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  • Randonneur Round the Water Tower

    Randonneur Round the Water Tower

    About a decade ago I stumbled across the cycling world of audax. Long distance endurance riding that was described to me as “…like fast touring”. The word audax intrigued me, hinted at an aesthetic, at something mysterious and foreign. I asked other cycling friends about it but no one really knew much, it was talked about in a “here be monsters” kind of way, all third hand rumours about mudguard flaps and clipboards and sleeping in bus stops. Looking into the history it seemed an audax would originally be ridden in teams with a road captain, whereas something called a ‘randonnee’ were ridden less formally, maybe in groups but sometimes individually. Audax derives from the Latin for audacious whereas randonnee translates from French most closely to ramble, tramp or hike. Whether Italian or French rules were followed rides had to be at least 200 kilometres and ridden against the clock.

    I entered an event to find out more. What I discovered was a beautiful semi-hidden past time setting off from municipal sport centre car parks and church halls. I was given a route sheet listing directions and control points and a card, a Brevet de Randonneur, for collecting stamps or tucking receipts into, evidence that I rode the whole way. The brevet evoked memories of touring as a teenager and filling my YHA membership card with hostel stamps. I like the people that inhabit this world, the ones you meet in village halls early in the morning and on petrol station forecourts late at night. I like that volunteers manage control points on village greens and in church halls with trestle tables and mismatching china and serve you tea with a smile. Swapping stories of other places and getting lost over cheese sarnies and victoria sponge. Perched on bag of charcoal outside a garage at midnight with a packet of crisps blankly staring at petrol pumps. Riding through the back entrance of motorway services at 4am looking for a vending machine for a much needed double espresso. It’s not for everyone.

    Living in Brighton it’s only a 15 kilometre ride along the coast to Newhaven where I can jump on a ferry to Dieppe. Around the same time I delved into the world of audax I also started regularly channel hopping to ride in northern France. The roads are quieter and the pastries better. Audax UK have an award called Randonneur Round The Year (RRTY), maybe ‘award’ is a strong word but you get a cloth badge you can sew on your saddlebag if you like. To get the badge you must complete at least one 200 kilometre ride per month for 12 consecutive months. In the back of my mind I’d always thought I’d like to attempt RRTY on French roads. The word randonneur is French after all.

    The overnight ferry arrives around 5am and the return evening ferry is usually at 6pm. That’s a gap of 13-ish hours which is a pretty much the time limit for a 200km audax. The perfect set up for an randonneur’s day trip so between September 2022 and August 2023 I completed RRTY on French soil. I had a vague plan to make a book of the rides, text mixed with 35mm photographs, but from the first ride I regularly spotted water towers scattered across the Normandy landscape. A recurring motif of the rides they quickly became the basis of linocuts and then screen prints.

    Printmaking seems an apt way to represent a bike ride. A photo is an instant taken in an instant, a glimpse, something caught in the blink of an eye, particularly when taken one handed using a mobile phone grabbed from a pocket whilst still pedalling. Printing on the other hand has much in common with riding a bike a long way: It’s process driven, takes some planning, requires effort and is time consuming.

    To an extent both start with the drawing of a line; either digitally on an app or a finger tracing roads on unfurled map, in a sketchbook or on the screen of my iPad. Further planning is required for things to work out in a pleasing manner. Is that a big road? How steep is that hill? What do I cut out? Which order to I print the colours? Is there a patisserie in this town? Where’s the nearest café? Both are durational and involve lots of cups of coffee. They involve scribbled notes and changes of mind along the way. They are exploring, finding new things, something invariably doesn’t quite go to plan. Periods of monotony interspersed with moments of pure unadulterated “OH HELL YES!” excitement. Very, very occasionally I think ‘why did I bother.”

    In May 2024 I’ll be showing the prints at Porteur in Hove in an exhibition titled “Meet Me By The Water Tower”* as part of the annual Artist Open Houses during the Brighton Festival. More details can be found on at Artists Open Houses. There should also be some of the screenprints in a group show at East Side Print at the same time. Much like the rides I hope I complete the work within the time limit…

    *thanks Pete Astor for letting me borrow his lyric for the title of the exhibition

  • twelve

    twelve

    Ker-clunk. Twenty fourth stamp in my passport and waved straight onto the ferry. I pick up my phone from the floor next to my inflatable pillow. It’s 02:38. Is that French time or UK time? Oh hang on, phone isn’t displaying home and away times, it must be UK time. Open Google Maps, blue dot on a pale blue background, zoom out… further, outline of Beachy Head appears at the top of the screen. Realise I don’t remember leaving Dieppe. Must have been asleep for well over three hours. My back aches, stretch out a bit, tiny twinge of cramp in my left leg. Drag myself up into the chair, pour the remainder of a bottle of Orangina, no longer cold, into the paper cup. Second night in a row of sleeping on the floor of the midnight ferry. Need a pee. Where are my shoes? Too old for this shit. Headwind over the cliffs to home in the dark. Deep bass trembles out of Volks, clubbers chat and snog on the pavement. Swerve a drunk lad in the cycle lane. Turn the key in the front door. Climb into my bed. Hungry. Should’ve stopped at the 24-hour Maccy D at the marina.

