The Bike

Yesterday I saw it.

"Saw what?", I hear you ask.

It! It! In the flesh (can steel be fleshy?), beautifully crafted: the one, the only ... The Condor Fratello.

Nige and I made a pilgrimage of sorts, to Grays Inn Road in London, with empty pockets and open hearts, to take a look at all the bikes. After our weekend away in Kent, during which time we cycled 50 miles on our mountain bikes, I think we have both realized that what we need, and what we want, is a road bike to call our own. Mountain bikes were not designed to be ridden on roads! It's pretty elementary, my dear Watson.

Couple this realization with:
- numerous discussions about cycling holidays (Italy! France! England!)
- our ill-fated Lands End to John O'Groats trip, still very much a plan in my mind
- a yearning desire to get away from it all (possibly even for quite a long time)
- a vision board with a picture of the oh so slick and oh so classy Fratello bicycle,
and what you're left with is two cyclists in desperate need of a BLE (Bike Loving Expedition).

And that is exactly what we went off to do!

Nige had found the Fratello, a classically designed yet high quality road/audax bike (what exactly does audax mean again?!) that is simply quite mouth-watering to look at, on the internet. For a while, he had a picture of it as a screensaver. Then a printed photo found its way onto his wall. And at some point over the last couple of weeks, I knew that I for one wanted to go and see it, to establish whether this was a pipe dream, to investigate the build of the bike and whether it is right for our needs.

Great minds really must think alike, because when I asked him if he wanted to go on Saturday, after doing some flyering at the local Farmer's Market for our 70s and 80s club night (which, by the way, is a great night - plug plug), he immediately said that he'd been thinking the same thing. As we walked down Grays Inn Road, we were like little children who were heading to the seaside for the day and were dying to see the glint of sunshine of the waves for the first time. We walked and walked, and still there was no bike shop. We talked about the possibility that the shop might not exist, or that it might be closed. And then we saw.... a Condor Fratello! A man, walking down the road towards us, heralding that we were nearly there, nearly, nearly there.

Once in the shop itself, we did a quick walkabout until we found what we were looking for. There they were, all shiny and perfect. We bowed down and kissed the ground the bikes had rolled over.

We were looked after in the shop by a 22 year old guy called Sammy, who knew his stuff and whose customer service was second to none. He knew that we wouldn't be buying yesterday, but also that we would definitely be investing at some point in the future. He talked us through the Fratello's features and its potential rival for our affections and possession, The Condor Heritage.

The Heritage is another beautiful bike that was designed "with the serious cyclotourist in mind". It is described as a "mile-eater", and is versatile enough that it can be used for long distance commutes. Where it falls down is that it isn't quite as nice a ride for shorter day rides (apparently). Despite its appeal for round the world riding potential (the Heritage can take front panniers where the Fratello can't), it became apparent that both myself and Nige were drawn to the Fratello.

Nige was particularly taken by the bright orange version on the wall, whereas I was more attracted to the plum or the grey one. Perhaps, I thought, I'll even choose a different colour and have it custom sprayed for an extra hundred quid.

One thing is for sure though: this bike is stunning, and classy, and definitely worth the £1,500 or so that it will cost. The awesome thing about Condor bicycles is that you pay a fixed amount for the frame (in this case, £549.99) and then build the rest of the bike according to you.

For me, going to look at the Fratello was an important step towards the LEJOG journey and the more general dream of going touring on my bike.

I've just read a beautiful quote:

"The major difference between great dreams that go up in a puff of smoke and great dreams that come into being is one simple thing: action."

(Movement Medicine by Susannah and Ya'Acov Darling Khan)

We're going to start saving at the end of this month. I've got a rough quote from Sammy on a piece of paper with all the different parts of the bike and how much each one costs, and I am going to approach this saving exercise piece by piece, for purposes of morale and a psychological sense of achievement. I think it's going to be great to celebrate each part of the bike that I can now afford, from the frame itself to the group set, to the wheels, to the finishing kit, to the gears... I may even make a chart. My inner child loves that idea!

