – what you will.

Gift shop in Caernarvon – like shooting fish in a barrel – nul point!!

Things to do on Anglesey part 2

Ahh Cemaes Bay! Lovely little town, shame about the nuclear power station. But don’t tell the locals that: 1200 jobs hang in the balance. Camp in one of the fields by the crenellated house on the hill above town, try very hard to pay your £4 a night fee to Lizzie “go off and enjoy yourselves, find me later” the Campsite lady.

Ahh Cemaes Bay! Scene of so many wonderful teenage family holidays. Visit the phone box where we learned our A level results back in the stone age before mobile phones; stroll along the cliff path where every bracken bush and rocky outcrop harboured its own pair of snogging teenagers; build your own driftwood fire in the coves, cook banana skins and try getting high on ‘mellow yellow’. Happy days still! Some things are timeless.

Now there’s a vineyard planted on the sunny headland beyond Cemaes Bay but this stretch of National Trust coast path takes you past a lovely old church, right on the headland and above dramatic cliffs to Bull Bay and the Bull Bay hotel.

Go beyond grey Amlwch town to Amlwch Port, full of drama and surprising history. The visitor centre includes yet another one of those fresh and homemade fabulous cafes, a dramatic film of early seafaring on a sail ship and an exhibition all about the area’s history dominated by Parys Mountain copper mine, just up the hill and worth a stroll around its desolate multi-coloured moonscape.

Red Wharf Bay has a foody hotel right on the very edge of the sand.

Keep working your way round the edge to the very pointy bit of Trwyn. Sit beneath the lighthouse and watch dolphins make their way into the great stretch of Conwy Bay. Wander around the priory ruins and don’t miss peeping inside the dovecote whatever you do. Lots of boats, ice creams and restaurants in the wealthy little seaside town of Beaumaris.

As for the interior of the island, nothing but green countryside, little villages, some marshland and reservoirs where birds may be observed, plenty of cairns and ruins – best explored in leisurely fashion on foot or bicycle.

Other things to do: Visit Bangor and pay 10p to walk onto the pier and have a ‘famous scone’ in the tearooms. Visit Caernarfon.

The bike of my dreams . . .

. . . is a cherry red Mercian

Well looky here! Dreams do come true! The frame was hanging up in the Mercian shop, on sale for £411 in 1996. (I hadnt realised I’ve had this bike for such a long time until I just went and checked).

Why Mercian? Well, Mr G. answered an ad in our local post office years ago. A woman was selling her late husband’s bike for £25, and that turned out to be an old Mercian. It was green (which plugged straight into G’s own childhood dream about this boy at school who owned a beautiful much coveted pea-green bike, I digress, somewhat). G spruced it up, got it re-sprayed back at the shop and it went on for many years, toured all over the place with it.

I could never ride it because G has these really long legs, but whenever I used to push it – y’know, just wheel it about into the shed etc – it had this wonderful springy alive feel, like a horse that was full of oats and just couldn’t wait to prance off. So that’s why I always always wanted a Mercian bike.
Mercians are a bit like that other Derby company. Rolls-Royce are the Mercians of the car world.

Things to do on Anglesey part 1

Anglesey ís a pretty low key kind of a place. Families, beaches, buckets and spades, pretty scenery, Welsh speakers. Ynys Mon, the isle of the druids. The OS map will show you where all the ancient cairns and burial mounds and monuments are. You can spend a whole holiday visiting those.
Most people cross the Menai Bridge and head for Beaumaris, but instead we went clockwise round the island, turn left after the bridge and head for Newborough. A small grey two-sheep village with a couple of shops and a good chippie. Now discover the secret of Anglesey – Newborough sits on the edge of a secret and brilliant place.

Newborough Warren

Newborough Warren was once the home of ancient Welsh kings and is now a national nature reserve. There ís a friendly small campsite and beyond that miles and miles of sandy dunes, pine tree woodland and pure golden endless sands along the edge of the Menai Straits. Wonderful views of Snowdonia’s mountains just over the water accompany your walk. Beach is dog friendly outside holiday season.

Maltltreath Sands is next, making a whole corner of the island a paradise for birds and the place where Tunnicliffe the famous bird artist lived. Great walking or cycling.

Next come a series of beaches filled in summer with the bucket and spade brigade: Rhosneigr, Trearddur Bay which sits right next to Valley, where the RAF base is. You can build your sandcastle right underneath the giant jets as they take off straight over your head. There’s a campsite even closer to the airfield which is filled with the roar of jets and small boys and dads with big smiles on their faces.

From Holyhead catch a ferry to Ireland for the day, otherwise don’t linger in the town but head out to the cliffs of North Stack and South Stack and Holyhead Mountain.

Come back off Holyhead island and start taking left hand turns off the main A5025 onto the yellow lanes that wind and trundle up and over low hills by the coast. They’re all lovely, they all lead you down to someone’s special, magic beach. If you’re hungry, head down to Church Bay for simply the best of everything homemade beach cafe in the universe, serving the biggest crispest scone filled with a mound of whipped cream and dotted with strawberries; the lightest crispest pastry on the cheese and onion pie. Sleep it off in yet another delightful sandy cove, filled with families, windbreaks, tottering toddlers and tail waving dogs.

Carry on north, turning east at the top of the island and stroll out along the shingle of Cemlyn Bay where the natural lagoon is a bird sanctuaryWe cycled round this bit of coast one sunny Sunday. It was like a Sunday from childhood, completely silent except for the birds and the breeze, empty roads, saying hello to people gardening or strolling.

Sheffield – the town that writes poems on its buildings

Commuting into Sheffield this week – 29 hilly miles from where I live. It’s not practical to go all the way by bike. Well, not for this girl anyway. So I’ve been working out routes that involve driving to the outskirts of the city, leaving the car then cycling in.

I see Matt Seaton in today’s Guardian cycling column poses the question “How do we turn the renaissance of bicycle culture into a reborn cycling culture?”

Matt, can’t we just tell them all how much damn FUN cycling is? How much better you feel at the end of day when you’ve cycled?

I have worked SO hard the last two days. But I’ve begun each day with an exhilarating whizz downhill into the city, I’ve belted past cars; nodded and said hello to total strangers just because we are both on bikes; done ‘After you. No, after you. Please, after you,’ with bus drivers. And at the end of the day, just swept away all the exhaustion, all the mental tiredness, just felt so GOOD!!

Sheffield is a university town (lots of potential cyclists – young, fit, and poor) that’s done a huge amount of regeneration since ‘The Full Monty’. Along with the regen. they’ve built in loads of cycle routes: red surfaced lanes specially for bikes; bike and bus lanes indicated by big blue and white signs; places to park your bike; now the university term has started big fit young people charge around in all directions on bikes – the more of us there are, the safer we are.

Yesterday I parked the car quite a long way up Abbeydale Road. It made for a 45 minute cycle home (it’s uphill out of Sheffield). At least I can put my beloved bike inside the office garage now, so I don’t have to worry about The Preciousssss locked out in the street where just anyone could take liberties. But I still worried (just a bit) about the car. Let’s be realistic – the car is a £200 banger, the bike would cost – God knows how much to replace – I dont care if the car is vandalised, it will just be a pain in the neck to get home.

Today I put the car just a tad nearer the office, a 30 minute ride. About as perfect as can be!