Reset search
Tour de France 2011Tour de France 2011
SatelliteEdit route
Posted this on blogger years ago, but got fed-up with faffing around with image hosting and decided to repost here on Find-penguins. Read more
  • 40footprints
  • 4countries
  • 18days
  • 150photos
  • 0videos
  • 3.4kkilometers
  • 1.3kkilometers
  • 549sea miles
  • 948kilometers
  • 30kilometers
  • 6sea miles
Follow Calendar Share Bucket list
Date ascending
  • TravelerTour de France 2011

    The rendevouz

    July 4, 2011 in England ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C

    Today we get together for our next big tour; a ride from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean, timed to co-inside with the Tour de France. The big ride is book-ended by a cruise-ferry voyage and a trip across France by rail, plus a few shorter rides thrown in to take in the sites.

    This should have been a strait forward case of my riding from Bristol to London per #the plan#. Naturally though, the same focus on my planning that saw me commence my last tour after an all night session putting my touring gear together has caused complications... Things started to unravel on Saturday, when I decided to attend the St. Pauls Carnival in Bristol with my friends rather than prepare my gear. My quick stop into the office to tie up loose ends on Monday morning was also hampered by botched engineering works which saw me arrive (and hence leave) considerably later than planned.

    I ended up leaving my house in North Bristol at about 16:10, a shake down ride to Bath (going very gingerly, to test the balance and handling of my fully loaded and towing bike) took until 18:00 #Bath pic# and decided that it was best to catch a train and get there today.

    In the space of that short ride I managed to accidentally find my way onto an unoffical Cross-country mountain biking course. I also got a tack strait in one of my tyres, which is the cycling equivalent of slipping on a banana peel; it happens in cartoons, but I never thought it would actually happen to me.

    All in all things aren't boding too well, but there is a promise of Shepard pie to keep me going to Epsom.    Read more

  • TravelerTour de France 2011

    Bye bye London

    July 5, 2011 in England ⋅ 🌧 18 °C

    Today was a day of working in London, followed by meeting up with our Friend Becky who is leaving for a several year long posting to Australia.

    Princi on Wardour Street in London, does brilliant cake and coffee, and is open til late. The staff there were also what I would describe as properly genteel.Read more

  • TravelerTour de France 2011

    Day 0: Le Prologue

    July 7, 2011 in England ⋅ 🌧 16 °C

    Today we set out from Epsom to Portsmouth, from where we embark properly on our journey.

    ...its fair to say it hasn't gone well. One of our number developed a problem with knees. Of the 65 miles from Epsom to Portsmouth, we managed to ride only around 30 of them. For the last few miles the ailing team member had to be towed (as in with a rope, rather than aerodynamically).

    We shan't get into who towed whom, but Chris's bike is the one at the back in the picture.

    We took a train down to Portsmouth, and stayed at a camp site in the adjoining Southsea.

    Tomorrow we work out our next move.    Read more

  • TravelerTour de France 2011
    Day 1

    Portsmouth and le départ

    July 8, 2011 in England ⋅ 🌧 16 °C

    It seems Chris's knees developed a problem due to the weight of his touring bike, so retiring was the right thing to do. He may join me later in the journey by plane.

    When we tried to work out what needed to swap back and forth between bikes, there were only a handful of items that needed to transfer (as I most of the shared gear was on the trailer). It seems odd that I still need almost every thing now that its just me & Duck, but essentially everything is scaled to two people: bigger tent, bigger pots etc, so being as I can't shrink them I'm stuck with the extra weight.

    Being the big, tough touring cyclists that we are... we spent much of the morning skulking in our tent away from the rain, and substantial sea winds. Even so, before we parted ways at the International Port, we did a fair amount of mucking about in Southsea and Portsmouth.

    We visited the D-Day museum in Southsea and had a close look at their tank displays. As we rode along towards Portsmouth, the three-wheel bike articulated over speed bumps in a very satisfying way. The strong winds, and large windage of the touring bikes almost knocked me over a few times.

