Home at last

After a shortish ride to Torrelavega we hopped on a train to Santander - no point in getting run over by the heavy traffic.

Another pleasant trip on the Brittany Ferry and hey-presto we arrived in Portsmouth to be greeted by a small but very enthusiastic crowd from the Cancer Centre! We met Chris Jones from Brittany Ferries who arranged for our photoshoot. Still haven't seen any photographs but I bet we look good!

The journey from Portsmouth to Purley by Southern Rail was a long, drawn out 3 hours and required 3 different trains but we eventually got home in one piece to find that my delightful older son Christopher had organised a rave up while we were out of the country. Needless to say he may be looking for alternative accomodation soon!

Panaderia (cake shop)

Today was our last chance to crack the hills and prove that we have 'cojones', as the Spanish so neatly put it.
Although we had a rest day, we decided to spend it climbing hills, yet again. We first climbed to the pretty and very touristy village of Barcena Mayor where we discovered the most expensive coke in the whole of Spain and that no one understands their own t-shirts, - a big beefy bloke claiming that he is 'not that kind of girl'.
Then Des's curiosity killed 'el gato' when we climbed up a massive hill to Los Tojos only to discover that our value-for-money sense refused to let us stay.
We eventually found our ideal destination in Correpoco where we could have a huge bag of donuts and a large coffee for less than 5 euros, the closest to a great tea shop we have found, as someone needs to note.
After one more hill, where I ran over a snake (a little bit), we decided to head back to the hotel following a grand day out, so that Des and Dad could get drunk on wine and coke.

Winding down?

Today was almost a luxurious walk in the park as we decided to head for the beach - unfortunately the beach was 18 miles away.
We did take it easy going there and the codgers had a little paddle in a river at a village called Ruentes.
At Comillas a lovely beach awaited us and we had time to sunbathe and swim in the cold seawater. Tom managed to get sunburnt but an extra huge ice-cream kept us all cool enough on what turned out to be the hottest day the year in Cantabria.
On the way home, we put our brains together to plot a less hilly route but it turned out to be 7 miles longer and even more hilly!

Too "dam" hot

Things started off quite well today as we started off with a picnic breakfast in a shady town square. Whilst there, Des was accosted by a young woman from Essex who wanted to know all about our ride. He will be beating off his fans soon!
Baking hot today, although weather conditions started off badly on the trip they have improved to the point where we had to abandon a mountain pass half way up today as it was far too hot - 30 degrees in the shade of which there was precious little.
The longer way round took us an extra 10 kms.
Altogether we travelled 50 miles up two passes in some extreme heat. Lets hope that Luke enjoys his day at the beach tomorrow - it's only 20 miles away!

Revenge of the rest day

Today could have been a day off but instead we decided to push ourselves to breaking point by cycling up the Pass of St Glorio which took us over 4 hours to ride the 26 kms.
The pass is the highest in the Picos at 1609m. We left at midday and as they say 'mad dogs and Englishmen etc....'
By the way that is sweat in the picture not the result of a shower!

Hills and more holy hills!

Travelled to Potes- a very popular part of the Picos. All was easy until we got to Potes when we decided to visit the Monastery of Santo de Toribio. Very lucky as we arrived in time to touch their relic-a piece of the True Cross and receive a plenary indulgence - a full remission of all our sins! Quite necessary as we had to climb 3 very steep kms to get there. Afterwards we had yet another steep climb to our hotel.

Day 8- "Gorge"ous Arenas

After a short, hilly and very scenic ride to Arenas de Cabrales we tried to cure Luke of his vertigo once more. The very severe drops from a narrow footpath along the famous Cares Gorge were quite disconcerting but we thoroughly enjoyed the amazing views. Very long ride ahead of us tomorrow so maybe we should have rested instead of walking for 2 hours but I'm sure that Luke will have enjoyed the experience.

Day 7- Rest day, MARK 2

For the second time, we tried to have a rest day. For one time only, we decided to not cycle. Instead, we got one of the many coaches up the hill to 'Los Lagos' and to walk around. We realised it was a great decision, as our coach climbed up what turned out to be a long, steep hill that we avoided. However, the long trek up and down the mountains was tricky, especially after nearly getting lost when we went on a 'detour'. But the great sights we saw made us feel a lot better. We could see all the way to the sea.