So watch this space... and any donations gratefully received!!

And if you believed that we bowed down and kissed the ground the Fratello had touched, you are sadly misled.

I love bikes but I do not kiss the ground unless I am doing a sweat lodge.

Until next time, keeeeeeeep riding!

Cruising the Garden of England

Last weekend, Nige and I loaded up Winston, Nige's not-quite-vintage Honda Civic, with bikes, bike clothing and of course, ourselves, and drove to a lovely B&B on the border of East Sussex and Kent. We'd told friends and family that we were going away, but kept referring to it as "going away to Rye for the weekend". In the end, we only stopped in Rye on the way home to buy fish and chips (and mushy peas, of course)!

We were bowled over and immersed in every sense by the beauty of the Kent countryside, and spent the best part of two days riding around there. Going into a town didn't turn out to be on either of our agendas.

I was gloriously surprised by Kent, and had never quite managed to understand why it's referred to as the 'Garden of England'. In truth (and I don't intend to offend anyone from Kent!), I suppose I thought it was called that as a kind of euphemism, softening the blow of it not really having anything to offer. In actual fact, it's a place full of curiosities and rich experiences just waiting to happen, and I would love to return there.

We learned, as we were visiting a remote and very beautiful little church in the middle of a marsh, that Romney Marsh is actually four marshes. Poor other three marshes! They don't get any recognition. Can a marsh have an identity crisis, I wonder?

As we rode and indeed even drove around, we kept coming across these strange looking conical roofs with white, wooden tips, often with a strange opening and a kind of lever pointing out of them at a 90 degree angle. I found out that these buildings were all Oast Houses, and that the roofs were specifically designed to dry out hops in order to make beer. It turns out that the South East is the home of beer brewing!

One of the sights that really surprised me was that of stunningly white swans sitting at the edge of these huge, vibrantly green rapeseed fields, next to the Military Canal. (Thanks Nige for taking the photos!) It was such an unusual sight, which sadly this picture doesn't quite capture because you can't see the blueness of the sky - a gleaming white bird highlighted against the emerald green of the field, suspended underneath a stunningly clear blue sky - and of course, it also made sense. Swans + water = no brainer.

These swans were probably cruising down the canal when they came across a nice spot for a bit of sunbathing. So out they'd get, giving themselves a shake, and they'd spend a portion of the day lounging around. I've seen a lot of swans recently, and yesterday I saw a puppy in a river paddling alongside a swan! They were just hanging out, and the pup wasn't listening to its owners whistles and calls. No no no - it had made a new friend. Two groups of people had stopped in their tracks to witness this rather bizarre partnership. I smiled and cycled on, grateful for the opportunity to see life at bike speed.

We had been advised to go and see this beautiful church, which stood in the middle of a field. The key was huge, almost other-worldly, hanging in the garden of a nearby house. Inside the church, the pews were arranged into white box shaped sections. We learned that the church had been like this since its inception, and that in days of old, worshippers would pay for the best seats. It was astonishingly clear evidence of the church's relationship with power, money and prestige. Quite a sight.

We also kept seeing strange buildings and monuments (some of which were quite phallic!); along the canal on the way to Appledore, there were a couple of what Nige said were shooting outposts. Being in "1066 Country" is quite mindblowing when you start to picture the battle that took place right there on that land. Being so close to Hastings made the whole thing feel more tangible and awesome and awful, all at once. These things happened, right here on this land! While I'm not like my sister Daisy, who's off to Oxford University in October to read History, the reality of the historical events felt both relevant and simultaneously irrelevant over the weekend.

On Saturday, we cycled 20.8 miles and on Sunday, 33.7, giving a grand total of 54.5 miles, certainly the furthest I've ridden in a two day period. We took it really gently though, and in contrast to Sussex, Kent is extremely flat, with literally one sloping hill to clim near the farm we were staying at. My legs turned all weekend, but didn't ache on Monday morning.