    We saw the hovercraft to Ryde set off - passenger hovercraft service are a pretty rare thing. Sadly we were ejected from the historic dockyard, which was fun. They had apparently sussed our plan to short cut the ferry crossing by commandeering a ship of the fleet... or possibly they have a no bikes policy.    Read more

  • TravelerTour de France 2011
    Day 1–2

    The Voyage'

    July 8, 2011, Celtic Sea ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

    Shortly after I bid Chris so-long at the International Ferry port I joined the ship. Having staggered up to my cabin (Deck 8, starboard side towards the bows) with all of my touring gear, save the bike and tent we set off for Spain.

    The scale of the ship warps the perception of speed, the vessel appears to lumber forward, but my GPS reports that we are making headway at around 30mph (very fast for a big ship). Stood out on the deck, near the bow of the ship, the wind is fierce (I was seriously worried it was going to blow my tripod and camera overboard) and I can better apprehend our speed of travel.

    By night fall my GPS showed our position as being in the English Channel, directly south of Exmouth and North of Perros-Guirec in France. The sky had become overcast, which was disappointing as I had hoped for a brilliant star-field, being so far out from shore (and hence light pollution).

    Although the stars weren't out, the lights of other vessels in the busy shipping lane of the English channel could be seen across the horizon. I was woken in the night by one particularly pronounced roll of the ship, but I've fortunately experienced no sea sickness or the like.

    By the time I rose, we had passed Brest and were off Nantes in the Bay-of-Biscay. Around noon I caught my first sight of wild dolphins, playing in the wake of the ship. A guide from the Orca association assured us that we were yet to enter prime Whale and dolphin spotting territory, which begins about 3 hours out from Bilbao, but I saw only a handful more (and none close enough to be properly photographed).

    The rest of the afternoon was occupied with watching for whale and dolphin and reading on the deck (Jules Verne's "Around the World in 80 days") and generally attempting the pretense of being rather more civilized than I consider my self to be.

    I've long been fond of slightly archaic modes of travel, and a day long sea voyage to Spain well into the era of jet travel would certainly seem to count.

    My impression of the cruise-ferry is that it is an elegant mode of travel; it allows a traveler to attain a state of repose beyond the reach of those traveling by air. It certainly suits me down to the ground. Two of my failings when it comes to holidaying are that I hate to wait and I'm not very good at just relaxing. The cruise ferry seems to be a good solution to this problem, as I'm making progress whilst relaxing.

    I've a cabin, there is a cafe', restaurant and bars, amongst other facilities, so the effect is like chilling in a hotel, but I'm actually making headway. The engines produce a gentle thrum. The swell causes a rocking of the ship, barely perceptible whist sat, but quite noticeable when walking the deck.

    The fittings in my cabbin make a quite, slightly forlorn creaking as the ship pitches, which I imagine to be not far off the sounds that the timbers of a sailing schooner, or man-of-war might have made were I making this voyage 200 years ago. Altogether I find it quite therapeutic, as it reminds me that I'm on my journey.

    The sea wall protecting the harbor at Bilbao are topped with wind turbines; they were my first close-up view of Spain seen from the porthole of my cabin on the Cap Finestre as I packed my gear.    Read more

  • TravelerTour de France 2011
    Day 2

    Bilbao

    July 9, 2011 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    Once I disembarked from the ship, things got rather more sketchy. Navigating out of Bilbao was difficult to say the least (my electronic mapping pulling the old trick of showing non-existent roads). I believe I made an unintended and (as is always the case when riding a three wheeled bike) all too conspicuous visit to the red-light district.

    On the plus side I did get a few cheers of "Wales" on account of my flag, and a filthy look from a gentleman driving a mini with a St George cross on the roof.

    In the end I wound up taking an inland route rather than the coastal one I had indented. Consequently come 23:00 I had encountered no camp sites, and not wishing to continue in the dark I propped my self up against the bike on a back-road and had a snooze.    Read more

  • TravelerTour de France 2011
    Day 3

    The Biscay Coast

    July 10, 2011 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    About 2 in the morning it started to rain a nasty drizzle. I packed away my sleeping bag, as being down-style its ability to insulate is seriously compromised by getting wet. I pulled out my tarpaulin and hid under there until first light at around 06:30. It was also around this point that I found a lot of the water I was carrying was no good, I had forgotten to change it after the ferry crossing and having been treated with SIS powder, it was fermenting.

