On Ya Bike: The Peak District

With everyone away for the Bank long weekend, Jabs, Tarns and I came up with a good way to amuse ourselves on Bank Holiday Monday. Having not been on a decent bike ride since France last year, we were keen to get out of London and clock up some serious miles - a good but of climbing wouldn't go amiss either. After a bit of searching the on the internet I found what looked like an interesting ride up in the Peak District.

Some on the Monday morning we jumped on to our bikes and rode to Kings Cross to catch our morning train up to Chesterfield, which is just east of the Peak District. This of course nicely increased the length of our ride so that we could raise the bat - taking the distance from 62km loop to 110kms all up - and the total climbing to somewhere in the vicinity of 1300 metres. Arriving in Chesterfield we keenly jumped on our bikes and headed out of Chesterfield.

I quickly made friends with locals on our short trip out of town. Riding a little out from the side of the road because of debris, I got a couple of short blasts of a horn as some idiot went by me with plenty of room to pass. As luck would have it, he pulled over just 200 metres up the road and as he was getting out of the car I rode past him and mumbled something to me. I kindly let him know that "there was plenty of room back there, mate", of which his reply as I rode off was "(mumble, mumble), you little prick". Friendly fella!

So with the cheerful Chesterfield locals behind us, we got into the impressive countryside and started some serious riding. The weather wasn't the best, but it wasn't the worse either. There was the odd shower which departed as quick as it arrived, though that was because of the quite significant Northwester wind we had to toil into for the first half of the ride. But we didn't mind, he was just great to be out and riding without having to stop at lights every kilometre.

The first hour or so of the ride was pretty uneventful, with plenty of rolling hills to keep the legs working and plenty of stunning views to keep the eyes amused. Dropping into Hope Valley we had our sites set on Castleton for some good pub grub to refuel the body. Though not before we came across what we did not expect to see - a traffic jam. The cars were backed up for about 2kms and we were starting to wonder whether we would have to put up with this the whole ride. But then we came across the cause of the commotion, the Hope Show - Hope being the local town. Resisting the urge to join the locals for the agricultural show and sheepdog trials, we were in fact glad to be past the cars and back up to a good speed. And even better, lunch was just around the corner.

Pulling into Castleton we spied Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese and thought that looked a good spot for lunch. Stepping into the pub, I kindly asked the rustic bar tender whether there was anywhere we could put I bikes while we had lunch. Replying with a grasp of english that told of some mis-spent school years "I don't think we could put them anywhere here". Looking around at all the space in the pub, I shrugged my shoulders and considered that maybe we had had a lucky escape. Two doors up was The Peaks Inn, were young lady behind the bar said no worries and showed us where we could leave our bikes out back. The pub certainly looked pretty popular and stayed that way despite a trio of smelly cyclists. Ordering the chili con carne with a side of spicy cheesy chips, Jabs and I also indulged in a pint of Black Sheep Bitter. Of course, what we hadn't seen before we ordered was the sign saying "We might not cook your food quickly, but we will make it tasty". And mindful of the fact that we did have a train to get back for, we did have to wait a while for the food. But it was certainly tasty and it didn't take 3 hungry riders long to tuck away their lunch.

Lunch over and we were back on the saddle and taking a wrong turn. Fortunately it only cost us 10 minutes or so, though most of that was uphill. Knowing what I did 15 minutes later, I wish that wrong turn had lead somewhere else. The direction we were suppose to take was through Speedwell Cavern up to Winnats Pass - that's that very steep climb in the profile map above. But it wasn't the steepness that was so much the problem, but the funneling of the wind coming through the thin gorge - and those spicy cheesy chips weren't helping either. Halfway up we were reduced to just being able to rotate the pedals every 2 seconds or so and the wind was just about blowing us off our bikes. So, we had to do the unthinkable and dismount and push our bikes up the rest of the gorge. Nothing a biker ever likes to do (it is not comfortable in the cleats for a start), but there was no other way we could have got safely up that gorge.