Upon arriving and returning to Cliff Farm, Pat, the owner, made us a lovely pot of tea. I love the ritual of stopping for a pot of tea. It's one of my life's simple pleasures.

Saturday night was very interesting indeed. We went to a gastropub called the Ferry for a delicious supper of steak and ale pie (Nige) and liver and bacon (me), and when we got back to the B&B, an alcohol fuelled gathering was in full swing. The long and short of it is that the owners had four friends over for the evening; the alcohol flowed; the voices raised and sounded like they were in the bedroom with us; the smells slipped effortlessly through the wooden floorboards until we were ensconced in their fumes. I went downstairs at midnight, thoroughly pissed off that our quiet weekend away was being disturbed.

This had happened in Glastonbury, when we'd managed to stay in the noisiest B&B ever - a strange squelching sound emitted from the bathroom at ungodly hours of the night, preventing us from getting to sleep. Here, 9 months later, the same thing was happening again. What was it for?! Taking a deep breath, I spoke to the owners and expressed my disappointment, and initially, things were tense. For a while, it looked like we were going to leave on unfriendly terms, which I'm not at all comfortable with. I wanted to see their innocence, and yet it was important for me to express my disappointment too, simply as a paying customer.

The next day, we learned that it had indeed been a celebration. For six years, Pat and her husband had been living directly opposite the neighbours from hell. The neighbours were intimidating to guests. They had CCTV cameras pointing onto the farm. They were rude and unfriendly. They set their dogs out when guests were loading and unloading their cars. And they had just moved out.

No wonder they were celebrating.

Pat kindly gave us a dozen eggs as a peace offering, and I felt so grateful that we'd been given a window of insight into her life. I can honestly say that I would definitely stay there again. If you'd have asked me that in the middle of the night, when I only had our side of the story to go on, I would have said no way!

On Sunday, we rode to Dungeness. En route, we had a fairly intense yet quickly dealt with crisis. To read the ins and outs of this, see my other blog. To summarise, we rode into Dungeness as friends rather than enemies.

Friends again!

Dungeness was cool! It's a bit of a wasteland, situated right in the South East corner of England.

 Little huts and shacks populate the shingly, inhospitable land, and Derek Jarman's house stands like a square bumblebee right in the middle of it. His garden is amazing, and if you've not seen the film he made, I can't recommend it (having not seen it myself), but I can say that Nige would recommend it! The next door neighbours had clearly taken inspiration from him, and had made a lot of 'art' in their garden too, but it wasn't, um, quite as stylish or of the same calibre. I can see the appeal of living there. I imagine it's a place full of arty, solitary types. It'd be a great place to hole up if you were working on a creative project that required one to go deeply into the core of one's being, isolated from society, alone with your thoughts and only the crash of the waves to keep you company. It's not quite the life for me though.

After our ride, after the marshes and the tension and the giggles and the sheep and the food and the tea breaks (50p doughnuts in Dymchurch went down a treat!), we ate our fish and chips in a layby as the sun set, both thoroughly satisfied with the weekend, both slightly sad to have to return home. And then we got a Mars Bar each. I swear to God, I have never seen anyone gobble down a Mars quite as quickly as Mr. Atkinson did that evening.

Here is the photographic evidence:

gobble... gobble... gobble...

Yum yum. Thanks for reading.

x

... Welcome back to Blogland ...

I'm back! I've decided that despite now not riding LEJOG, I still have a right to write.

Ah, British Summertime... a time of long days... long delays... and lots and lots of rain.

Today, for example, it has been grey, blue, sunny, rainy, and even hail-y (if that's a word). Today I have not been out on the bike, but Nige and I went out together about a week ago, and because, at 13 miles, I decided that we ought to turn right instead of going straight on, we ended up drenched, caught unexpectedly in a proper , movie-esque storm, hailstones falling onto my eyeballs and rain soaking through three layers of bike clothing through to my skin. As we rode, a sheet of lightning lit up the suddenly darkened sky, and the explosion of thunder scared me half to death. I screamed a bloodcurdling scream as we pedalled along, terrified, exhilarated, and above all, alive! My cheeks ached as I beamed from ear to ear. We are so intent on avoiding getting wet in this country, our golf umbrellas fighting for dominance on the narrow streets. It was such a relief to simply let myself be a soaking wet human riding along in the rain behind my riding buddy and best friend.

