Ride Roundup

This was the end of the serious cycling portion of my trip. My sat nav reports I have traveled 805Km from Bilbao to Montpellier. This is compared to 675Km for the shortest route, or 737Km for my planned route; the extra is accounted for mostly by the 68Km addition of the Beziers to Montpellier section, in lew of a rail journey to Millau.

I'm pleased to have crossed France coast-to-coast by bike, but having lost my duck I consider the trip to be something of a failure.

The tally of damage and injury looks quite good...

I've collected only one persistent injury (if you can call it that), which is that I've done something to the nerves of my left hand from long days holding the handle bars, and I now have fairly constant "pins and needles". I had foreseen this, and was the principal reason for the addition of the aero-bars. Unfortunately the issues with my front tyre loosing pressure had prevented me making significant use of this on the days where it would have been appropriate. Early on balance was also a problem (getting used to the weight of the bike, but by this point I can actually execute a reasonable track-stand, trailer 'n' all).

In terms of the bike (aside from the puncture issue, which will be easily remedied by reinstalling my anti-puncture strip), the bottom bracket is complaining quite loudly at the loads and distance it has been asked to deal with. The bike is otherwise in good shape.

In more general terms, I seem to have dropped a bit of body fat (which I didn't consider my self to be over burdened with in the first place), and possibly enlarged my thighs slightly.

I also have a wonderful case of cyclists tan, with jersey, short and mitt lines; a possibly related phenomenon is that I have at many points been thought by the French to come from Spain. I taken to the view that the tan has caused me to look just like Russel Crowe in his role as Maximus-desimus "the Spaniard" Beridius in the film Gladiator, and this is source of assumptions about my Spanish origin.

I have with me almost exactly the gear that I would have had for both Chris and me: a two man tent, two persons worth of cook ware etc. The only gear I dropped at Portsmouth when it became apparent that Chris would not be joining me was a mug, a spoon and a fork. Of our "shared" gear only the spare tyre, and the all-purpose soap were on Chris's bike (both of which I have missed).

Further, given that I was going with someone whom generally prefers a slightly slower pace than I tend to set when touring, hence I quite deliberately packed some more eccentric items, which add weight and bulk which should (and indeed did) slow me down quite a bit.Read more