Grumpy Old Men On Bikes

There are some 'heavily built' cyclists that can put out a surprising turn of speed.  Fortunately for me the leader of my trip turned out to be the other sort - just a fat bastard.  He led us out as a very modest pace and I was able not only to keep up but to chat and enjoy the ride.  There WAS a sodding great hill in the middle but I comfortably beat Fat Bloke at The Back and was only a minute or two behind a couple of the others.  Nothing to boast about but not a disgrace.  The only other Brit in the group, the ex-pro, comfortably won the hill climb. The itinerary for the rest if the day was interesting....First a leisurely lunch with plenty of wine, then wine tasting, then dinner with plenty of wine.  Finally events I'm good at so a Brit won the drinking too.  The rest of the group are Spanish, Belgian and French and can only look on in awe This morning it was more cycling, this time on mountain bikes.  Mountain biking i...

Within the travel business there is a thing called a 'Fam  trip'.  Basically it works like this: 1/ Someone, somewhere decides that they want to promote a particular tourist destination and persuades their government or local tourist board to fund this. 2/ Someone else decides that the best way to spend the money is to invite movers and shakers from within the travel industry to come and experience the destination's delights.  This is known as a Fam (familiarisation) trip. 3/ The task of identifying and enlisting these movers and shakers falls to a 3rd someone....and this is where it starts to go wrong. 4/ This 3rd someone is generally measured purely on their success in filling the available spaces.  It matters not one tiny jot to them whether the invitees will ever actually generate any tourism. 5/ You might imagine that giving away all expenses paid trips to interesting destinations would be a piece of cake but actually is  isn't...