The hills are alive

At last there was sunshine as we ate our breakfast on the terrace with the lovely mountains behind us. How cruel those mountains turned out to be as we headed to Covadonga across some BIG peaks. We nearly cracked at Riensana as we rolled in expecting lunch and a drink only to be told that the nearest taverna was another 19kms across the mountains.
No idea how high we climbed but those were big mountains with long, steep stretches!
We finally made it to a lunch of sorts and hurried off to Church to give thanks at the shrine to Pelayo -scourge of the Moors.
We finish the day here with sunshine so at last we can say that the rain in Spain sometimes falls mainly on the plain.

Day 5 - Llanes

We left the great views of San Vicente today for the great views of even bigger mountains. As Des likes to say though "Onwards and upwards!!" With another rainy start we headed out on a wonderful "relaxing" scenic route including eucalyptus trees, which definitely cleared our noses.

A quick meal turned into a much longer one once the rain started to pour down again. Luckily the great and interesting meals of omelette and squid baguettes kept our hopes high.

As we climbed up the hills surrounded by cows, sparrows and the odd hawk, more problems occured involving my bike. Yet again, the bearings were out, meaning we had to rush to the cycle shop with the hope that we would get there before they closed, unaware of the much different Spanish times. We arrived to a kind non-english speaking mechanic. After a lot of pointing, broken spanish and random words thrown in, we got it all repaired.

Our 'rest' day got even more restless when we could not find the hotel. Asking every single local didn't help either, since every answer resulted in a different direction. Thank god for tourist information centres. However, a great welcome from the hotel owner who spoke great english was enough to make us feel better, especially Dad who had to rush back to the cycle shop to collect my bottle and cycle computer.

Luke

Day 4 - La Cueva

The "easy" ride to Soplao Caves proved to be a shock as we ended up high in the Picos riding as fast as possible to get there in time for our tour. Heavy rain could not have come at a worse time as we hit 12% gradients for 7kms. Luckily the friendly guides let us on the tour even though we were 30 mins late.

Overall we climbed more than the height of Ben Nevis!!!

Made it to Espana!

Two more unsolicited donations - our shirts must be good! Made it to Espana and our 1st stop at San Vicente. No internet so no picture but Luke is happy after having ice cream on the beach. Have done 100 miles and still strong.

Day 1-Lleuve

Wet is the word to describe our first day.
It wasn't the best day to cycle in the rain, for the first time. However, the great cheer from the Centre was enough to drive us on, metaphorically of course.
P.S Visit the Blue Moon Cafe in Beare Green, who generously gave us a donation, unprovoked!!!

1000 miles of training completed

After a long weekend of riding Luke finally reaches his 1000 training miles.
A short Saturday ride where we encountered some curious Llama at Wonham near Reigate during a stunning ride which took us through Des' favourite road (Weare St in Ockley) where Luke got a chance to practice his puncture repairing skills).
Our final destination was Oakwood Hill (just £7.50 for a very nice two course lunch).
Returning through Ockley we encountered that quintissentially English scene that you will meet in the Home Counties. A cricket match played on a field surrounded by very stunning old houses where I shot some photos while Des fixed the gears on the vicars bike - he is such a Boy Scout.
Lastly a view on a very hidden Surrey gem, Vann Lake such beautiful scenery but sadly no tea shop.
Sunday was a blur of hills and valleys as we chased the Anerley Club to Trottiscliffe (pronounced /ˈtrɒzli/ "Trozli" according to Wikipedia) - 60 miles of sweat and tears. With much clunking and squealing, Luke's bike and mine came home for some well needed TLC. Sadly, I think I am in need of some maintenance as well but perhaps a bit more than a spanner and oil is required for my tired old body.

A day out to Romney and Rye

A lovely day's ride around Romney Marsh and the stunning historical town of Rye.
We drove 1 hour drive to Appledore where we parked before cycling 40 miles around a very flat but breezey circuit. Rye is quite stunning but highlight of the trip was the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway line where a cheap ticket £5.50 including bike gives you the chance to pretend to be Gulliver in Lilliput.
The miniature steam trains are just fantastic!!!
The flat countryside is deceiving - once we encountered the strong, constant headwind we certainly started to tire more quickly.

Out and about with the Anerley Club

From 2010-07-20 Cycling

Much of the last week has been spent on bike maintenance to make as we try to reduce the chance of breakdowns. So just a couple of simple rides with the Anerley Club Tuesday riders to report. So far we have only mentioned them collectively but in fact they are very interesting characters indeed. From the front we have:

Meike Turnbull who is an excellent cyclist. Despite being a mere woman she does her own maintenance on the bike. Mike has a dodgy knee with a quite astonishing scar that slows her down. Despite all that she still travels faster than me and often tells me off for bad road etiquette.

