Grumpy Old Men On Bikes

Oh boy where do I begin? I suppose I should finish yesterday's excitement first. Imagine visiting an A&E department on a Saturday night in one of the few towns in the Uk to still have one (so somewhere bigger than, say, Bristol). You would be in for at least a 4 hour wait with all the drunks, stabbing victims and blokes with hoovers on their todgers. Not so in the US of A. Fort Bragg has just 7000 people yet sports a chuffing great hospital with 24 hour ER facilities. The ratio between staff and patients when we arrived appeared to be infinite in that there were lots of staff and NO patients! Our poorly rider was immediately seen by a triage nurse and then wafted in for a further prodding. He produced a urine sample that looked suspiciously like Strawberry Cresta (frothy man) which was tested and they confirmed that he had a cute urinary tract infection. It didn't look that cute to me, certainly less cute than an Andrex puppy for example. With some anti-biotics ...

Warning: this blog may contain traces of smugness! So, lovely steaks and a jolly evening in Leggett then the easy 47 miles to Fort Brag on Highway 1. The day started with a bit of a climb then a magnificent 12 mile scream down the other side. The sun was high and it was REALLY spiffy! We are now back beside the Specific and the scenery is really first class - all the better for being viewed from a saddle rather than a love machine. The day was done by 2pm, leaving time for rehydration and a high powered business meeting on the sun terrace. This was briefly interrupted by the emergence of 3 strippers from the room behind us (they MAY not have been strippers but we're certainly dressed for the role).   An early evening meal should have been the end of things but one of our riders who had previously reported as being 'a bit poorly' was found in his room shivering and peeing razor blades so we are now in the ER waiting for George Clooney to tell us what i...

After a magnificent day in the Humbolt Redwoods State Forest we are in Leggett, CA. This is a favourite stop in a little 9 unit motel with a lovely garden and gas BBQ which we will use to cook steaks and salmon fillets shortly. The BEST thing is that we will now follow Highway One instead of the less excitingly names US101 which has been our companion for the last 800 miles.   ‎Tomorrow we will have the ritual parade through the drive through tree, then a big climb and a plunge back to the coast on good old highway 1. I expect most of you are thinking 'this is all very interesting but how is his bottom?'. The answer is.......fan-bloody tastic! I started using a Brooks saddle last year - a splendid leather thing made by British craftsmen and designed to mould to the contours of your arse - and it is the best thing since sliced bread (this is just a saying - don't try putting sliced bread on your saddle).  By bottom is completely free of bruises, sores, festering boils and su...

Me again. The last 3 days have been a bit pants for weather and my creative juices don't flow unless it is sunny. Fortunately today has been sunny so lots of juices today......don't worry I have had a shower! After our rest day we did 2 easy days, to Gold Beach, OR and then Crescent City, CA. Both were cool and overcast with a pesky headwind but soon done. In Gold Beach we had magnificent steaks the size of a baseball glove in a proper restaurant with table cloths, napkins and everything. It will rank in my all time best 5 steaks!!! Some bonus tracks China‎ Girl Yesterday was truly horrid wi‎th biblical rain all day. 3 riders immediately wimped out and took the van while 3 bravely set out to ride. 2 others waited to see what would happen and, at midday declared they were also taking the van. Sadly this meant I too had to get the van (snigger!) ‎So it was a sort of rest day for me too! In the evening we went to a 'Eat all you can' Chinese buffet - 8 quid! I Need A Dollar...

It is a rest day so lots of time to write drivel and plenty of banging songs to use: Bandon The Run Bandon is a very nice little seaside fishing town.  Fantastic views out to sea, though it is cool and misty so no swimming for me.  Crazy We wandered 'downtown' and mooched around the harbour a bit and saw a couple of seals just cruising past - not a great photo but you can see he was there! You will have to google the song to get the relevance Happy Hour It is sunday, it is a rest day, what else do you expect us to do? Young Guns On the rest day last year i was quite keen on buying a gun but i was talked out of it.  This year I was determined but the cunning Katie has found a safer comprimise by buying me this: I 'm going to buy some caps and then woe betide any punk who fancies making my day. Ticket to Ride It seems that someone who shall remain nameless (yes , it is Sarah) thinks that I am not actually riding but just siting around drinking beer with Geoff. This is, at t...

Well, when I wrote yesterday I said the bike was running like a Swiss watch. It turns out it was a fake Rolex. I fixed FOUR punctures in total and there was clearly something in the tyre that I just couldn't find. Eventually I got the damn thing to stay inflated and today it has been fine. One odd side-note: while sitting at the roadside mending puncture 2 a rather scruffy bloke shuffled up to me to ask if I needed a hand. I thanked him and said I was fine and he ambled off, then stopped and turned back to say 'I don't sleep with men any more'.    OK! I really love this route from my two years of Love Machine duty but from the saddle of a bike it is even better. The ‎views are often spectacular but also the general 'vibe' is a great experience. We are in Bandon, OR where we will have a rest day. Our motel is on the beach and if the mist would just bugger off it will be a great location to chill tomorrow. Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the EE network.

