Day 11 - a Sean Kelly ride



10th April 2018

Sean Kelly is an Irish cyclist who dominated the early season Belgian "classics" in the eighties.  The worse the weather the better Sean did.  Rain, hail, sleet and wind were his friends.  He was one of professional cycling's hard men and if he had pulled open one of Ivan's blinds this morning he would definitely have had a smile on his face.  It was wet, very wet, and brass monkey cold.  Now I am definitely not in the Sean Kelly mould, I'm a cycling softie.  So, we concocted a plan to meet up half way along the planned ride to consider bailing out and taking refuge in a near by campsite.

As it happened, there was a nice tail wind to push me along, the road was smooth, fairly flat and very quiet.  After 50 miles there was Ivan, a sight to treasure.  Feet warmed by the hot air heating, cheese and choriza baguette, cup of steaming coffee and a complete change of clothing.  That and the fact that the rain stopped at the same time and the sun started to peep out meant I could act the hard man and chose to continue the ride to our original destination, a place in the middle of no where called Ampudia, a medieval village with an impressive castle and for us, campervan parking.

So the star of the day was Ivan along with his attendant, Mrs B who has also just happened to find a very fancy restaurant in the village which will be this evening's destination.

We are now parked up looking across to a castle and a church.  Not a bad spot.at all.





Comments

  1. Unknown10 April 2018 at 14:41

    Another good day in the saddle, Martin, well done for pushing on in poor weather. I'm sure you'll get the benefit of the sun soon.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rachel13 April 2018 at 14:30

    Really enjoyed this post, pops x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Martin Bradley14 April 2018 at 00:01

      Thanks Rach. I'm looking forward to writing about an Eddy Merckx day

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 67 - Rain, wind, hail and sunshine all at the same time

Image
Click here for details of today's ride on Strava 5th June 2018 Today was another of those days when I really didn't feel like going out on the bike.  It might have had something to do with the bone chilling wind, rain and hail.  The forecast suggested an improvement but by 10.00am things couldn't be delayed any longer.  As I've often found, rides you don't want to start often end up being the best!  There were showers but plenty of clear spells, much more of the scenery was visible and Mrs B and Ivan once again hosted the coffee stops - marvellous! Lofoten is really a peninsular and a chain of islands joined by bridges.  It is crammed with dramatic craggy peaks, glacial valleys and lakes.  Every bend in the road brings up another breath taking view, despite the amount of low cloud still present today. Today's ride featured my longest tunnel to date, 6.4km.  Hall of the Mountain King from the Peer Gynt Suite was to
Read more

Day 75 - Repvag, feels like the world's end

Image
Click here for details of today's ride on Strava 13th June 2018 Today we said farewell to the E6 which we have been following for most of our route since leaving Lofoten.  The further north the road goes the narrower and quieter it becomes.  It traces a superb route through the fjords and mountains of the far north west and it has been a joy to ride.  We are now on the E69 which takes us all the way to Nordkapp. The start of today's ride continued to take us along bleak, high moorland until descending to Olderfjord where we joined the E69.  What a magnificent stretch of road, carved into the hillside adjacent to the sea.  You have to hand it to the Norwegians, they are master road builders, tunnellers and excavators.  Wintry showers continued but with increasingly long spells of sunshine.  At one point, as I was battling a crosswind, a cyclist came around the corner waving his arms around.  I thought it was a little foolhardy to be riding no-handed in the
Read more

Day 62 - Across the Arctic Circle! Tortenkota

Image
No Strava link today because my Garmin cycle computer crashed with 1km to go. 31st May 2018 A short ride of 46 miles today owing to ferry timetables.  Started with 26 miles of the usual stuff - fjord, snow topped jagged mountains, tumbling streams, pretty wooden cabins and so on.  Then onto the Kilboghamn to Jektvik ferry which took us across the arctic circle.  Another 20 miles then took us to another ferry for a short crossing to Furoy.  Norway is very careless with it's scenic attractions, leaving them scattered all over the place. A simple sign suggested that, along the small track, a place called Tortenkota might be worth investigating.  Tortenkota turns out to be the lower slopes of a snow laden mountain.  The rock is a form of gritstone interspersed with patches of vegetation.  The melt water from higher up runs down in streams and cataracts forming rock pools.  We could have spent all day wandering this hillside but had a ferry to catch.   Mor
Read more