Pre-blog London- Cesinatico, Italy
April 2015
A glutton for more punishment! It is a week today and Paul, Robin and I will set off from Stratford in London heading eastwards,southwards and upwards. We will cycle (yes no engines apart from what our bibshorts contain (no, a bit lower than that!) via Canterbury, Dover, Calais, Arras, Reims (did you know that the "m" is silent? Well now you do!), Strasbourg, Basel , Andermatt, St Gotthardt, Como, Verona, Ferrare, Bologna, Ravenna to Cesinatico on the Adriatic coast where my cycle club as usual has a training camp. And as I will do almost anything to avoid Ryan Air I decided to cycle there. And fortunately others have agreed to come along. Paul claims that there is pressing work to be done so he will leave us in Switzerland. The total journey is probBly around 1200 miles - with some mountains thrown in for good measure - and some vineyards!!
And after 2 long'ish cycle rides (LEJOG 2013, and the southern part of the North Sea Route) I have finally learnt to limit my pannier content - 8 kg and that is not bad when you are 6'5 /186 cm!) and the route has been logged on to Garmin ( can be found on www.gpsies.co.uk). The tyres are puncture resistent 4 Season 28 mm to give some comfort (???).
So onemore week of repacking, unpacking,discarding items, repacking etc. Most other preparations sorted- an important one takes place tonight- the Bury Beer Festival - carboloading as Darren, my companion on last year's trip calls it. Well a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do!
I have been asked if I do it for charity - well I didn't plan to but I will donate to Kids Company in London and if anyone else wants to then that will be much appreciated. I will set up a justgiving page!
Now off to do some training - by bike naturally ! Salut!!
