T H E
M A G A Z I N E
O F
C T C
THE
NATIONAL
CYCLING
CHARIT Y
AU G U S T/S E P T E M B E R 2 015 £3 O R F R E E TO C TC M E M B E R S This issue CAIRO TO CAPE TOWN JOSIE DE W’S
PLUS JOSIE DEW’S FAMILY ADVENTURE
FAMILY
SPA & SURLY TOURERS TESTED TRANSPORT CYCLING FOR ALL
ADVENTURE
RIDING THE SOUTHERN UPLAND WAY
ROUGHSTUFF TOURERS RIDING
AFRICA SOLO
THE SOUTHERN
C A I R O T O C A P E T OW N E P I C
UPL AND WAY PEDALLING TOWARDS EQUALIT Y? BAGGY SHORT S TEST A U G U S T/ S E P T E M B E R 2 0 15
CTC.ORG.UK
4 cyc le august /september 2 015
THE BIG PICTURE
MENAI SUSPENSION BRIDGE
The Countrywide Great Tour, which began in Anglesey on 4 July, is making its way around a stunning route of Britain’s coastline. Riders have been enjoying all the sights and sounds of the seaside as they help raise money for good causes. There’s still time to sign up and fundraise for CTC (£250 minimum sponsorship, plus admin fee) on our stage from Rye to Brighton on 11 August. Simply visit the Great Tour website (www.thegreattour.co.uk) and enter the discount code CTC1108. Fundraisers will receive free entry, a CTC jersey, lunch and refreshments, and a Great Tour t-shirt. Sign up today and support CTC!
CTC . O R G . U K CYC L E 5
Photo: Geraint Rowland
THE COUNTRYWIDE GREAT TOUR
KIT REVIEWS
SUBMIT A REVIEW
GEAR UP
Components, kit, and accessories reviewed by specialist journalists, CTC staff – and you. This issue: a chainset, a car rack, and more
To submit a review, write or email the editor – details on page 3 – for advice. Each one printed wins a personalised SplashMaps map worth £28.99. For more about SplashMaps’ weatherproof, washable, wearable maps, visit splash-maps.com
RE VIEW OF THE MONTH
PROS + Touring chainring size options
+ Impressive build quality
CONS - Only one crank length
Dr Steve Melia
Urban Transport – without the hot air
Sugino
£19.99
OX601D CHAINSET
uit.co.uk
£199.99
hubjub.co.uk THE SEARCH for the perfect touring chainset isn’t quite over; Sugino’s OX601D is offered in the UK with 170mm crank arms only (some markets get 165mm through 175mm), and they aren’t hollow. But it’s close. It features two sets of chainring mounting bolts with Bolt Circle Diameters of 110 and 74mm, an arrangement labelled ‘Compact Plus’. Compact Minus might be more accurate, as the 74mm BCD bolts accept the fitment of an inner chainring with as few as 24 teeth. The distributor lists a choice ranging from 44-30 to 48-32, the 44-30T rings shown suiting riders looking for a range of gear ratios usefully lower than possible with the usual ‘compact’ 50-34 combo. Used in conjunction with a 27 rear sprocket and 700x25C tyre, it gives a bottom gear of 29in. Dropping to 24 at the front gives about 23.5in, all but
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obviating the need for a triple. The five-arm spider is part of the righthand crank forging, which is a permanent splined press fit on the 24mm hollow steel axle. Installation is easy: the system works in the same way as Shimano’s Hollowtech II. The BSC-threaded external bottom bracket bearings fit the standard Shimano tool. The axle end cap needs a 5mm hex key where Shimano’s has a lobular interface with a small (and easilymislaid) plastic thumbwheel. Tread, or Q-factor, is narrow at 145mm. The chainrings, designed for 10-speed chains, feature shifting pins and ramps and perhaps the only significant question is whether the tail of a standard double front mech correctly positioned for a small outer chainring might foul the top of the chainstay on any given frame. Richard Hallett
THIS BOOK is an entertaining and persuasive read from an author whose starting point is ‘a belief that maintaining the conditions for life on Earth is more important than increasing consumption or maximising individual freedom’. Steve Melia addresses perceived problems like the ‘war’ on the motorist and the idea that we’ll never get British people cycling like the Dutch. Then he considers solutions – not necessarily simple ones – based on progress made in London, Bristol, Cambridge and other European cities, plus interviews with experts. The final chapter (‘What can I do?’) prompts professionals and campaigners who call on others to change their travel behaviour to look at, and adjust, their own habits. 264 pages, ISBN 9781906860264 Cherry Allan