  • eleven

    eleven

    Fuzzy felt cones, perfect triangles. How I would have drawn a mountain as a kid. Ancient volcano cores, rock millions of years old. This year of rides is nothing but a blink, a flash in comparison. Sun beats, kites soar, lizards scamper. Sixteen hundred metres. Bright red Coca-cola parasols fold inside out in the wind. Coffee and coke with ice. More biscuits from the musette. Plunging off the edge of the world my brakes squeal into a steep hairpin, flinging me onto a dead straight kilometre. Freehub starts to hum, dab of brake, lean into a bend, road snakes away into cool verdant forest. The straightest line through the curves… finger hovers over a brake lever, just in case… a slight rise and pop out into the open. A thin line of tarmac etched along the edge of a long shallow glacial valley. Imaginary helicopter tracking me, solo breakaway. Nestle in the drops, tarmac tilts downwards ever so slightly as far as the eye can see. A joyous descent. A dark ridge seventy kilometres yonder. That’s my finish line, home sits 500 metres below the other side. Tuck a little lower, click down a cog, push a bit harder on the pedals.

  • ten

    ten

    The bow ramp clangs onto the slipway, or maybe the stern, it’s difficult to tell with the symmetry of the ferry, depositing me behind the Seine. Vanishing points strobe in the sunshine, a zoetrope flicker, rows of netted fruit trees pulling my eyes back to the river and the silver-white rock walls swathed in woodland that rise beyond. Switchbacks lift me away from the river. Present but only half here. Turning the pedals to maintain momentum letting the kilometres tick over effortlessly as my mind whirrs and clicks like a badly indexed derailleur. Thoughts spiral and twist and fold in on themselves as hard to pin down as the lark song somewhere above in the blue. Here but elsewhere, contented in reality and the imagined. My mind drifts further, forward this time, to future possibilities. Oh, I’ve been here before! The heat is getting to me. The ride becomes function over form, get to the destination, make sure the k’s add up to the correct amount to count, get it done, get it logged. The green digital display outside the pharmacy opposite indicates 35 degrees. I pull a can of watermelon and mint iced tea from the patisserie fridge. Find a tree’s shadow.

  • nine

    nine

    Swallows and martins angle and glide overhead on the causse, moss slowly smothers crumbling chalk walls. The sacred city cascades down cliffs. I slip into the other canyon, the one behind where the l’Ouysse river appears from under the limestone. Skim the edge of the Dordogne, the road wedged up against leaning rock walls. Across a small suspension bridge to return onto the plateau under a dazzling blue sky reverberating with the sound of crickets. Spring is exploding, verges full of supernova flower bursts like blossoming galaxies and giant star maps in fields. Yellows and reds and lilacs and pinks and white; daisies, poppies, orchids, dandelions, buttercups, meadow sage, stars of bethlehem, dog rose, catchflies, forget-me-nots. Blue gold, dyer’s pastel. A hare scarpers into a meadow where it disappears into the tall grass. Roads I’ve known for over thirty years. A landscape of castles on hilltops like ships battling a turbulent sea frozen in rock frothing and foaming in thick woodland. A pine marten bounces out from the dense dark woodland that spreads up the hillside. A lengthy alpine-esque descent swoops towards the flood plains and those other hills, the bigger ones made from different rock, the ones that lead to actual mountains.

  • eight

    eight

    Hop off the tram next to where the shiny brightly coloured logo splattered buses are parked up. Fans milling about as mechanics fettle. Expensive carbon fibre and fancy paint jobs reflect in windscreens. Accreditation badges hang round necks, television cameras sit on shoulders, microphones clutched in hands. Lotte Kopecky chats to a television crew before taping notes to her stem. She won Flanders last weekend and a favourite for today. Point at fancy bits of kit and bump into a friend from home. Coffee on the terrace of a PMU bar in the middle of things. Flags draped over barriers and fans’ shoulders. One by one the teams are rolled out to be presented to the growing crowds. French riders get the biggest cheers. Spin to the start line, a count down… a lap of town… wait… The line of photographers opposite stop chatting, cameras raised, a wave of applause breaks on the adjacent street, a squeal of brakes, the clunk of gears… blurs of colour… wait… A second lap and they are gone. People drift away. Barriers slung onto trucks as we wander back to the tram after a quick beer in the PMU. “Home” in time for television coverage to start as they hit the first secteur. Bottles of Leffe retrieved from the fridge. Settle in for the rest of the afternoon.

