cyclocross
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Dans la Forêt
A usual road from the port following the Arques valley to the first town inland where we turn over a small stone bridge and start up a narrow lane towards the forest. A pink hue floods the sky as the sun breaches the horizon hidden beyond the hill we’re climbing. A hare jumps from the…
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North London Dirt III
The woodland, bridleways and quiet lanes beyond the confines of the M25 are not the reason I set an alarm and drag myself from bed on a dark wet morning to get an early train to London. Not meaning to be churlish as it’s always nice to discover new places and I’m glad the lovely…
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Grey
No one bats an eyelid, raises an eyebrow, or tuts when a suggestion is made to drop down from the Downs to find coffee and some tarmac, maybe even the coastal suburbs to home. A quiet consensus. The weather hasn’t entirely matched the forecast, overcast has rather been cold driving drizzle. We’ve slipped and sludged…
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Between the Storms
As the day tilts into action a thin gauze of cloud stretches across the sky. A meek light casts weak ghost shadows, there out of the edge of vision but disappear when I turn to look. An upside down world existing in a flooded farm track. The sun rises through a bitterly eye-wateringly sharp wind.…
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The Old Ways and New Ways
Jump on a train west to Chichester to make the most of the forecast weather. Head for home with the wind on my back and scudding clouds and an intermittent shadow for company, looking for a route with as little tarmac as possible rather than the shortest way. Out of the city on back streets…
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Duinencross
Having had barely a handful of hours kip on the ferry the night before last plus the four thirty start for the two hundred plus kilometres from Dieppe to Dunkirk I have a lie in before heading for Koksijde, just over the border in Belgium. Despite a decent night’s sleep my head is thumping with…
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Pleasant Valleys Sunday
Fancy a short cx ride tomorrow? Nothing serious, just pissing about. Sounds good, yeah. Tilt at Fiveways at 9.30 good for you? Yep. See you there dude. Where we gonna go then? Was thinking Stanmer via the golf course, singletrack and bluebells, up to the Beacon, along the ridge, down to back of Falmer, Uni…
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I should have stayed in bed
It’s dark when the alarm goes off. I think to myself “I can’t be bothered today” and doze off again thinking about getting the train to work a bit later. Something in my brain makes me get up five minutes later and fall out of bed into my cycling kit. I laid it out ready…
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Farewell White Chalk Hills Ultracross
Since 2012 there has been the annual tradition of the stupid cyclocross ride across the South Downs, usually on the Saturday between Christmas and New Year. I missed the middle year but turned up and tried my best all the other years. The first two years I was on borrowed bikes with road pedals and…
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White Chalk Hills Ultracross 2015
Stretched out along the fence line, the peloton splinters into clumps of riders. Shadows tumbling down hillsides. Pedalling not against the gradient but the wind. Silhouettes scattered along the next ridge. The gate opening relay starts, the off road equivalent of through and off, keep riding, no time for gate faff, might even finish in…
the man from icon 