Happy to be riding again, we were off again and now very much looking forward to turning around and having the wind behind us. That finally happened after we got to Glossop and what a relief it was - it made quite a difference to our average speed as well. Just after Glossop we hit what was probably the best bit of the ride, and climb up and descent from Snake Pass. The ascent was all up a new piece of smooth road and the gradient was consistent all the way up, and with that wind now behind us you could get into a great rhythm. After the climbs into the wind, this was a joy. And the reward, the descent that lasted 20kms and only required a rotation of the pedals every now and then - and much appreciated rest after that slogging into the wind. We were no on the homeward stretch, though the bodies were now starting to feel the effects of a long hard ride. With only one hard climb left though, we steeled our muscles and headed for home.

In the end, despite some concerns a little earlier in the day, we cruised into the train station with 20 minutes to spare before our 6.40pm departure. The bodies were definitely weary, but there were smiles all round after such a good ride. Of course those smiles doubled on the train journey home when I pulled out my special stash of peanut slabs that I had brought along for a reward. Though we might have been the only people smiling on that carriage, sitting there in our smelly sweaty bike gears!

The 2 hours return trip to London was more than long enough for us to start dreading the ride home from the station. Though surprisingly, we hadn't seized up as much as we thought our the gentle cruise home was nearly enjoyable. With the ride to Kings Cross and back, that took the clock up to 144kms for the day - a distance I have only beaten on the Round Lake Taupo rides. Getting home though, I was very happy to have a shower and tuck into the leftover lentil curry from the night before. And boy did I sleep well that night!









For some more pics, click here.

Therapy

Last week we did it very tough, holidaying on a boat in the Med off the southern coast of France. By way of explanation, Anna's father (Martin) purchased a 42-foot yacht (called Therapy) in the south of France last year and this was his first year using it. So lucky for us, we also get to take advantage.

Anna had already spent a couple of weeks on the boat (lucky for some!), but for this week Jabs, Brad, Sharon and I went down to join them. We meet them in Toulon, which is the boat's main port of call. We were fortunately joining them just at the end of a week of very high winds, which lash the southern French coast once a summer (it's called the Mistral and is absolutely brutal, with consistent winds of over 50kph). Apart from that they had had excellent weather - which you would expect from the Med - with temperatures in the high-30s. Though the temperatures didn't quite get that high (thank god!), we still had pretty good weather for our week with temperatures in the low 30s.

Straight off we headed out of Toulon the next morning, keen to see how Therapy sailed and get some swimming time. The boat was loaded up with plenty of food, beer and rose, so we had no need to come back to terra firma for a couple of days. The first days sailing tested out our sea legs, and though some of the crew were a little pale-faced for a couple of hours, everyone handled it pretty well. We anchored up in a bay and had our first dip in the Med - apparently the water was quite a bit cooler than it had earlier in the summer, but I didn't mind as it was refreshing. Then we spent the evening doing what was going to be a pattern for the rest of the week, eating plenty of delicious French food and drinking not-so-delicious French beer (though the rose was quite good by all accounts).

After a surprising good sleep overnight (must be the gentle rocking), we took a leisurely cruise over to another island and anchored up for an easy day of eating, drinking, swimming and working on the tan. An interesting encounter happened later in the day when a kiwi guy sided up to us in his Dingy and had a chat with us. He was also anchored in the same cove as part of an America's Cup promotion trip along the Med coast (we later found out he is a big-wig in NZ yachting and is the Senior Race Officer for next year's America's Cup - after doing the same for the two in NZ).

Waking up to a mill pond Med the next morning, we got away early with the intention of mooring at the St Tropez marina and mixing with the A-list celebrities that go there. Our supplies were low as well - and we couldn't survive with our increasingly frequent need for food and beer (it's hard work lying on the deck of a boat!). Unfortunately we couldn't get in, but we could get a mooring at Port Grimaud just around the corner. A bizarre place this, only built 20 years ago from marshland, it looks like they have tried to create a mini-Venice. Not quite my type of place, but could have been a lot worse and was a bit of a laugh. Especially the conversation we had with guy who (eventually) showed us to our mooring....
- "What are you doing?" (in a typical abrupt French accent)
- "We are waiting for the Capitan" (which we had been told to do)
- "What!" (in an even more abrupt French accent)
- "We are waiting for the Capitan"
- "I am the Capitan!" (which we couldn't stop mimicking for the rest of the trip)


The next morning, Martin and I anchored up the boat outside St Tropez while the others took the dinghy and cruised in to check it out for a couple of hours (I had been before many years ago) and get some more ever important baguettes. Reports of enough plastic surgery to make your recycling bin jealous were not surprising and we were happy to be heading off again. Before we did though, we stopped for lunch off a beach around from St Tropez that is famous for being popular with the who's who (apparently Paris Hilton was there just a couple of days earlier). There were certainly plenty of very large (and, we can assume, very expensive) launches also anchored off the beach - or 'gin palaces' as Martin likes to call them. But we were very happy with our little boat and after lunch set sail for another relatively quiet spot out in the islands again.