‎And it was! About as good a day for cycling as you could get  ‎with a strong sun in a cloudless blue sky, gently rolling terrain and a sodding great tailwind. Added to this, the bike seems to be running like a swiss watch and all I had to do was sit on the thing and watch the miles passing under the front wheel. The scenery in Northern Oregon was up to the occasion with wonderful sandy shores, rock stacks and white breakers, all shrouded in a light mist for a bit of extra theatre. Oh yes, even the whales put in an appearance. ‎Even a puncture couldn't wipe the smile off my face.   What else do you need on a day like this? That's right ‎a chuffing great ice cream :-) This is day 6 and we are a quarter of the way with 430 miles under our belts. Any more days like today and I might explode.   Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the EE network.

The job of sweeper mostly requires little more than riding very slowly with the tail-end charlie. I am very good at it...if riding slowly was an Olympic event I would be in the medals, even without taking performance reducing drugs ( or pies as most people call them). However, there is always that nagging worry that one day EVERYONE on a trip will be fast. This has nearly happened on this trip. When the guests arrived they turned out to be a bunch of racing snakes with helium bikes and less fat than a veggie burger. Bugger. This means I have to ride fast - I am nearly as bad at riding fast as I am good at riding slow. To give you some idea of the extent of my problem I would like you to meet the pair in the photo. To preserve anonymity I will call them 'Pierre and Katie'. The week before this trip they entered the Thruxton 24 hour race. Most people have the wit to e nter as part of relay teams but about 40 idiots, including 'Pierre and Katie', entered the solo category....

‎Yes, we are now  ‎at the seaside. Or rather we are at the Oceanside. Another cracking day for weather with clear blue skies, though tomorrow is forecast to be overcast and we may see rain on Wednesday. So what do you do at the seaside? That's right - get your picture taken with your heads poking through a silly board! Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the EE network.

On Saturday we had time to kill while we waited for the last two riders to fly in.  Actually, rather a lot of time because we were awake at 4am....bloody jet lag! We had a good old Merican breakfast of corned beef hash at a diner, mooched around a mall then retired to a park to strategise is the sun.  I knew that there was a good chance of seeing whales on this trip but hadn't expected to see one quite so early, an certainly not in a Seattle park: We also saw another rather curious thing in the park......a girl who had been sunbathing near us got up,moved  about 25 yards, sat down again and proceeded to take a 'selfie'of a rather intimate part of her anatamoy.  We have reflected on this at length but have no explanation to offer. Yesterday we finally started riding, 76 glorious miles down the side of the Hood canal in absolutely perfect weather.  It is good to be on the road again!!! What with jet lag, the heat, and 76 miles under our belts wveryon was tired and...

Elton John but I'm not going to help you with them all! Has anyone seen the footage of the Merican suspension bridge that fell to bits when it got caught in a cross wind back in 1940? It started to wobble and twist and eventually fell into the sea.  Well this was the 2nd attempt which has fared rather better.  It is the Tacoma Narrows bridge which we crossed on our way to Port Townsend with our first load of bikes and riders.  No excitements to report yet - no lost wallets or keys locked in cars but there is still plenty of time :-). The forecast for tomorrow is clear blue skies and highs in the mid-20's.........i believe that fair weather is also predicted for blighty so no real cause for smugness but, never the less, I do feel a little smug.

That's not a song title I hear you say. Yes it is - Lana Del Ray. Only released this year and written specifically so I could use it in this blog entry. Thanks Lana. It's not a bad life, this running cycling holidays malarkey. However the downside, and it is a whopper, is that I actually get to cycle less than when I had a proper job and MUCH less than I would like. My ambition to cycle 10000 miles this year lies in tatters but I do have an opportunity for one grand end-of-season hurrah. Our annual Specific Coast Highway jaunt starts on Sept 13th and this year I get to ride THE WHOLE THING. We will be supported by Geoff (aka Big Geoff) who will drive the love machine; I'm not sure how I feel about that but he has promised not to take any liberties with her and if he breaks his word I'll break his legs. For my own amusement I'll blog my way down the coast and hopefully the experience from a bicycle saddle will provide a slightly different perspective this ...

‎In the last 5 days I have been in Switzerland, Germany, France, Austria and Lichtenstein. In the case of the first 3 I have visited multiple  ‎times. Occasionally, on‎ major road bridges, there might be a border post but always unmanned. On minor bridges and most land borders there are no border controls at all. On minor roads there is often no clue at all that one is entering a new country.  I suppose this is the Schengen agreement in action. As someone who likes stamps in his passport it is pants; I also find it quite frustrating to frequently not know what country I am in. This a practical problem with a SatNav that assumes the address you are searching for is in the country you are currently in unless told otherwise. I have just spent 5 days researching the first part of a new route along the Rhine from source to sea.  With only limited time available I have concentrated on getting the bit out of the mountains done and I am now is Strasbourg waiting for a train back ...