Leader of the Tuesday riders, John Turnbull, a boy racer who is only slightly older than his bike! He claims that he has had the bike since around 1961 or 1962 – that’s when Cliff Richard was first singing about his Living Doll. You can ask John anything about cycling and he can tell you all you need to know and much more! Often chats up the steepest hill to cheer us up as we puff and pant like Thomas the Tank Engine.

Young Julia (and I mean young) used to be a flute teacher but now works in a school. Very proud of her custom, hand built bike and even cleans it when we stop for a cup of tea. I bet her house is spotless…

Then we have young Sandra who is a novice triathlete and always goes racing off up the hills although we know that we can catch up on the downhill sections – partly because she gets nervous doing more than 30mph on slippery roads and partly because gravity has very little hold on her tiny frame. Young Sandra has a son aged 30!

Following behind is of course Des a mere 71 but has the decency on occasion to act his age.

Missed the train

All the way to Horsted Keynes and back over 55 hilly miles.

After the delights of a hearty brunch at East Grinstead's Starburger we wished "Jack" Jackson a fond good luck in East Grinstead. Unfortunateley Jack has been diagnosed with a kidney tumour and is off to the Marsden this week for chemotherapy.

As we plodded onwards past the Weir Wood Reservoir and down to Horsted Keynes I was hoping to get some pictures of steam engines on the Bluebell Railway. There was much excitement (well at least I was excited) at the sight of steam in the distance. Unfortunately, Luke's gears conked out. I did the kindly fatherly thing and swapped bikes with Luke before we struggled down the station only to find that we had missed the train and the next one was a good 40 minutes away. With a hilly ride and a partly knackered bike I reluctantly agreed to carry on back home without the pictures that I wanted!

Still we must think positive, Luke survived a long, exhausting ride despite flagging after only 10 miles (result of two weeks without training) and switching to my bike with it's higher gear ratios.

A very hot ride

A disastrous attempt to ride on Saturday. No Luke and no Des so I decided to go out in the morning. Result was a snapped gear cable. On dismantling the lever to replace the cable I managed to lose a spring in a very tiny area of my garage. After an hour of finger tip searching I gave up looking but managed to cobble together a replacement from a Barclays biro. It was after lunch that eventually got out so I decided to take some photos over the Farthing Downs and the Lavender field at Woodmansterne. As the temperature soared to 30C I encountered a grass fire on Farthing Downs and called the fire brigade. 45 minutes later they managed to find me but the fire had mostly burned itself out. It looked like I could have some dramatic pictures for a while but in the end all I got was a picture of a fireman working on his tan!

Still sizzling

On Saturday a short but very testing and very hilly ride with young James in tow instead of Luke. Luke is currently doing his work experience (and terrorising children around Croydon with his violin!) .We managed to visit the Cancer Centre stall at the Coulsdon Fair, the Centre volunteers there do agreat job raising both money and people's awareness of the Centre's work.

Sunday was a fairly hectic day as Des and I had to do our Scouting bit before our training ride around Bocketts farm and back via Norbury Park and Boxhill. The view from Norbury Park (part of the view) is above and for just once I must thank Microsoft - stitching photos together into a panorama with Microsoft ICE is incredibly easy!

The full blown view from Norbury Park can be seen at photosynth

Mad dogs and English men

A heatwave with temperatures reaching 30C is not ideal for your first 100mile weekend but Luke made it.

Saturday was a reconnaissance mission for our first two days of the real ride. We started at the gloriously named Loxwood and headed towards the South Downs through the beautiful village of Lodsworth near Midhurst before crossing the South Downs at Didling using a horrendously steep and stony bridleway. From the top of the Downs there was of course a fantastic view across to the South Coast. I promised Luke he would see the sea!

Small world story: in the middle of nowhere we bumped into Gena Brown on her bike - she lives about 300yds from us in Purley!

On Sunday we went out with the Anerley to Henfold Lakes and we were very pleasantly surprised to be awarded with Anerley Cycling Club badges by "Jack" Jackson. On the way home, Luke lost several points of favour with me as he chose to use the extremely steep route via Fanny's Farm from Merstham. At least we felt like we had achieved something while watching the England team letting us down yet again!

Cycling with the Scouts

Not much training for a couple of weeks. While Luke was sweating over some GCSE exams, Des and I went to the New Forest with the Scouts.

A really good week, very exhausting but now we start our real training - once Luke completes his Duke of Edinburgh hike that is!

Heatwave

A minor heatwave allows us to rehease for the real thing in Spain. 27C in May!

