brevet des grimpeurs du sud
-
Reliability
From the regularity of the straight lines between the fields of the flatlands around Ripe into the twisting roller coaster of ancient ways of the High Weald. Rolling over sandstone ridges into river valleys deeply cut into the clay. Following ancient ways scratched and scraped into the soft rock by water and footfall between the…
-
Meridian Hills [AAA Brevet des Grimpeurs du Sud 200km audax perm]
Meeting friends on a cold dark petrol station forecourt. Sunrise viewed from up the hill by the golf course, a huge orange disc seemingly rising from the silver sea. Down on the weald frozen puddles and glistening hedgerow. Icy bends in the hollows, cornering by trying not to steer, a foot unclipped and leg held…
![Meridian Hills [AAA Brevet des Grimpeurs du Sud 200km audax perm]](https://themanfromicon.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/img_20161227_202410_894.jpg?w=1024)
-
Down to Downs [AAA Brevet des Grimpeurs du Sud audax perm]
We start the climb up to Black Hill in darkness, up through Five Hundred Akre Wood, a tunnel of trees lit by the many lumens of our front lights. With few leaves on the trees the ridge of the Ashdown Forest can be seen shadowed ominously against the last remnants of twilight. It’s a long…
![Down to Downs [AAA Brevet des Grimpeurs du Sud audax perm]](https://themanfromicon.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/wp-1480428867785.jpg?w=1024)
-
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…
![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]
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…
![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]
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…
![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)
-
Mid Sussex Hilly [Brevet des Grimpeur du Sud ride #7]
Sat in a village hall, with a slices of cake and cups of tea in mismatching china, whilst they tidy up around us, getting ready for the whist drive in later that evening.
![Mid Sussex Hilly [Brevet des Grimpeur du Sud ride #7]](https://themanfromicon.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/msh11.jpg?w=1024)
-
AAA Milne (Brevet des Grimpeurs du Sud ride #5)
Yesterday I completed my series of Brevet Des Grimpeurs Du Sud audax with the AAA Milne. To get the badge you need to complete five 100km or more audax in the south east (Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire) which have AAA points. The AAA points are Audax UK climbing points and rides only qualify if they…
the man from icon 