Riding a few times through winter has been pretty harsh on my poor Gary Fisher mountain bike, and there is rust appearing on the bike that I haven't even finished paying for yet. I welcome the arrival of spring, with its promise - however unfulfilled - of sunshine and warm days. Nige and I are planning whole days out on the bike, about which I'm becoming ever more excited. For the first time in months, I wore my fingerless gloves the other day when I went out riding, as well as my cropped riding trousers instead of my heavy duty leggings. I was also somewhat thrilled to discover that my cropped pants are now hanging off me, just a few months after taking up cycling. It seems that riding once or twice a week has caused the extra weight I've been carrying for a while to practically fall off me, with little effort on my part excepting that which I've exerted during hill climbs and the occasional sprint. It's a joy to be able to eat cake guilt free!

My body feels stronger, too, particularly my legs. In short, I love cycling! I would love to go on a proper bike tour with Nige. I've just finished reading "Lance Armstrong: Tour de Force", by Daniel Coyle, hailed as "the best Armstrong book ever written". I've read Armstong's books "It's Not About the Bike" and "Every Second Counts", and while "It's Not About the Bike" was truly inspirational in terms of his journey with cancer and the first Tour he won, I'd have to agree and say that this book is a fascinating insight into Armstrong from an outside perspective, as well as being a brilliant read about cycling as a competitive sport and the Tour de France. One day, I'd love to go and watch the Tour, even if just to see the peleton whirr past in a blur.

Nige has lent me a book by a lady called Anne Mustoe. The book, "A Bike Ride: 12,000 miles around the world" tells of her adventure, quitting her job aged 54 and cycling round the world, unable in the beginning to even change a punctured tyre (there is hope!). Sadly, I think she has passed away (from cancer, incidentally), but I'm thoroughly looking forward to getting into her tale.

I've also been watching "The Man who Cycled the Americas" on BBC iplayer. Mark Beaumont is from Scotland and, having realised that cycling round the world was not enough of a challenge for him, embarked on an adventure, cycling from Alaska to Argentina andclimbing both North and South America's highest mountains while he was at it! I am not a fan of the telly in general, although I can get as sucked into it's brain numbing glow as the next person, but this, oh this is good TV. Good TV should inspire the watcher to go into the world and live, and this is definitely what this show has done for me. The third part of it is on this coming week...

Since buying a bike (and setting up a 12 month payment plan - thank you Evans!), cycling has become an ever-increasing part of my life. I love the freedom it has given me, the way of life it has opened to me, and the endless possibilities for adventure it presents. It's been a brilliant anchor in my relationship with Nige, too, providing us with shared experiences, laughs and goals. I wonder where the bike will take me this year...?

In which humble pie is dish of the day

Waiter: Good afternoon madam. May I take your order?

Customer: Yes, thank you. Could I have a double portion of humble pie, please?

Waiter: Certainly. Excellent choice, excellent choice madam.

The topic today is humble pie. I have to say, it is my least favourite kind of pie, but probably the best one for me. Give me a slice of pecan pie, cherry pie or even a savoury chicken pie any day of the week. But not humble pie! It's bad for the pride. But very good for the heart.

The reason I am eating a large portion of humble pie today is that, for a host of reasons, Nige and I have jointly agreed to postpone our LEJOG adventure. We both received a call from Dave Richards, one of Nige's dearest friends and an incredible cyclist who won race after race in his day. He expressed a number of concerns to us, and I at least fell to earth with a bump. Luckily, only my ego is bruised.

Here is the uncomfortable reality:

1. May 24th is a very short time away indeed (a good thing! Long days, balmy nights, shine of the sun). With the weather as it currently is:

we are not able to train.

