BCC in Italy May '09

The Giro '09 had a stage that started at Sestre and Simono, Neil and me have used it as an excuse to give Ryanair a bit more cash and head off to Liguria for three days of cycling.

Simono and I also need to put some more big hills in our legs before this summer's Etape.

Day 1, Thursday 21st:

Late start courtesy of too much of the red stuff, then off down to Sestre:



We witnessed how the latest state of the art chemistry is uploaded into the competitors:


We also saw the new equipment and kit for the Italian "Credit Crunch" team


Mr Cavendish was off to a good start but despite the implants was bound to have trouble with the two climbs:


All too exciting for us so we pedalled off along the coast to Portofino, stopping at Zoagli:

Portofino wouldn't let us take our bikes in to town so we did a U turn and headed back to Rapallo for a gorgeous Melon Granita. The coast road was great with people jumping into the sea wherever possible. From Rapallo we went up over the Via alla Crocetta (610m) , then we descended down into the valley to pick up the main road to Carasco, then a gentle slog back up to base camp at Borzonasca. Good day around 130 Kms in the bag with a new entertaining climb.

Dinner at"Jesus" then loads more of the red stuff just to try and slow us down onn Friday. After much muscical discussion we did get to bed around 2, fine preparation for a long ride on Friday.

Day 2, Friday:

We decided to do Passo Bocco then whizz down Ghifi and see how we felt once back in Borzonasca. As always Bocco was lovely, a nice climb of around 16Km with a steady gradient and a few ramps, great for Simono's hangover.This is a view about 9Km's up Bocco looking down to here we started.

We belted down Ghifi and were thankful that we decided not to come back up it that day. The decent is so beautiful and I managed to stay on around all the right hand bends.

Back in Borzanasca we decide to do Belpiano the steep way round from the village, then come back to the flat and go to Chiavari for a swim in the sea and a therapeutic ice cream.

Chiavari is so sumptuous with every corner offering a photo opportunity.

Neil even spied a new "project" to work up using his Rholoff hub gear!

And back in Borzanasca Simono was contemplating an alternative to his Alfa!


Day 3, Saturday:

Gorgeous day, we headed off down to Carasco then along the valley to Micheloni to start my favourite climb up to Romaggi. The temperature was up and we made great progress up to the ramp at 4Km. Then the big push up the switchbacks to Romaggi at 6Km, here we found out Neil had punctured so S and I enjoyed the views with only 4Km of climbing left.

View from 6Km looking down to the coast.

Simono arrives at 6Km.

The house with a view just at the false flat at Romaggi village.

Our view of the last 4Km ramp up to the summit through the trees. All back together off we go.

View acroos the valley of our descent on Day 1, those roads look rather tortuous no wonder the brakes got hot.

Simono arrives at the top of Romaggi climb, hot and helmetless! Good job done.

Two tired steel cyclocross bikes, Romaggi conquered, now down to the valley, spot of lunch, back up to borzanasca then a quick dash up to the top of La Forcella, circa 1000m, 17 Km climb from Borzanasca. Last climb of the holiday, great dash back to B then pack our bags and off to spend the night at Martin's house closer to Pisa.

Martin's back garden, my bed for the night!

Martin's pool, a welcome respite.

View of village from the road, you can see Martin's house on the end with his pool.

BCC heads for Norfolk

With all the Tour de France activity starting this weekend Simon and I decided to take a zero carbon trip to North Norfolk. We spent ages leaving London trying to battle with rush hour traffic until eventually we got to the banks of the canal in the Lea Valley and felt we were on our way. Looking south leaving London was great and we had near perfect conditions for the long cycle ahead. Having been advised by my beloved to change from my loud old cycling top Simon and I looked like a pair of twins in our black and blue outfits, these would match our bottoms later on.

We ended up cycling around and around the Lea Valley and East Hertfordshire for sometime longer than expected, party due to enjoyment of the scenery and partly due to my poor map reading/interpretation. I gave Simon a double viewing of Stanstead Abbotts and we even managed to find a 10% climb that we didnt have to go up that we did. Anyway we enjoyed the extended trip to our first stop, a pub for a sandwich at lunchtime, then decided to up the pace and push on to Cambridge. We bumped into an American cyclist from Minnesota who stayed with us for a while then peeled off.

Quick caffeine hit in Cambridge then off up to Ely, Histon chez Baz and Shaz, the flat lands had arrived, but we were still waiting for the tailwind promised by the weather forecast.

We linked onto the Great Ouse network of waterways just outside Ely up to Littleport then up the "Ten Mile Bank" to Denver. We were making good time and our old legs were hanging on in there. The scenery was stunning, flat but stunning! We started to get a bit worried about Pub O'clock so we took on an extra Mars bar and pushed on down the A1122 down through Fincham at around 40kph until we turnedoff to Marham. Very peaceful last part of trip through Narborough, West Acre until getting to Great Massingham just in time for a quick wash change and walk to the pub for dinner! Around 130 miles covered and only slowed by my map reading, admiration of the landscape, oh and \simon's perpetual peeing!!!

Spent Saturday riding around the North Norfolk coast and sitting in the Dabbling Duck! Fine trip!