MY BIKE
Emily Edwards’ Tour de Fer Teenagers aren’t often seen as a target market for touring bikes, but a tourer was just what this 16-yearold CTC member wanted
S
ome teenagers abandon cycling altogether. Others might want a new road or mountain bike after outgrowing their old machine. Coming from a cycling family, Emily Edwards had a different idea. ‘I wanted a new touring bike,’ she said. At 16, this was to be her first genuinely new bike. ‘My Tour de Fer is my first adultsized bike and my first with drop handlebars,’ she said. ‘When I first started touring, I was on the back of a tandem with my dad. Being the third child in the family, all of my other bikes have been old hand-medowns. This was my first chance to choose my preferred option.’ She drew up a shortlist of practical bikes with her dad. She had two stipulations: not
black or silver, and available in store rather than online so she could try it out. They settled on Genesis’s 2015 Tour de Fer, available in red and looking both sensible and contemporary. ‘The other contenders were the Cinelli Bootleg Hobo and the Genesis Croix de Fer,’ Emily said. While she liked the look of the Croix de Fer a lot, she was persuaded by the lower gears available on the tourer, which comes with mountain bike sized chainrings. ‘The wide-ranging gears are very easy to change,’ Emily said. ‘It is comfortable and rides smoothly.’ Being a tourer, it already had the mudguards and luggage racks that Emily would need, both for holidays and for cycling around Edinburgh. ‘I like being able
Tech spec: Emily Edwards’ Tourer MODEL: Genesis Tour de Fer (52cm) PRICE: £899.99 FRAME & FORK: Butted chromoly steel frame and unicrown fork WHEELS: 700×35C Schwalbe Marathon GreenGuard tyres, Alex Rims DH-19, 36 Sapim Race butted spokes, Shimano Deore M525 hubs TRANSMISSION: VP-383S pedals with toe-clips, Shimano FC-M521 chainset 44-32-22T, Shimano BB-ES25-AK Octalink bottom bracket, KMC X9 chain, Shimano CS-HG400 11-32T cassette. Microshift BS-T09 9-speed bar-end shifters, Shimano Alivio derailleurs. 27 ratios, 19-104in. BRAKING: Tektro RL-340 levers, TRP Spyre mechanical discs with 160mm rotors STEERING & SEATING: Genesis Road Compact bar, 7º Genesis Road stem, FSA TH-857 semi-cartridge headset. Genesis MTB saddle, Genesis 27.2mm seatpost ACCESSORIES: Chromoplastic 42mm mudguards, M:Part luggage racks (front removed), three bottle cages (one removed) WEBSITE: genesisbikes.co.uk Note: The 2016 Tour de Fer will have a flat handlebar.
“Being the third child in the family, all of my other bikes have been old hand-me-downs” to use a pannier and often end up carrying my friends’ belongings too,’ she said. The Tour de Fer is Emily’s one bike for travel and transport. ‘As well as using my bike to get around town, I enjoy cycle touring with my family and friends,’ she said. ‘In April I stayed in the CTC Albert Watson Memorial Hut in the Borders and completed a 50-mile circular route past St Mary’s Loch. Our family summer holiday this year is a cycle tour in Bavaria.’ In common with many smaller-framed bikes with 700C wheels, Emily’s 52cm Tour de Fer has some toe overlap. That, she said, is the only thing she would change about it. ‘I would increase the distance between the front wheel and the pedals as I have to be a bit cautious when turning sharply to make sure my feet don’t collide with the wheel.’ Having tried the bike for size before purchasing it, Emily has made few changes to it. ‘I have removed the front carrier and third bottle cage, neither of which I was using, to reduce unnecessary weight,’ she said, ‘and I have added a bike computer and lights.’