We managed to get a superb anchorage in Port Cros, which is an island that is a National Park. There were plenty of fish about who decided seem to mind our stale baquettes and we had a great day swimming and diving off the boat - this is what the holiday was all about. So good in fact we intended to stay there the next day. However, with reports of there being quite strong westerly winds over the next two days (we needed to head east), we decided to get away so we could get to Sanary-sur-Mur, a little town Anna had visited before and wanted to take us to.

And it was certainly worth the effort - and it was a bit of an effort, having to fight a reasonably strong westerly to get there. We stayed our last two nights there, moored in the marina and took the opportunity to go out for a couple of very nice dinners. Sanary was just a cute French seaside village, not too many tourists and those tourists that were there were French, and good little pastiseries and a morning market.

It was with a lot of resignation that we departed Saturday morning for the final sail back to Toulon before heading back to London. But we made the most of it with a cracking sail, making quick work of getting back to Therapy's home marina. Though it wasn't without drama, with the Genoa sail getting ripped (thankfully it probably needed replacing anyway) and some difficult maneuvering to moor in the Toulon marina where we had lots of little French men giving us the steely eye.

But we got away safely (though reluctantly) that afternoon - though this holiday wasn't done with us yet. We had heard about the security scare earlier in the week and the delays it was causing, so we weren't expecting a smooth trip back. But none of us thought much of the 2-hour queue to check in and then the 3-hour delay to take-off. Ironically, they told us it wasn't so much the increased security that had delayed the plane, but the baggage system at Gatwick going down earlier in the day. We eventually landed back in London at 2.30am (scheduled arrival was 11.30pm), but then had to also wait another 30-minutes in the plane because no one was there to connect the stairs to the plane! To make matters worse, we missed the 3.15am train back into London by a matter of minutes and were told a taxi would be a 45-minute wait and £100. So we gotourselvess a coffee and waited for the 4.15am train, finally getting home at about 5am! So a bit of a bummer end to the trip, but we still had Sunday to recover and nothing could really get us down after such an awesome week.

P.S. Being back on terra firma was an interesting experience, taking a while to get our "land legs" back and catching yourself swaying.





For some more pics, click here.

GBBF 2006









I've be waiting for it all year since I attended last year and finally it came around again. For a beer nut like myself, it is like going to heaven. For those of you I haven't bored silly by describing it before, the Great British Beer Festival is an annual 6-day event organised by CAMRA. This year they had a record 66,000 visitors and over 450 real ales available to try (many of which I wouldn't normally get the chance to get).

Because of trips either side of the festival, I could only get to the festival two nights - Tuesday and Thursday. However, I was determined to make the most of those nights as well as pulling along as many GBBF novices as possible. Tuesday night was probably the pick of the two nights, being opening day it was a little quieter, so we managed to grab ourselves a table and didn't have to wait to be served all night. I managed to taste 8 new beers - half pints are the order of the day, allows you to taste more and also gives you the chance of getting poured too much (3/4 pints are not uncommon - the pick of the night being the Alcazar Mocha Stout. I managed to pull along a few more for the Thursday night, which was a lot busier. However, this didn't stop us getting to a few more tasty ales, 9 for me on this night, the pick being the gravity-fed Northern Two Tone Special.

A list of other ales tasted - Castle Rock Flying Ant, Arundel Sussex Gold, Ossett Yorkshire Glory, Naylors Sparkeys Monday Night Mild, Mallard Waddlers Mild, Sierra Nevada Porter, Why Not Chocolate Nutter, Triple fff Moondance, Beartown Ambeardextrous, Stewart Edinburgh #3, Glastonbury Mystery Tor, Bradfield Farmers Brown Cow, Brown Cow How Now, Buffys Mild, Burton Bridge Empire Ale.

Not a bad one among them and all a treat.