2. If the weather miraculously cleared up in the next day or two, we would need to begin cycling 30 miles twice a week and 60 miles once a week. To date, I haven't even cycled more than 30 miles in one session. It would be a harsh adjustment, but a necessary one, and I'm not sure I want to punish myself for the sake of proving that I can do it.

3. Needless to point out, I am extremely inexperienced - as a cyclist! There are of course a great many areas in which I have a wealth of experience to draw upon. Such as drinking tea, for example. Or eating cake. Or sleeping. None of which will really help me when I'm faced with a 70 mile bike ride in the pouring rain, other than that they may provide some much-needed motivation.

4. Nige, too, is fairly inexperienced; even though he has done much longer bike rides, he has not ever done a tour on this scale before. He has a wealth of experience with training for bodybuilding, and is one of the most determined and focussed people I know. He could probably grit his teeth and get on with it. However...

5. Neither of us has an appropriate bike for LEJOG. We're both on mountain bikes. Does anyone want to buy a couple of Condor bikes for us?! I think we're both aware that we'd better get saving.

6. The lack of experience is not simply to do with the distance we're covering. It's to do with posture, positioning on the bike, hill climbing, pace, riding in the slipstream of the person in front of you, being at the front so that your partner can slipstream behind you, dealing with headwinds (shudder), mental strength.

7. May is not the best time to ride E2E (end to end). I distinctly remember one family holiday in Cornwall throughout which it poured consistently for a week. May? May is even rainier.

8. Funds are low. For both of us. And sadly, with prices as they are, it would probably be cheaper for us to fly to Greece and have a 10 day holiday than it would be for us to cycle from one end of Britain to the other.

9. We were planning to do the ride in 15 days, give or take (probably give). I wouldn't be able to take much more time than that off work, plus we'd need to get to Lands End and return from John O'Groats, both of which would take the best part of a day. Looking at the distance, that would have meant doing at least 70 miles a day, every day, for 2-3 weeks. It's too much, too soon.

10. It's fairly likely one or both of us would get ill from battering our bodies to such an extent. I for one could not really afford to get ill, as it would mean unpaid time off work.

To go from zero to hero in one fell swoop was an unrealistic expectation. Back in October, when we first discussed doing it, May seemed like an age away. Time was on our side, deceiving us with her promise of days, weeks and months to train in. Now, she has once again woven her magic web of deceit over us, and suddenly we're halfway through January, and May is in truth extremely soon. The crux of it is, we are just not ready. A best case scenario would be that we'd have fantastic weather, get on brilliantly, pace ourselves beautifully, have a few really hard days, but would eventually pull into John O'Groats with triumphant air punches and whoops of joy. We could, however, also have such a horrendous time that we (translation of we = probably Elloa) bunk back to Sussex before reaching Bristol. It could ruin our relationship. It could put me off cycling forever.

Dave used the words "tall order" to describe what we were attempting to do. It's just too soon. So we're postponing our trip, until summer 2011, and the meantime are going to do a four day tour from Canterbury to Portsmouth, and will also ride off-road: the South Downs Link, which is 100 miles. In a way, that's almost scarier for me, because even though I own a mountain bike, the only mountains I've climbed have been neatened with tarmac.

As the humble pie goes down into my belly, I am left with a sense of disappointment, some mild embarrassment, and also, bizarrely, some relief. Perhaps I knew on some level that this really was a tall order, and that it would be a gruelling and painful experience, one to be endured rather than enjoyed. Perhaps it would have all been okay. But do you know what? We're still doing it for Jim. We'll cycle through the southern part of this beautiful land, honouring his name, and this time next year, I'll be able to say that I truly am ready to attempt one of the hardest rides people try to do. So many attempt LEJOG and do not make it, and others seem to do it fairly effortlessly. But for these two cyclists at least, the time has come to admit that end to end is simply too much, for now but not for ever. I promise myself one thing: that I will do it.

Thank you for sharing in this very unpredictable journey. May it continue to twist and turn, and may the snow clear so that I can get back on my bike!

Until next time... ttfn, as Tigger would say.