bicycle
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Tour de France Sojourn Day 2
The best thing about camping is being gently woken by the dawn chorus. The worst thing about camping is the dawn chorus starting at 5 a.m. And thus starts another long day. A few hours later I am diverted by the first of many Route Barrée signs in Abbeville. I follow the trail of yellow…
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Tour de France Sojourn Day 1
I rattle and rumble down the ferry gangway into early morning France. It’s around 5am and I’ve not had anywhere near enough sleep. Out of the port and it’s left up the first hill of the day. An old woman shouts “ALLEZ!” from a high, unshuttered window. Light seeps into the sky, I can see…
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Hometown Woods
Army barracks and the sound of gun fire. No red flags, it should be OK. My first ever race. Why would I start racing at my age. Idiot. Please let the rain stop. The terrain and smell of damp pine takes me back. I revert to a 13 year old kid on a BMX hacking…
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Diary of a Novice Randonneur, pt.2 – Isle of Wight Randonnee
Well then, it was turning out to be a pretty rubbish start to the year of randonneuring. I failed to make the start line of a local audax in February, and then in April due to various reasons I didn’t even manage to get to the same county as my next planned audax. However I…
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2013 Rapha Festive 500 [part 4]
Day 6 Another (slow) century, a proper one, not a metric one. Not the ideal recovery spin after yesterday’s ultracross adventures. However completing 100 miles is in the head more than the legs I think. So here goes… http://www.strava.com/activities/102576759 http://www.strava.com/activities/102634220
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Tourist Trophy 2013 // Stage 10 // October // Peaks and troughs
I’m on Winnats Pass in Derbyshire. I’m lying on the wet grass verge looking at my bike lying half on the road, half on the grass with me. I gaze down the hill, then up the hill, and then forlornly back at the bike. A moment ago I was riding up the hill. The gradient…
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The long way round
Shutting the front door whilst the nearly full moon still hangs over the city to the east I head west. The sun is yet to break cover. Where the sky meets the sea is pink and orange, a hint of what is imminent. I’ve got just under three hours before I need to be at…
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as you crest Chapel Hill…
Look left you’ll see probably my favourite view in Sussex. I never tire of the view west. It’s up against some stiff competition – Steyning Bowl, the Weald when you look out from the false summit on Ditchling Beacon, the view north from just below the summit of Firle Bostal, the Seven Sisters from Seaford Head,…
the man from icon 