bicycle
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The Shark [Brevet des Grimpeurs du Sud 2016 ride #2]
Waiting in an underground car park early in the morning as rain falls outside. So starts my first 200km audax of the year, the second ride of this year’s Grimpeurs du Sud campaign (this ride has over 3000m of climbing). Technically the fourth, but I didn’t make the start of the first, or finish the…
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Road to Rouen
I was invited by the nice people over at Victor and Liberty to write something for their blog. They asked a couple of weeks before I had a day trip to France planned so that became the story. Click any of the images below to read the full post. As usual I go the…
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Kent Invicta Grimpeur [Brevet des Grimpeurs du Sud 2016 ride #1]
A quiet, pretty corner of Kent, lanes tucked away between interlocking major roads. Two laps of the same circuit, first clockwise, then anti-clockwise. A tight loop, repeating place names on signposts, never reached and pointed in different directions. Identical roads, the same hills, but dissimilar when approached from the opposite direction. Those fast sweeping drops…
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One frame at a time
A craftsman at work, a skill that is second nature: Cut, grind, file, clamp, fit, braze, weld. Repeat. Back and forth, here, there, this bench, that jig. Sparks flying from grinders, the flash and whoosh of the torch being lit, red hot lugs and smoking bottom brackets. A day of turning straight lines into triangles, into frames, a pile of steel…
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Greenwich Mean Climb 300km [Brevet des Grimpeur du Sud ride #6]
04:29, Dyke Road, Brighton, heading for London. Underworld are played on the radio in the car and two men in their mid-forties reminisce about coming home at this time of the morning rather than going out for a bike ride. 05:47, Blackheath, London. Applying chamois cream behind a bush on the edge of Blackheath. There…
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Coastal Culture Trail
For ages I’ve been meaning to do a ride from Brighton along the coast to Eastbourne to the Towner Gallery, and then on to Bexhill to the De La Warr Pavilion. Never quite managed to find a free weekend that coincided with exhibitions I really wanted to see. Then recently I discovered the Coastal Culture…
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Mary Towneley Loop Cyclocross*
The Mary Towneley Loop is 47 miles of bridleway that forms part of the Pennine Bridleway, and straddles the border of Yorkshire and Lancashire. I was expecting this to be like the White Chalk Hills UCX but a bit tougher – though the distance is pretty much the same there’s an extra 2000 feet of…
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Rapha Rising 2015
Total Ascent 9371m Ride 4: Thusday 23 July / 203km / 4111m Gagnac-sur-Cere // Camps // >> D14 // >> D1120/D120 // Montvert // Bends, then long straight // << then imm. >> by pottery // D59 Crandelles // D59 Jussac // << D922 briefly // >> D59 Marmanhac // Laroquevielle // St Cirgues-de-Jordanne //…
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Tour de France Sojourn Day 4
Headwind. Headwind. Headwind. Three hour nap on a ferry. Headwind.
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Tour de France Sojourn Day 3
Rest day. A book, a bottle of wine, sitting under a tree.
![The Shark [Brevet des Grimpeurs du Sud 2016 ride #2]](https://themanfromicon.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/shark-0383.jpg?w=1024)

![Kent Invicta Grimpeur [Brevet des Grimpeurs du Sud 2016 ride #1]](https://themanfromicon.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/tweaked-0027.jpg?w=1024)

![Greenwich Mean Climb 300km [Brevet des Grimpeur du Sud ride #6]](https://themanfromicon.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/tweaked-colour-14.jpg?w=1024)