    We skip around the closed road signs. We can hear our destination before we see it. Belgian flags and satellites dishes adorn a field of campervans. Dump the bikes. Crowds and noise and the smell of chips and locals in homemade costumes of fluttering colours and television crews film drag queens in gold trimmed fuschia and sunshine glitters on scantily clad space age disco samba dancers and a couple of nonplussed goats are paraded past. Sensory overload carnival time. Watch the big screen, count the kilometres down. Helicopter shot of where we’re standing and then the cooling tower we passed two days ago. They are getting near, television shots of the other end of this road. Lean over the barrier and stare up the road, anticipation condenses into excitement. Hands bash barriers, voices raised. The leaders appear to gracefully float onto the cobbles, the chasing motorbikes and cars rumble and rattle. Red smoke drifts. The sound of rotors spinning just above the trees. Glance at the big screen then back up the road, the rest are coming… flashes of colour, riders then cars, everything slows suddenly, heads turn to screen, a collective gasp, a big crash. A mechanic grabs a bike from a roof and starts running. Riders playing catch up chase the race past the queued cars. Then it’s over.

    …but it’s not. Swap euros for tokens to swap for beer. Still ninety kilometres to watch on the big screen.

  • seven

    seven

    Intersecting lines, motorway overhead, railway below. Signs point to places in a different country. Bus stops, metro stations, tram lines. Severe concrete outskirts, roundabouts and conflicting angles, stripes and chequerboards painted on tarmac, kebab shops and tattoo parlours, chain hotels and car dealerships, fast food and deserted offices. Torn edges, scruffy urban collage, new parts stuck over old parts, the past leaks through. Pictures framed between pillars and flyovers. Alphaville and bits of monochrome road movies play in my head: Alice In The Cities, Radio On. Black and white dirties to grey-brown as we pull ourselves from the city. Horizon blurred. A bend in the road, the smell of cow shit. Rumble and clatter over a cobbled farm track. Château d’eau and cooling towers scattered. Scratch cards and coffee trying to avoid the rain… an hour and half and 35km later gloves and buffs dry out on a radiator in a bright orange burger joint. Sleepy Sunday villages. Metal shutters pulled down over windows. Haunted châteaus. Wheels slide on mud splattered pavé. Pylons stride across the fields as once did young men now laying beneath orderly bright white tombstones. L’enfer du Nord. The light drains behind the horizon. This morning’s roads backwards, brightly lit in neon and LED. Return through Alphaville, now the unprinted negative.

    B&W photos by Michal

  • six

    six

    A strong tide pushed the ferry sideways up the channel last night, it docks later than usual. Through passport control a few minutes after 6am. Cinema ticket booked for 6pm. Two hundred kilometres, twelve hours. Or eleven if I want to wash and lie on a hotel bed for a bit first. Up on the plateau fuzzy red lights blink as turbine blades stir the mist. One hundred kilometres to Beauvais. Half way through the ride that will complete the first half year of Randonneur Round the Year. Maybe ride there non-stop, the scribbled midway stop in Formerie is always disappointing. Only a small bakery and I’ve never seen a café even though surely there’s a PMU bar tucked away on a back street somewhere. No dithering, five hours tops. Then ride breaks into nice chunks, easy multiples of old commutes. Beauvais to Gisors, forty kilometres, two commutes, two hours. Find snacks. Gisors to Lyons-la-Foret, thirty five kilomteres, similar timing. Find coffee. Last bit to Rouen, thirty kilometres, but two big hills. Two hours. Legs will be tired by then plus navigating the urban grot that is the outskirts of Rouen. Time for a shower and a nap before the film. Three minute stroll to cinema.

  • five

    five

    The Avenue Verte sparkles and crunches. Immediately retreat to the main road where hopefully it’s just damp and not frozen but fear lingers. Straight line every slight bend, dare not touch the brakes. Pockets of even colder air, frozen slush crusted in the verges, shattered ice cubes in gutters. Tempted by a PMU bar shining in the darkness of a side street (stick a pin in the map of café stops). Ghost tyre tracks in the frost leading to the bar tells me I may not get to finish today. More crunching under tyres shocks me out of my meandering thoughts. Neufchâtel appears as a warm amber glow on the horizon, but it’s only the cold sodium hum of streetlamps. There’s no warmth, if anything it feels even colder. Rear wheel slips in a corner and the next. Through a window watch the palid mucky yellow-grey dawn of a damp winters day. Coffee and still warm pastries. Frozen blast of air every time the door opens. Any sun today will be low and weak unable to creep into the dips where there may be more ice laying in wait. Decide to turn back for a cosy bar and earlier ferry.

  • four

    four

    The weather changed direction this last week, coldness drifting in from the east, the forecast a couple of days ago even threatened snow flurries.  At least the wind has weakened. The sea has been smashing the beach at home for weeks and last month’s ferry crossing was quite rough. Deciding to do all the Randonneur Round the Year rides on northern French daytrips ups the ante somewhat. The gap between disembarking the overnight ferry and last check-in for the evening return ferry skims a couple of hours from the official audax time allowance. Two hundred kilometres is two hundred kilometres but a functional rather than exploratory route is sometimes needed to shorten it in my head, particularly come winter. Riding all the way over there to turn around to ride back is longer than a spin that loops back on itself never too far from the ferry. Foregoing surprises for the security of the known.  Bigger roads between places where I know the patisseries and PMU bars are. Remembering there’s a back entrance to the 24 hour services on the A28. Factor in bail points just in case. I can’t rely on trains here. It’s tedious though, I should have ridden all the way over there.