SHARE YOUR STORY: If you’ve got an interesting bike that’s been chosen or customised to suit you, get in touch. Email editor@ctc.org.uk 28 CYC LE AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2 015
where: part of the North Sea Cycle Route START/finish: Hook of Holland to Esbjerg DISTANCE: 800 miles PICTURES: Alamy (main photo) & Josie Dew
t he w ind in our w heel s | G R E AT R I D ES
Gre at r ide s
The wind in our wheels The North Sea Cycle Route with noisy offspring: that was CTC Vice President Josie Dew’s back-of-an-envelope plan for the summer holidays
Opposite: © Prisma Bildagentur AG / Alamy. Others by Josie Dew
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ot long before I gave birth to Jack, I decided it was high time to give my two daughters, Molly (5) and Daisy (2), a taste of touring. Abandoning plans to ride the End to End, we settled on somewhere more cycle-friendly than the UK. Destination Denmark, via Germany and the Netherlands! Just getting to our ferry in Harwich was an adventure. In the old days, pre-offspring, I used to cycle the 200-odd miles from home to Harwich – or, if pressed for time, put my bike in the guard’s van on the train. These days, huge caged guards’ vans are non-existent and it’s impossible to convey a tandem, a bike, a trailer, a load of panniers, and two young children in one easy move. So we hired a people-carrier for our clobber. Thanks to road closures and an eternity of tailbacks, we had to jettison the hire car in Colchester instead of Harwich, which meant a 25-mile wild goose chase of a ride following snaking Essex estuaries and dark country lanes. Molly was on the tandem with me, husband Gary following in my slipstream towing Daisy in the trailer. Somewhere near Weeley or Thorpe Green, Molly said, ‘Mummy, Daddy’s not behind us anymore!’ I stopped. After five minutes, a bike light wobbled into view. Gary was attached to it. He’d had to stop as Daisy had woken up with a yelp when an avalanche of camping clutter had landed on top of her. We zoomed off again, screeching to a halt at Harwich International Port at 10:10pm, five minutes before check-in closed. Perfect timing! The check-in man said: ‘I have four passports in my hand but I can only see
three of you. Who’s missing?’ ‘There’s one in the trailer,’ said Gary. ‘Under all those bags. I think you might just be able to see an ear.’
Among the dunes We arrived in the Hook of Holland at dawn and disembarked into a cold rain sweeping off the North Sea. Fortunately the crisp blue-uniformed armed guards at passport control also doubled-up as weathermen. They told us in perfect English that the rain was forecast to stop by midday and the afternoon would be bathed in sun. And so it turned out. We were blown at a rate of knots along the glorious car-free cycle tracks that surfed the undulating sand dunes up the North Sea coast. After stopping at several playgrounds, and working our way through a small mountain of ice creams, we arrived mid-afternoon in the seaside town of Katwijk, pronounced Cat-Vike, but which we initially thought was pronounced Cat-Vick and which Molly called Cat Sick. To get to Cat Sick, we’d had a fantastically fun ride bouncing along perfect bike paths, skirting towns and cities like Den Haag and Monster (‘What’s that coming over the hill / Is it a monster?’ we sang, mindful of The Automatic’s song, Monster. That night we camped among the dunes in De Zuidduinen campsite. Molly and Daisy had spent the latter part of the afternoon running the equivalent of half a marathon on the near-empty and endless white-sand beach. They both conked out the minute they hit their sleeping bags, not even noticing the thunderstorm that detonated
Do it yourself Travelling with such young children, we had to go at their pace, stop a lot and throw in a lot of off-bike entertainment: playgrounds, swimming, kite-flying, ball games, beaches, running races, ice cream eating.
