Saint Helier

The members of the Ghostriders 2017 cycling team transferred from Jersey to Guernsey this morning. Our initial impressions of St Peter Port (the main city of Guernsey) were immediately much more favourable than our impressions of St Helier in Jersey. There are a significant number of serious climbs on this island and I think that we managed to find each and every one of them in today's ride.

At the start of the ride Dave Yates complained that his rental bike had the brakes jammed on. John, Bob and David then wasted about 20 minutes trying to adjust them before David finally spat the dummy and rode back to get a replacement bike. While he was returning to get the second bike I discovered that my bike had developed the same problem. When I investigated further I found that the cable ties that I had used to attach my GPS had jammed the brake cable. Since David had the same type of GPS mount, I suspected that I now knew what had really happened to his bike.

When we rejoined David he complained that the replacement bike had the same problem as the first one. I had to break the news about the GPS mount. He was not impressed and ripped the cable ties from the bike. Problem solved.

We were surprised at the level of traffic on this small island of only 60,000 people. On some of the roads the traffic was continuous and the intersections were in gridlock. This made some sections of the ride quite scary, but we all survived and were able to meander along some quieter side streets wherever possible.

Lunch was at a lovely tea rooms at the top of a cliff overlooking the ocean. On a stormy day this would be a spectacular sight, but today there was barely a ripple to be seen. Tomorrow we will be taking a side trip to the little island of Sark. We will not have to worry about the traffic there as cars and trucks are not allowed on the island.Read more