Day 31 - A gritted teeth ride, Jacqui's antics and visitors



30th April 2018

 Today's ride promised to be a pretty grim affair.  Raining heavily, forecast to get colder as the day went on and very strong headwinds reaching gale force in the afternoon.  I wasn't especially cheery over breakfast.  Fortunately out on the road things weren't too bad, the wind wasn't in the worst possible direction and it wasn't raining all the time.  Blocked cycle routes and some dodgy routing added to the entertainment.  



At one point the ride came to a complete dead end where the path came to a river.  Google maps then kindly took me to where it believed there to be a ferry.  Sure enough there was a little jetty and a very shiny, small ferry like boat.  A nautical "Ahoy there" brought up a friendly chap from down below, who urged me to step aboard.  After a  pleasant crossing he declined payment telling me that ferries are free in Belgium.  Shortly after the sun came out!  



On reaching Ivan after 106 miles, dinner was ready and my old school mate, Tony, with his wife, Helen, were there to greet me.  Jacqui popped open a bottle of Cava and all was well with the world.

Talking of Jacqui, her highlight of the day (maybe the whole trip) was chatting to a stark naked foreign gentleman in the ladies shower room.  

Tony and I will be riding together through the Netherlands over the next couple of days and the forecast is improving.

Comments

  1. Unknown30 April 2018 at 14:14

    Another big day, Martin, well done. After this trip, you'll never be phased by any other ride!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Martin Bradley30 April 2018 at 23:17

      Endurance seems pretty good Andrew. Just waiting for those Scandanavian hills!

      Delete
  2. Helen Blake1 May 2018 at 07:38

    Looks like a long cycle today so hopefully Jackie has cool beer and nice food waiting. As well as Tulips from Amsterdam you can also sing Windmill in old Amsterdam as you cycle thro Holland- you know the one about nice with clogs on

    ReplyDelete
  3. Helen Blake1 May 2018 at 07:40

    Mice with clogs on even !

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Problem adding comments?

16th April 2018 We love comments so it is disappointing to hear that some people have struggled to leave them.  The default setting for the blog was to require people to have a Google account.  We have now changed the settings so this is no longer required.  Despite this it seems the process is still quite clunky, especially if you don't have a google account. This is a test page for making comments.  Please have a go, just enter something like "test" or "where on earth is Nordkapp". Of course, if you can't successfully post we won't know just from looking at the blog!!  So, if you have our personal contact details please let us know.  We would be interested to hear if the problem related to posts from phones or not.
Read more

Day 76 - Nordkapp!!!

Image
Click here for details of today's ride on Strava 14th June 2018 Woke to the sunniest, warmest, calmest day for weeks!  Beautiful ride along the coast to the Nordkapp tunnel connecting the mainland to the island of Mageroya.  Then through the 7km tunnel, descending then ascending 230m at 9%.  Finally, a very hilly ride across the island before Norway finally runs out of road and we are here!!!       Here are a few stats for the numerically orientated: - Total distance 4144 miles Total climbing 62394 metres Riding time     275 hours Calories         146989 It has been a fantastic experience and it is going to be difficult to get back to normal living.  There have been so many highlights but, for me, the best part has been the fact that this trip has been a joint effort with Jacqui, we have worked so well together. Thank you to everyone who ...
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 f...
Read more