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f e at u r e | A f r ica so lo
(In the photo) Mark near the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt. Photo by Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert
38 cyc le august/september 2 015
A F R I CA SO LO | F E AT U R E
AFRICA SOLO
CTC MEMBER MARK BEAUMONT SET A NEW RECORD FOR CYCLING FROM CAIRO TO CAPE TOWN: 6,750 MILES IN 41 DAYS
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f e at u r e | T R A N S P O RT
Pedalling towards equality? Transport cycling can’t properly grow in the UK while the conditions suit only the young, male, fit and fearless. Dr Rachel Aldred explains
Clockwise from main pic: by Farouq Taj, Mark Robinson & Michael Coghlan (Flickr Creative Commons)
I
n Britain, cycling is highly unequal. Women, older people, and disabled people are all under-represented. Transport for London (TfL) reports that 74% of cycle trips there are made by men, while across England men are twice as likely to cycle to work as are women. It’s been the case for so long that people assume it’s normal. Cyclist equals young man on bike, in Lycra. But it’s not normal – and it doesn’t have to be like that. Over the past few years, I’ve seen ‘inclusive cycling’ start to move from being marginal to, if not the mainstream, at least greater prominence. In 2010, I remember an officer telling me in a ‘stakeholder interview’ that it was unrealistic for cycle campaigners to demand access for trikes and handcycles; just getting a small amount of bicycle infrastructure was going to be hard enough. That year, 2010, was the year of the Equality Act, which places a duty on public authorities to promote equality of opportunity and not discriminate on grounds of sex, age, and disability. The Equality Act has been used to challenge failures to provide tactile paving, so it does apply to the street environment. Not that you’d know it from the cycling environment in most parts of Britain, which still has physical and cultural barriers: from bollards blocking access to everyone but skinny two-wheelers, to the continued assumption that we are building for able-
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bodied young men happy to mix it with HGVs. This article covers some research I’ve done into cycling and diversity. It challenges the assumption that more cycling will automatically ‘trickle down’ and become more equal. It puts forward a different way of thinking about cycling and equality, where ‘inclusive cycling’ isn’t just boxed into a ‘minority’ corner but becomes central to cycling for everyone.
More cycling, more equality? In countries like Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark, the picture’s very different. In the Netherlands, women consistently cycle for a higher proportion of their trips than do men. In all three countries, it’s quite normal for older people to cycle. Rather than – as in the UK – cycling declining rapidly at older ages, in high-cycling countries, cycling levels drop down in young adulthood but often then increase at older ages. Dutch adults do more physical activity as they get older because retired people have more time to ride. A lot of academic and policy work hasn’t caught up with this. I still read papers where it’s assumed that women won’t cycle as much as men. I read claims that we need bus services because older and disabled people can’t cycle. Yes, we do need buses, but for some older and disabled people, cycling could be more accessible than walking and getting a bus. I’ve interviewed people who
struggle to walk to the bus stop, but can easily ride a trike. Places where cycling is higher, where it’s easier and more normal, are places where you’ll see lots of cycling by women, older and disabled people, and children. We can even see this in the UK. Cambridge is not cycling heaven – it has its share of bollards and hostile main roads – although it’s better than many places. But, because of a range of factors, from the medieval street plan to the long-standing bans on Cambridge University students bringing cars with them, cycling has remained popular, with around one-in-three commuting residents doing so by bike. And the patterns seen in high-cycling countries are also found in Cambridge, with roughly equal gender balance and more than
(Above) A fairly typical London cyclist, taking her chances in Trafalgar Square (Left) Cyclists in Amsterdam: no Lycra, no helmets, no worries about unfriendly infrastructure (Below) Handcycling in the UK can mean having to deal with hostile urban environments
CTC. O R G . U K cyc l e 47
where: Southern Uplands, Scotland START/finish: Portpatrick/Stranraer to Edinburgh DISTANCE: about 180 miles PICTURES: Alamy (main photo) & Rob Ainsley
Sou t her n up l a nd so l i t ud e | G R E AT R I D E S
Gre at r ide s
Southern Upland solitude Journalist Rob Ainsley and two friends spent four days riding empty tracks and roads from the Rhins of Galloway to the Firth of Forth in Scotland
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ritain, crowded? Not in Galloway. We cycled for hours along roads without seeing a car, even a sheep, the only sound the chirping of spring birds, or perhaps of Mark’s rear wheel. We crunched for miles along deserted forest roads amid lochs and mountains and past the occasional digger with keys temptingly left in. We camped wild and stayed in bothies knowing the nearest people were at least five miles away. It was one of the most enjoyable trips I’ve ever done, anywhere in the world: a fourday coast-to-coast across one of Scotland’s underrated marvels, on- and off-road. It involved awesome scenery, an epic pub stop, a goldrush, and high jinks with spades.
