Another weekend is upon us and like hundred and thousands (can you still buy those?) of others I am busy trying to squeeze at least one ride in to a busy schedule of family and work (plus of course the essential activity of sport watching).
Since my cycle Europe challenge and RideLondon I have only been on the bike once and that was a tiny cycle to my local train station and back. This is despite the fact that I still had one final ride to complete for my three part charity challenge.
So its been a little over 48 hours since I arrived at the Rouleur-in-laws after having to call time on the first and toughest of my cycle challenges due to injuries to my fellow Roly.
On arrival there was predominantly a huge amount of guilt to reason with, but added to the mix was a dash of anger, a spoonful of pain and a whole heap of frustrations, which overall meant, that like a cheese that had been out of the fridge too long I was pretty stinky (metaphorically of course).
Of course no option really existed other than to abandon given the injuries my colleague suffered (I am still waiting on the finding of the Doctors report but wouldn’t be surprised to hear that he is now a Eunuch!) but it was still hard to accept.
This has been the hardest blog to write so far, but unfortunately the ride was over before we had left Belgium yesterday.
I know some of you have been contacting me to see if everything is OK and I am sorry for not having responded so far but I will explain all.
As you will know from reading this blog for the last few days the ride has not been without incident, and it is one such of these that has ended the ride early.
Good afternoon to all,
So here we are still in Belgium but closing in on both the Netherlands and Germany where we should end up in tomorrow.
Todays stats, 70 miles, 2.5km of Cobbles, four buckled wheels, and a cycle path that my good friend described with an unbroken five minute expletive filled rant.
My fellow Roly started the day (and ended the day yesterday) with both wheels severely buckled, so much so he was basically riding with the break on for 20km. Oh and a drunk past out on the concrete in front of him where his wonderful bedside manner came in to play (tongue firmly in cheek), he did put him in the recovery position and slapped him until he woke back up.
This morning was spent trying to align this and a quick fix was completed, he still had to leave the back break open though! And away we go.
Good evening everyone. So here I am in our tent in Belgium after a very brief interlude in France.
The morning got off to an inauspicious start with a chat with possibly the most grumpy customer service representative in history (sorry to name and shame again DFDS ferries, I do understand it’s tough at the moment but…….) followed by the news that we were delayed by 20 mins (40 in reality). Not a problem normally but when you have 75 miles to cover and you aren’t starting until 1pm (actually 1.45) things start to get nervy.
Away we went in to the town (or is it a city?) of Dunkirk and it’s rather interesting cycle paths that seemed to criss cross every road and took an age to negotiate and then out of the other side in to Belgium (eventually). Talking of cycle paths by the way, we had our first run in with the Police who politely pointed out the cycle path we weren’t using and who then waited 3 miles down the road to check we used it!!
Today was considerably flatter than yesterday so the pace was much higher with the first 35 miles covered in 2hrs 45mins which when the fact that we are both rather Roly and are in no way as fit as Alberto Contador is not too bad.
As with yesterday though things then went a little down (or rather UP) hill. Yes Belgium is supposed to be flat but with a fair few miles in the legs any rise was tiring. Time seemed to go backwards and miles seemed to drag on forever!
Finally though we entered Deinze (5 miles south of Ghent) to find our campsite which once found has offered fantastic accommodation, a warm shower, beer, and most importantly takeaway Pizza. 75 more miles ticked off!
All in all a fast and furious second day through the beautiful villages and farm land of France and Belgium.
Unfortunately for us though tomorrow is looking very wet with rain forecast!!
Thanks for reading, it’s time for bed.
So with just over a week to go before my very own Grand Depart I have realised something, something important, something profound, something down right shocking…………….. I am not even nearly ready for this challenge!!
Its in my name, ‘The Roly Rouleur’ not ‘The Incredibly Fit and Featherweight Rouleur’, oh why oh why do I get myself in to these things!!
The Roly Rouleur 