CONGRATULATIONS TO LUKE. Despite the heatwave, Luke managed to achieve his first 100km ride. A huge achievement for someone who does not do sports....

Bluebells and more....

A double header this weekend, Saturday to East Grinstead (a mere 46 miles) and then a shorter trip on Sunday to Leatherhead (30 miles). The ride to East Grinstead was especially spectacular as we passed the stunning bluebells at Staffhurst Woods. Young James is doing his Duke of Edinburgh silver award and he came with us for the exercise. Sadly he felt quite ill as we headed homewards - probably nothing to do with his huge lunch at Starburger!

Singing in the Rain

Not a lot of cycling to report but I guess of related interest is the fact that Des and I took our Cub Pack to Camp during the Spring Bank Holiday weekend. Lots of lovely bluebells but Sunday was an "interesting" day weatherwise. First time I have had the pleasure of digging trenches to protect a tent from rain at Cubcamp!

This is a lovely picture of what it looks like with a Scouting Group huddling under a covered fire during a rain storm.


But it was not all bad by any means

Speeding Through The Holidays

Well it is nice to get out in the spring sunshine now that the press release has been gone out and we made it into the local papers in our lovely outfits. Great as we want to generate much more publicity for the Centre as many Cancer patients don't know what a great facility is on their doorstep.

For example, I have lived in Purley for more 18 years and I never knew that Redhill Aerodrome existed until this Saturday! So spread the word - yes of course I mean about the Centre and not the aerodrome....

Paparazzi!

The SECHC press release was finally issued on Wednesday and so things are beginning to hot up at last and we should be in the local Purley/Croydon papers next week.

We are also doing a photo-shoot for the Croydon Advertiser tomorrow let's hope that it doesn't rain on us...

Sponsorship News

Brittany Ferries have very kindly sponsored us to the cost of our ferry tickets. This is very generous indeeed as we will be travelling at peak time. This has to be the best way to get to Northern Spain especially if you are going cycling!

http://www.brittany-ferries.co.uk/index.cfm?articleid=286

A Gentle Ride With The Anerley Club

As the Anerley Club are supporting our ride I thought I would go for a nice gentle ride with them today as it was sunny. Well I felt astonishingly young as several of them were in their 70s and all were older than me.

Sadly though, they are all fitter and had no trouble whatsoever with the 35 mile round trip to Edenbridge. At least I managed to eat twice as much at the tea stop so some pride was saved!

The Costa Verde

The northern coast of Spain is known as the Costa Verde, the Green Coast. I havn't yet told Tom and Luke that the rain in Spain doesn't fall mainly on the plain, it falls on the mountains!
So with this in mind I have been ensuring that we have a roof over our heads at each night's stop. I thought they might like to spend a night in my favourite horreo as it is close to the Picos. As you can see from the clothes hanging out to dry, we had just finished an afternoon's ride in torrential rain.
Well I did say that this was going to be an adventure for young Luke!
Whilst we have been out training for the ride since January, we have only just started the fund raising. In just a few days, the sum of £595 has been donated. A very big thank you from all of The Picos Riders. Your generosity is very encouraging.
And for those who have not yet got around to it, just click the button on the right!

A bit of Bribery!

I led an Anerley bike tour across Spain to Santiago de Compostela in 2005, so I know just how hilly it is! Luke and Tom will need to get a lot of training miles in. But how many boys of Luke's age get the chance of an adventure like this?
To encourage Luke I have promised him 10p a mile towards our target of £5,000. Luckily for me, the snow and ice has drastically reduced his mileage target for this month! We tried to make up for lost days with regular hill walking in the snow.
However when our snow had gone, I did manage to make Luke suffer for his pennies. He forgot his gloves when we cycled to the top of Botley Hill, the highest point on the North Downs. Lots of snow still there, but it did put a glow in his cheeks, in contrast to his blue hands!

Brass monkeys on wheels

Two rides during Half Term holidays:

1. A long, steep hill from Purley, through Coulsdon and Chipstead and all the way to Reigate and back. It was a gruelling 23 miles both ways up Reigate Hill and back to Purley over another massive hill. Freezing, take a good look, the pond at Chipstead is frozen!
2. A lovely spring like day trip to Lingfield, no photos as I wanted to get some cycling done. 30 miles round trip and Luke's 1st 50km ride of the year.

A snowy start

Training started in mid-January just before we were hit by the snow. A couple of very short rides later and we were forced to take to the hills on foot!

Apparently walking uphill is a good substitue for cycling according to Des. I suppose that I have to trust to his wisdom!