Opposite: © C-Photo / Alamy. Others by Rob Ainsley
Wilderness ready ‘We’ were me, Mark and Simon, longtime chums with lots of travel experience in and out of the saddle. Individually or together we’ve biked all the standard End to Ends and Side to Sides, so when Simon suggested this self-sufficient, mostly offgrid Scottish traverse from Stranraer to Edinburgh – roughly following the Southern Upland Way footpath – space materialised in our otherwise crammed diaries. A flurry of emails discussed the most weight- and space-efficient supplies to pack. Pot Noodles and single malts featured prominently. Simon was on his Giant TCX cyclocross bike with 32C knobbly tyres, his Carradice panniers a miracle of Russian-doll packing: sachets of dried food stuffed into mugs slipped inside kettles wrapped up in waterproofs. Mark was on his son’s hardtail MTB, a 29¨ Specialized Hardrock – hang
on, it only seems five minutes since his lad was a toddler – with a more spontaneous approach to luggage sequencing. I was on my shopping bike, my ancient Ortliebs holding such necessities as notebook, pencil case and tape measure. (You never know when you might have to document sub-standard cycle facilities.) Well, I say shopping bike; it’s my workhorse option, a Specialized Crossroads hybrid with sturdy 38C Schwalbe Marathons, front suspension (albeit frozen since 2007) and a heavy-duty rack. Yes, it has mudguards and a bell (of limited effectiveness for clearing the road of livestock). But it can haul a week’s groceries for two over York’s potholed side streets, so a pile of camping gear over fire-roads was no problem. Our route-finding was similarly varied. Simon did the GPS stuff, his ingenious route programmed in detail into the Garmin (plus alternatives, which were to prove useful). I had a £2 remainder-bookshop road atlas with biro additions culled from OS maps. Mindful of weight, I discarded used pages as kindling for the bothy fire.
Do it yourself You could do this with a bivvy bag if you avoid midge season – June to September, with July and August being the worst – or have some kind of midge net. Check out midge conditions at midgeforecast.co.uk. If the wilderness experience doesn’t appeal, you can stick mainly to roads, stay in B&Bs, and still enjoy awesome scenery – overnighting for instance at Stranraer, Dalry, Moffat and Innerleithen. But book ahead: settlements are few and far between.
Roughstuff touring Ah, that bothy. White Laggan, it was, on the first night, after dawn trains and a 60-mile cycle from pretty Portpatrick on the southwest coast. After cobweb-clearing, spiritlifting moors east of New Luce and one of the trip’s many glorious downhills, the tarmac had given up somewhere in Glen Trool. It’s one of many little-touristed, littleknown places here that would be hectic honeypots if they were a few miles south in the English Lakes.