    Undeterred I got an early start, but even with the rain and the cool morning the effort of hauling my heavy bike up the inclines had me sweating a lot, and I was becoming seriously dehydrated. Early on a Sunday everything was closed, so my food was dwindling too. Needless to say being dehydrated and on the cusp of "the bonk" whilst dragging your touring bike about in the rain is not the most pleasant way to spend a morning.

    I struggled on and was rewarded with my first ever "arrriba!" when passing through a small village. The good feeling was short lived though, as shortly after I sustained my second puncture of the trip. Being aware that it was Sunday, I elected to patch rather than replace; I generally don't trust patches, but its something I really should be able to do.

    Later in the morning I came upon a public stand pipe atop a mountain pass, and began to feel much better for having had a drink. I was even able to keep up a decent speed despite challenging 7 and 8% climbs.

    When I rejoined the coast, I found the road to be high and meandering over some of the head-lands, but after the difficult climb I was rewarded with a very long coast back down to... the coast. I greatly amused the locals strolling along the beach by slipstreaming some Lycra-clad roadies on my fully laden (and towing) touring bike.

    Met a few interesting characters. So far today I've conversed with people from the Netherlands, California, Belgium and (oddly enough) Spain. By noon I had traveled some 80Km, a good morning's riding considering the issues (and gradients).

    A family of American tourists took some pictures of me as I climbed the hill from the village; they seemed to think I was going quite fast. When I stopped at the parking bay where they were, they were kind enough to do one with my camera.

    A young man from California that I met was taking a small plastic Owl around the world, and photographing it in locations, to prove he had been there... ridiculous, has to be a duck.

    The flat coastal road I had planned to use, it had some quite pretty little islands rising out of the sea. As soon as I saw this I started day dreaming about Darnasus, rising out of the sea and other fictional locations. Luckily I was slip streaming the roadies at this point, so just needing to follow the wheel in front it was Ok for my mind to wander a little.

    The riding today was far tougher than I had envisaged, regular 7 and 8% gradients and the weather and supply situation has also been unfavorable. Even so I've covered 140km since Bilbao, nearly half the distance to Lourds, with a civilized 18:45 finish to the days riding and two days in hand to make the remainder of the distance.    Read more

  • TravelerTour de France 2011
    Day 4

    Camping Oliden

    July 11, 2011 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    After the first part of my ride was so unexpectedly challenging, I slept in until nearly 10:00, and didn't break camp until 11:00. I woke to my first sight of blue skies since the English channel. Oddly, this had me worried as the heat can be punishing on a trip like this, but given the choice of sun or rain, sun is probably preferred.Read more

  • TravelerTour de France 2011
    Day 4

    Saint-Jean-De-Luz, Welcome to France.

    July 11, 2011 in France ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

    So far today I rode up the coast calling at Irun, crossing the Franco-Spanish border at Urrugne, Saint-Jean-De-Luz.

    The Franco-Spanish border; I was quite disappointed that there was so little fan-fare about it. Not even a sign, the border is denoted by the river.Read more

  • TravelerTour de France 2011
    Day 4

    Biarritz

    July 11, 2011 in France ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C

    Biarritz is last point where I will touch the Bay-of-Biscay's shore, so is the start of the coast-to-coast challenge portion of my ride.

    The locals have been quite interested in my journey, and I've furnished a lot of questions about my route and, the "extrawheel". On the topic of the extra wheel, its working out really well; I'm not having to wince quite as much each time I hit a bump as would were all the weight on the bike, and in most circumstances the handling is a significant improvement vs having using only the pannier frames of the bike.

    Having stopped for a photo and a drink (I dispensed with the swim, on account of not wishing to leave my bike unattended) I set out for Pau, taking a northerly route via Dax (no prizes for guessing why I picked that as a calling point).    Read more

  • 2024© FindPenguins
  • Home
  • About us
  • Blog
  • Group Tracking
  • Press
  • Terms
  • Privacy Policy & Cookies
  • Support
  • Legal notice
  • English