cycling
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Armistice Day 200
After storms on the south coast and a rough crossing we rumble down the ferry ramp into France in calm, dry weather. It’s really early, a bit after 4am local time, body clocks on 3am and barely a handful of hours of sleep. Rather than heading straight onto the road we nip into the port…
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Not Quite The Hailsham 600 (reprise)
I walk through the door of the empty café. It’s almost 11am, prime Sunday brunch time. “Hello, you’re our first customer”, the girl behind the counter greets me. She looks bored as does another girl behind the counter looking at her phone. I’m soaked through and dripping water on the floor. My shoes squelch as…
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Flanders To The Alps: Notes On A Tour [Part 1]
Day 1 – Hastings, UK to Gent, Belgium (216km) Meet George and Vic at Brighton station. First train cancelled due to two pissed teenagers being dicks. That’s our time buffer gone. Meet Mark at Hastings station. Tailwind across Romney Marsh, heads down, smash it to Dover (didn’t need to worry about that lost half hour).…
![Flanders To The Alps: Notes On A Tour [Part 1]](https://themanfromicon.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/img_20180729_232024_644.jpg?w=1024)
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Controlling
Almost half past 4, officially open. We wait. Stroll up the street to cable tie AUK Control signs to lamp posts. Wander back to the sports club… and wait. Scan the start list for familiar names, a few. Stare out of the window… and wait. The first rider pulls into the car park, wheels his…
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Out of the Shadows
Paths past garden gates, those neglected places where stinging nettles and wild flowers thrive. Next to a railway line and over a stream that is obscured from view throughout town; behind the houses, buried under streets, channeled through concrete, feeding into the Ouse somewhere in the Railway Land. It’s running high and fast now…
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Seven hundred
Orange-pink cracks of light in the murky grey sky to the east contradict the weather forecast I saw the day before. This is good. If it lasts. The predicted headwind is present though. By 35km I’m cowering in a bus stop on a junction, 5km later when I spot an open café I’m wringing water…
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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…
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Turn Turn Turn
Sneaking out of and into the city in the dark and half light. Looking for gloves and the right route. Lights plugged into wall sockets and USB ports. An increased interest in the weather forecast. The rush of starlings overhead as they head for the fields. A change in wind direction. Chilled air snatching at…
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Further
I’ve always been attracted to landscape and distance rather than speed. I watch grand tours for the helicopter shots of roads winding around mountains, along valleys and across patchwork fields as much as the actual racing. As a kid I would often go out and ride my bike all day, and it’s something that has…
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