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REVIEWS | BIKE TEST
SPA TI ADVENTURE bike test
Rough, tough tourers Want to travel off the beaten track without tip-toeing along? Editor Dan Joyce tests a Spa Cycles Ti Adventure and Surly Disc Trucker Any touring bike will tackle dirt roads and bridleways. On a durable roughstuff touring bike with wider tyres, it's more fun. You don't have to ride so cautiously, you won't get shaken about so much, and the bike is less likely to break down. Rocky restricted byways in the UK or gravelly South American ripio might make a touring cyclist on 32mm tyres dismount; on a roughstuff tourer, you can keep riding. How wide you want your tyres will depend on how and where you ride, and on where you want to compromise between road and off-road performance. One size doesn't fit all. At York Rally this year, Colin Thomson (531colin from the CTC Forum) surprised me by saying his own Spa Cycles Ti Roughstuff has 35mm tyres; I'd pick 50mm or more, given a suitable frame. Both of the test bikes will take big tyres. The Spa Cycles Ti Adventure, as distinct from Spa's Ti Roughstuff, is a ‘go anywhere' bike in a similar mould to the Salsa Fargo. It's available with a flat or drop bar. The Surly Disc Trucker is a conventional tourer that happens to accommodate bigger tyres; the
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chainstays declare ‘fatties fit fine'. The Disc Trucker comes with either 700C or 26in wheels, and in 9- or 10-speed. FRAME AND FORK As its name says, and despite its modest price, the Ti Adventure has a titanium frame. It's straight gauge tubing, so while it's strong and dent-resistant (and of course corrosionresistant), it's not especially light; the smallerwheeled steel Surly is lighter overall. Along with the frame features you'd expect of any tourer – rack and mudguard mounts, bottle mounts, threaded bottom bracket, external headset – the Ti Adventure has some extras. There are mounts for a cantilever or V-brake pivots as well as a disc calliper; there's a third bottle cage; and the lower rack eyelets take stronger 6mm bolts. Rear triangle clearances are large. A 42mm tyre gives a big gap to the mudguard and 47mm would fit fine. With the guard removed – something I didn't want to do – a two-inch 29er tyre went in with mud room. The fork bristles with fittings too: it'll take a disc or rim brake (canti/V); a low-rider or
(Above) Fork clearance is huge on the Ti Adventure, so the mudguard needs spacing down. A 54-57mm tyre will fit in underneath the mudguard. With the mudguard removed, it's possible to fit a 3in 29+ tyre – on a wider rim, of course
BIKE TEST | REVIEWS
P61
SURLY DISC TRUCKER
(Above) The 26in-wheel Disc Trucker will take 2in tyres plus mudguards but comes with skinny 37mm tyres that actually measure 33mm. Bigger tyres would suit roughstuff and expedition tourers alike
porteur rack; a mudguard; and two more bottle cages or Salsa Anything Cages. It's a Surly Ogre fork and it's huge. A 57mm 29er tyre went in under the mudguard. Removing the guard, a 29+ wheel fitted with clearance, once I'd eased the 3in Knard tyre past the brake mounts. Unless you will use a bigger front tyre than the 42mm Marathon Mondial fitted, I think the fork is too big and burly for the bike. There's little give in fork legs that are
nearly an inch diameter at the tips, so a fatter, softer tyre would win back some bump absorption. The fork need not be this tall either. At 468mm axle-to-crown, it's suspension corrected for an 80 or 100mm fork. (My own bike's 100mm-travel 29er fork is just over 470mm when sagged.) Suspension corrected is useful only if you want to fit a suspension fork. On this bike, I wouldn't. If you would, be aware that the head tube is 1 1/8in; modern suspension forks tend to have tapered steerers. I'd prefer a shorter fork instead, around 445mm axleto-crown. That would still clear a big tyre and a mudguard, but could be made of thinnergauge tubes without failing CEN tests. So it would be lighter and more resilient. A 445mm fork in this particular frame would steepen the head angle by about 1 degree – although upsizing to a 54mm front tyre would keep trail about the same. The Ti Adventure comes in three sizes, with the smallest getting 26in wheels. The bike pictured is the 53cm large, which is what was available; normally I'd ride the medium. Nevertheless, I achieved a comfortable fit on the test bike. The Surly Disc Trucker is a kilo lighter than the Ti Adventure, despite being steel. That's the missing mudguards, smaller wheels and fork rather than the frame per se. The frame is chromoly and the tubes in the main triangle are butted. The fittings are essentially the same as the Ti Adventure's, except that the Disc Trucker is disc-specific,
