Ewan's Cycling Blog

On a trip like the one I've just done, navigation and route planning becomes the centre of your existence.  It's basically all you do all day. Firstly you have to embrace the chaos and uncertainty.  The only times I felt real pressure on the ride was when I had a very fixed goal for the following day (for example meeting my friend Gideon in Arnhem in the evening).  That was the one leg of the route where it had been planned well in advance of leaving but on the day, I felt a lot of pressure to get there in time and pushed pretty hard when I maybe didn't feel like it. If I were advising anybody on doing a trip like this then the following points are important. Work out what you can do in a day.   100km is too short and you'll have lots of time in the mornings and evenings when you're kicking about doing nothing.  200km is probably too long.  With stops included, it's hard to average much over 20km/h and 10 hours...

Clothes As always, Rapha cycling clothes are the best.  I took one pair of classic bib shorts and two tops.  A lightweight one and a normal classic one .  To be honest, I could have only taken the classic top.  You don't have space for two shorts so you're washing every night and when I got hot I just undid the top entirely and flapped along in the breeze.  I'm sure there were people who didn't appreciate a topless middle aged man cycling past their farm but...hey ho. I rarely wore gloves because they seemed to make my hands more numb and as a result I have two huge calluses on the heels of my hands. I wore a helmet naturally and I did take a casquette (one of those silly cycling hats).  This was useful because (a) it helped in the rain and (b) it unambiguously marked me out as a total twat when I wore it walking round Potsdam and Posnań on the rest days. My wet weather and cold weather gear was...more Rapha...

 I have bought a new “bean-style” bag for the summer trip  — which seemed like a good idea give the pain and suffering that the bean-of-doom caused me on my previous trip and which had been endlessly chronicled in previous posts. However, before heading off to Stockholm it seemed prudent to give the bean, bike and body a bit of a work out.  Son-of-bean is a Restrap Saddle Bag  which certainly seems to be very well constructed  I also added a Restrap Handlebar Bag  so I could be “matchy matchy” and look cool on the road. It’s a difficult job choosing a route for a test. Needs to be long enough for a good work out. Has to involve an overnight stay to make sure I have all the right stuff packed. Best to to not be hilly so I don’t kill myself.  Cambridge to Lincoln is was a pan flat 188km according to my new Garmin 840 head unit and would necessitate an overnight stay. I booked the Holiday Inn a week ago and had the joy o...

Distance: 89km 😄 Average Speed: 21.2km.h ☹️ — blame the Warsaw traffic Legs: 🙂 Undercarriage: 🙂 Bike: ☹️ Because I only had 90k to go today, I was hoping to sleep in and start later than usual.  Unknown to me, today was a very big religious holiday in Poland and the two churches in Łowicz decided to have a bell ringing contest at 6:30am.  For quite a long time. I hauled myself out of bed and, for the last time, applied SudoCrem to my “soft tissues”, stuffed my things into the desolation-bean and pulled on some slightly damp Lycra.  I had hoped that I might be able to do something better with the bean today but there weren’t a lot of options with only one remaining strap.  Ho hum, it’s only 90k… More of the same The morning was a reprise of all of the greatest hits of the previous days on the bike.  After the (now traditional) pull uphill out of town I was back on the flat plains of Poland pedalling against the headwind that had plagued me since the German bor...

Distance: 137km 🙂 Average Speed: 19.9km/h ☹️ A completely flat stage but with sand and mechanical issues. Legs: 😐 This is about as good as they’re going to get after nearly two weeks on the bike Undercarriage: 🙂 It appears that full numbness has set in. Bike: 😢😢😢 In every film — maybe every story ever — there’s a moment which is known as “the long dark night of the soul” where the hero struggles to see a path to redemption and how to complete of his or her task.  Today was that day. The day started at one in the morning when some of the students who were staying in the Dom Studenta #1 came home after partying.  Where they were actually partying in Konin is a mystery since the kebab shop had closed at 9pm.  Then another group came back at 3pm and banged about the corridors shouting and having a great time.  Neither the walls nor the door were well insulated for sound in Dom Studenta #1.  Finally, at 4:30am whoever was in the room next to me had “got lucky” ...

Distance: 139km 🙂 - a much more manageable distance Average Speed 20.5 km/h - fearsome headwind and 20km of gravel Legs: 🙂 Undercarriage: 🙂 - I suspect everything is just numb Hands: 😐 - Still not right Bike: ☹️ I’d packed everything up before I got to the door of the hotel and with a sinking feeling realised it was raining.  Hard.  So I had to get the damn kidney-bean-of-pain off the bike, open it up, get out my wet weather shell, cap and gloves and then pack the whole thing back up again and get it attached back on the bike.  This caused no small amount of swearing, grumbling and groaning in the hotel lobby. Getting out of a city is always hard.  The Garmin route is often confusing, roads have been made one way and there’s the ever present terror of tram lines trapping your wheels.  Today was no exception to that rule and 30 minutes after I left the hotel I seemed to only be about 500m from it.  After a while things settled down and there was a nice b...

  Distance: 10.7km 🙂 Average Speed: 6km/h 🙂 Legs: 🙂 Undercarriage: 🙂 Hands: ☹️ - still tingly and weird Bike: 🙂 As is always the case on a rest day, I woke up refreshed and feeling like I could jump on the bike and do another 180k.  After a hurried conference between my legs, my bum and my hands, that idea was firmly binned and I had a relaxing day of seeing the sights in Poznań to look forward to. There was a bit of “Jack Reacher” shopping to do.  A new T-shirt, some toothpaste and a three pack of sports socks all told cost me €25 and I could bin the old ones later on in the day.   The “Old Brewery” shopping centre was outstandingly beautiful — and it’s not often you can say that about a shopping centre. A retail cathedral. Poznań hasn’t quite done the full “geographic retail sorting” which happens as cities mature.  On the streets there’s occasionally restaurants next to hardware stores, clothes shops next to food stores.  As I was walking back to th...