What a trip.

Ending rather hilariously when, for an entire day last Friday, we were following what I thought was the correct Ride-With-GPS routing, only to discover after 135km (!) that we were heading for Amsterdam instead of the ferry in Hoek of Holland.

A rapid shift of planning ensued, with an unscheduled overnight in Dutch Woerden and a rather nice bonus the following day of transit through Delft, whither we absolutely will return to explore Vermeer’s legacy properly.

See map showing us heading resolutely north until we veer sharply West… And below a view of Daisy’s heavily-laden back end on Delft’s main square, with and without (thanks to Pixel magic editing) cars and people.

We’d originally intended to stay away for up to 10 weeks. Grandchildren and a sense of having done France well drew us back early, sadly missing out old friends like John in St Cyprien and Bob in Geneva but with the very good fortune of kind, dry weather pretty much all the way round, often with a following wind.

Jutta shed three kilos and I seven (!). In just six weeks. Bonkers. Even this late in life, long-distance cycling is a seriously effective way of getting both fit and trim while eating as much as you want. Which in France is of course a particular pleasure.

True, we did have help from our retrofitted Pendix electric motor (enormously to be recommended) with its three heavy batteries, delivering what one rider we met said was the equivalent muscle power of a full-blown Olympic cyclist.

Until they run out, that is, which with our weight was usually after around 50-60 km each.

But on an eBike we found another fellow rider’s comment well substantiated that one works just as hard as one does on what’s sometimes called an acoustic bike (think Bob Dylan and his switching to electric in the 60s…), the difference being that one is now able to travel further without what can be the misery of long hills and hours of headwind.

France is the most amazing country in which to cycle. We’ll be back, to enjoy again its canal-side and converted railway paths, taking us this time through the base of Brittany, across Languedoc in the south and pretty much all the back way up from Provence through Jutta’s grandparental homelands in the Alsace and on through Luxembourg, Germany, Belgium and then the Netherlands.

So fit were we towards the end, in fact, that we were comfortably doing 160-km/100-mile days, setting our own personal distance record on the last day of the ride, Saturday June 29, with 185 km/115 miles all the way from the ferry port in Harwich to our Sheringham home on the North Sea coast.

With France in the throes of a dramatic electoral shift to the right, and returning to a UK where the Conservatives with luck will get their richly-deserved wipe-out in this week’s general election (Brexit being an unforgiveable self-injury), there’s much that could be observed from our time on the road about the state of the world and the psychology now driving that rightward shift.

Perhaps for another post, not linked to cycling, other than to lament that in our getting-towards-the-end-of-the-road route planning for the future, we’re – or at least, I Mark am – seriously sad at not being able to do a longer ride through Russia.

We’re thinking of Northern Italy next year, and I’m eyeing a long solo through the Caucasus to Teheran, as well as down through China at last, doing the trip that I had to crash out of in 2012.

Cycle now while stocks last, with a final thought.

This June marked 50 years since Jutta and I met in Moscow in 1974. Quite an anniversary.

Our tandem journeys continue to be an appropriate metaphor for the rewarding partnership we’ve found ourselves enjoying – having explored of course all the available alternatives, including 13 years divorced, and noting that all that time ago in 74-76 it was a couple of years before our complex relational journey really got going.

We hope friends have enjoyed the photos and the occasional thoughts, and wish all well as we sail on ever closer to the sunset.

Voies Vertes through the Eiffel/Ardennes
Typical French town buildings – really rather neglected, and a dramatic contrast to….
…Germany, here viewed neat, white and tidy from across the river in Luxembourg
Yes, Schengen of visa fame – a tiny village right on the Franco-German-Luxembourg border.
Church embedded in the vineyards of the Mosel/Moselle
We’d initially intended to go to the real Champagne with its bubbly, but cutting north through Eastern France, this one had to do.
Easy borders – though noting how the Flemish really don’t like the Walloons or even the word Belgique as opposite to Belgien, and vice versa.
A typical tandem lunch al fresco. Delicious.
The breathtaking Aachen cathedral, built in the 9th century and where Charlemagne and other Holy Roman Kings and Kaisers were crowned through the centuries.
We crossed some spectacular bridges, here near the end in the Netherlands
And enjoyed some magnificent windmills, this one in Woerden
Great Crested Grebe and her chicks
I told Jutta that we would see English cricket as we pedalled home on Saturday. We did! Though missed the warm beer.
England’s hopeless cycle tracks.

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2 Responses to “Daisy’s home, 4000km and 45 days later, in best form and her riders a LOT fitter”

  1. Marcus Bennison

    …in its small way, epic! Congratulations! Travel outward is inevitably inward.