uses only 5mm lower rack eyelets, and also has a neat spoke mount on one seatstay. The Disc Trucker is available in a vast range of sizes and with either 26in or 700C wheels, but 700C is only an option for frames 56cm or larger. That neatly sidesteps the problems of fitting 700C wheels and wide tyres into smaller frames, and it enables Surly to use the same 45mm fork offset throughout the range. I can ride the 56cm 700C (I've tested a Long Haul Trucker in that size) but fit a 54cm better, so felt aggrieved, at 5ft 10in, to be grouped with the short riders and to have no real choice but 26in. The frame looks bigger than it is because the top tube is almost horizontal, and because the wheels are small. One benefit of this for roughstuff is bigger frame clearances: the 26in version can run twoinch tyres plus mudguards, while the 700C version is limited to 42mm plus guards. The tapered, raked fork of the Disc Trucker is nicer than the sturdier, heavier fork of the Ti Adventure. It helped make the bike tolerable off-road despite narrow tyres and smaller diameter wheels. Components There's a good argument for 26in wheels if you're a world traveller carrying heavy loads over unsurfaced roads. Spares are easy to find and 26in wheels are stronger than 700C, other things being equal. Here they're not. While there's nothing wrong with the Disc Trucker's wheels, which have XT hubs,
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T R AV E L L E R S ’ TA L E S
A LEISURELY L’ARDÉCHOISE John de Heveningham took part in one of Europe’s biggest cycling events
Around the Ring of Kerry Frances A Wilson and her husband spent two days on Ireland’s Iveragh Peninsula
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escribed as 120 miles of some of the most stunning scenery in the world, the Ring of Kerry is also the place to be on the first Saturday in July when 10,000 cyclists, the Irish Prime Minister and his bodyguard amongst them, take to the traffic-free roads for a charity ride. We didn’t get a place on that but decided to ride the Ring anyway, as we were staying in Kenmare. Rather than complete the route in one go, we decided to take our time and booked overnight accommodation in Cahersivee, giving us two 60-mile days. We set out from Kenmare in an anticlockwise direction, climbing steeply up to the mountain pass of Moll’s Gap. Having decided to bypass the hustle and bustle of Killarney in favour of quieter lanes, we found ourselves weaving around the horse-drawn carts bringing tourists up from the town to cross the Gap of Dunloe. We rejoined the main route near Killorglin and turned west along the southern shore of Dingle Bay. There is a disused railway running alongside much of this section and it is hoped that this will soon be converted into a cycleway, as an alternative to
this sometimes busy road. After a sea swim at Kells, we arrived at our accommodation. Cloudless blue skies and breathtaking scenery marked day two as we passed through picturesque towns and villages at the western end of the Ring. Another swim and lunch at Ireland’s only ‘beach bar’ near Castle Cove were among the highlights of the trip, the white sand and turquoise water more akin to Greece than Ireland. From here it was a straight run along the shores of Kenmare Bay to complete the circuit of this wonderful peninsula.
THE ARDÉCHOISE cycling event is little known here. Of the 14,594 cyclists from across Europe taking part last year, only 28 were from England. It’s set in the beautiful and hilly Ardèche region of southern France, with all rides starting and finishing in the little town of St Félicien. There is a choice of 12 signed routes, ranging from 125km with 2,500m of climbing to 619km with 10,775m of climbing. You can ride them in one to four days; on the final Saturday, over 100km of roads are closed for it. In 2014, together with my son Antony and his partner Celia, we rode the principal 220km route, L’Ardéchoise, which visits the Gerbier de Jonc, source of the River Loire. We chose the tourist option and had time to explore decorated villages, take refreshment breaks, even to swim in mountain streams. On the final day, free refreshments and musical accompaniment from bands, groups and choirs encourage you up the final hills and make it a festive occasion. An active participant throughout the week was 103-yearold Robert Marchand, holder of the world hour record (for his age group) of 26.925km, admittedly set when he was only 102! An eight-year-old was the youngest participant in the 50km L’Ardéchoise des Jeunes, It’s all brilliantly organised. Full details: www.ardechoise.com
SHARE YOUR STORY: Cycle wants your Travellers’ Tales. Write or email the editor – details on page 3 – to find out what’s required. 82 CYC LE AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2 015