The Hayes' hit Wimbledon

Mr and Mrs Hayes had a fabulous day at Wimbledonwith Mr and Mrs Hayes. We watched in amazement asmiss Williams (S) servedat 121mph in the womens singles to see off a young polish lass, and then the Bryan Brothers serving at 141mph in the Mens doubles.

It wasmy first time to Wimbledon in all these years in London and i was impressed by the spectacleof Centre Court and the general party atmosphere around the whole site. Shame our young Scottish hopeful had a bad day with Nadal, but hey ho always another year!

Thanks P&M for a great day.

Listen to the Radio

Tuesday night and after a tense day a bit of light relief in Victoria Park, Hackney with Radiohead. Not really an outdoors concert sort of person, but a great show was put on by the grown ups from Oxford.

Its always a joy to listen to good music and drink overpriced fizzy alcohol out of recyclable containers, shame they didnt think about all the paper fyers that were littered all over the park by the end of the night!

London doesnt seem to be able to cope with the volumes of people that such an event generates, tubes and buses overloaded and entries shut so we ended up walking back to Liverpool Street and beyond before we found a cab with a yellow light.

Anyway lots of fun had by all and the weather behaved itself, quite something given it is Wimbledon week.

Running

I read this great article in Saturday's Guardian, terrific stuff.

http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/wellbeing/story/0,,2284358,00.html

I connected in my small way to what he was saying, I realised how much i use my running and cycling as a release mechanism. What was also cool was that I sat down with my chum Tony F on Sunday afternoon, having rushed around Wimbledon with our kids and no mums, and started talking about this article. Tony has read several of H's novels and could also connect to what the article was saying. We have been running together since last October and competed in around six 10K races, Simon and I also took Tony up into the Italian mountains on a bicycle last May.

With this all gushing around my system I rode the Brompton into the office this morning and then adorned my running shoes and went out along the Embankment and over Westminster Bridge. What a great start to my week. Finished today off by lapping Battersea Park with my girls in the evening sunshine - magic.

Giro D'Italia - BCC

THE BORZONASCA CYCLE CLUB

Here we go again! Three old geezers emulating the efforts of cycling pros in the beautiful setting of Liguria (Northern Italy just in case). Neil Simono and Tony set off on Friday 16th of May for three days of cycling and three nights of eating and drinking Ligurian style.


First afternoon up to the top of Passo La Forcella, a new longer steeper route via Belpiano. Good start although a wee bit damp, turns out to be the scene for the weekend. After our efforts we retired first to the bar then to Jesus's to stock up on liquids then carbs.


The big event was planned for Saturday, hopefully around 110kms with three mountain passes taken in, the idea was around two thirds the distance and climbing of La Marmotte.





First up Passo Ghiffi, cool climb very steep for last three kms. Good wake up call and I managed to stay on for all of the descent.






Next up was Passo Biscia, the snake, not too challenging but still up hill for a good 10kms.

No time to relax, there were right handers to fall off and one proper more climb before the day was done. See the trouble is all this track training has got me stuck in a bit of a rut. We go arond counter clockwise, perpetual left handers - so when faced with steep wet downhill right handed i get confused and fall off - just hit a rock face on the way down from Biscia so not too much of a problem - watch this space.

The getting across to Passo Romaggi was long and essentially flat, and incident fee apart from ice cream.

If only Neil had kept his trap shut about the weather we would have missed most of the rain that day but oh no two thirds of the way up Romaggi the "haven't we been lucky with the weather -- blah blah blah" came out from his mouth and that was it! Walls of water for the next 2kms. Things got pretty steep towards the top but all was fine and that was the three passes bagged for the day - just the trip down and a light climb back up to base camp and beer.

Right handers again!!! Oh and Simono shouting a me, trying to be helpful, led to a momentary lack of control and ...... yes i'm on my backside again skidding round a right hander. Few scrapes nothing major jumped back on and off up to Borzonasca and beer, the Jesus!

Sunday was a complete wash out, walls of water, eventually decided to go up Passo del Bocco for a "quick swim". Just started the climb and SNAP! The Bennoto's rear deraileur sheared off and wrapped itself into the rear wheel! Obviously a delayed outcome from the crash yesterday - my cycling over! S & N went back to get car pick me up then off Chiavri for a spot of late lunch.

With the cycling over all we could do was eat and drink and hang out outside chemists looking camp, with the sun shining!

Great trip guys - roll on next year!

Back to the Track

Summertime! This means lots of things to lots of people, one thing it means to me is more evening light and Herne Hill velodrome open for "casual" users on Tuesday nights. It was great to be back this week. Met up with Simon and Neil and spent about an hour going round and round in ovals. Tested the new BG saddle for the recently rebuilt, thanks again Simono, "Roberts" and pushed it a bit on a few laps to get some thigh burn.

Whats great about HHV is the range of people who come, 40 somethings trying to hang onto their youth; youngsters being introduced to the idea of track racing; the British youth track team; and old geezers cathing up and having a safe blast on their favourite bike.

The ride back to Battersea is always a wee bit tough but I managed to keep out of the rain until Clapham Common! Pleased to be back on track, as they say up north.