St Malo to Nice: The recovery ride

-



How did I get here? A year ago I was in a job I loved and in excellent form in terms of my fitness. I was preparing to tackle the annual Chase The Sun ride - 350km (220 miles) starting from Kent’s east coast and ending in Somerset’s west coast. I would end up completing that ride and in a little over 12 hours 40 minutes at an average speed of 27.4kph. 

In the months that followed my fitness took a dip as one planned ride after another was cancelled for various reasons. Covid being a key contributor, but the sudden and shocking diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes for our beautiful 5 year old daughter was somewhat of a game changer. 

And the job? Well, put simply it was a time to forget. My Annus Horribilus which ended up in redundancy after a fairly awful 12 months.

On the bright side, I found myself with 5 long weeks to fill before my new job starts. My amazing wife suggested, no instructed, that I should go away for a while on my bike and clear my head of the unpleasantness of the past year. 

I didn’t need asking twice!

I’d read about Saddle Skedaddle’s St Malo to Nice epic and an idea was born. What an opportunity to get some much needed fitness back into my legs, whilst cleansing the soul. Theoretically the weather should improve day by day as I edge my way ever closer to the Mediterranean.

Being Type 1 diabetic myself will present its own challenges - a good portion of my available pannier space will need to be given over to storing insulin, tablets, needles (56 of the damn things!) as well as a blood glucose sensor and testing kits. Managing my blood sugar levels will also require some effort, particularly since I will be travelling solo although having embarked on other cycling adventures in the past I do at know what to expect. 

I leave in 2 days. The bike is ready, although perhaps less so the rider. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 5: Bicingles bonanza

-
Image
 A quick reminder: the plan today is to ride up (and down) Mt Ventoux 6 times; twice each on the 3 roads leading to the summit from Bédoin, Malaucene and Sault. That’s 274km in length and climbs a total of 8,800 metres, coincidentally equal to Mount Everest. I’ll start in Bédoin and in order to complete the challenge I need to have done all 6 climbs and get back down to Bédoin by midnight.  And so it was that, as if this was an entirely normal thing to do, which drove 3 of us to get  up at 11pm, make some coffee, get ourselves sorted and drive the 15km to Bédoin for the start.  I should explain, the 3 were me, Drew (fellow cyclist and awesome athlete) and Badge, our enthusiastic and all round legendary support driver and DS.  Ascent no. 1 - Bédoin (1st climb) From the website:  The southern gateway of the giant via Bedoin extends over 6,300 hectares of forest on the Ventoux, which ranks the village among the largest municipalities in France. It is also the most difficult side. From  Sa
Read more

Day 0: Terminated Trains

-
Image
Last week, the weather in the Western Isles was, according to pretty much every weather app going, pretty decent. That is to say 18 degrees and sunny.  Last Saturday night, engineers had not decided to make a dogs dinner of repairs to the railway.  Timing, as they say, is everything.  Today started innocently enough. I had, months ago, planned transport which would take me from Wiltshire to the tiny village of Tyndrum, 55km from the Port of Oban and the smallest village in the world to have 2 train stations.  Getting to Tyndrum was, in theory, reasonably straightforward. Get the train to London, ride across London to Euston, then take the Caledonian Sleeper train north.  Those overnight engineers had other ideas though. The late finish had caused havoc with the train service from Bristol to London, with the train which I had booked and 3 others being cancelled.  I plumped for an earlier train which was apparently running, and set off. The 10km or so to Chippenham was uneventful, the bi
Read more

Day 1: getting there

-
Image
 Ventoux is not an easy place to get to. The nearest airport is Marseille although that’s 50 miles away. Other “local” airports are between 75 and 125 miles away. It’s a 3 change stop on the train from Paris or, as I’m about to find out, it’s a 1,000km drive from Caen. Driving through France was the easy bit. It was the Brits who threatened to throw a spanner in the works. With no prior warning, the powers that be decided to shut the M27 for 4 junctions. Cue confusion, gridlock, a suspected speeding ticket and a degree or two of stress.  I finally arrived, very late, at Portsmouth but was permitted to board the ferry, albeit positioned in such a way to remind me not to do it again.  The crossing was smooth and barring a 15 minute discussion with customs explaining that I was neither professionally racing or selling the 11 bicycles on / in my car, I made good progress through France.  I remember as a child on a family holiday driving past Dijon in our Ford Escort. The rain was so loud I
Read more