Club Arnage

Calling Harry, I need thine council. I want to ride to Le Mans this year, and I can recall you enduring a similar feat. Could you outline how you did it please? How did you get yourself and bike home etc?

My rough plan is to be in Paris for Thursday noon and be at Le Sarthe around midnight on fri/sat for a few beers. It's 120 miles, which is do-able. Train bookings are going to be a pain in the ass, but I think I can do it. I will need to leave on Sunday morning to get back home and plan to take the train from LM rather than ride back to Paris.

My biggest problem is time. I only have a four day pass from my work commitments. I've not even got a pass from the Dragon yet either.

Any tips and advice (spare the bottom balm and unction business, we don't need to go there).

Cheers
Si

I looked at trains quickly and Paris to Lemans on the Thursday is only £20 On Sunday after the race is finished its around £50 from Leman - Paris.

check out - http://www.raileurope.co.uk/Default.aspx?tabid=39

that's who I used as Ive booked to go from Chester - Lemans a week and a half before Lemans as a quick trip. Tickets arrived next day!

I've looked at the prices but there's no option to book a bicycle. There's a website called seat61 and he says you have to book your ticket, then reserve space for a bike, but as there is only allocation for four bikes, it's a case of first come first served. Not much use if you have already forked out for a ticket. Now do this four times, two legs in the UK and two in France and it's obvious that getting what you want is nigh on impossible.

In an age where the motorist is constantly punished and bullied into using more public transport, I think it's pretty piss poor that it is easier to buy a country than it is to take a bicycle to one. I could and should be so much easier.

On the basis that I seem to recall you have about a kazillion bikes at your disposal, could you see if someone can bring your bike back in the general direction of northern England so you could travel back as regular foot passenger - then you would just have to arrange to pick up your bike at your leisure from wherever it lands.

I wll already have mine in the boot of my car, but perhaps someone else might be able to squeeze it into the back of a van or camper for the return journey?

F.

It's too precious to be shoved into the back of a car. I do have a few bikes but this one I'm particularly fond off and will get the bends if I'm away from it for more than a day.

Ya big softie!

I could probably bring your bike back.

Thanks for the offer Stu.  :D what are you going down in this year?


I'm coming up against so many stone walls with this bike to LM plan. I'm looking through the window at the Land Pig and wondering if it would be the better option (in the broadest possible sense imaginable). I never imagined that non-car travel could be so difficult these days.

Im sure I could fit it in my car also if required to get it home

Si,

Neil will have plenty of space in the RV for your bike >:D

Hell, I assume your bedding down with us in MB ;)

Jules G

My Citroen Synergie with all the rear seats removed which will be virtually empty on the way home apart from my 10L boxes of wine.  :laugh:

I'll be traveling down on Sunday afternoon / evening and getting a nighttime ferry to Calais.

As ever, the good old CA family comes good.

I'd better start planning a route from Paris to Le Sarthe then. ;D

Hey Si! Just seen this.

It was a great way to get there alright, and I'd recommend it, some of the rural (ie, most) roads were just fantastic to ride along. many times I had to stop just to drink up the absolute silence and beautiful rolling vistas. (IIRC Savaloy rolled me a few vistas too, once I got there) I'm not sure I can offer much useful advice with the logistics though. A mate drove my car down to LM, and once I made it to LM, the bike went in the back and stayed there till we got back to the UK. I understand what you mean about been out of sight of your pride and joy though. And the bike and all. I did it in 3 stages, - London to Portsmouth/Cherbourg, Cherbourg to somewhere half way down, and then into LM on the 3rd day. Average was about 100 miles a day. Near perfect road surfaces meant punctures or mechanicals never really came into it, although I did come a cropper over a workmans hose. The good quality of the roads means you'll probably average a little better in the mph dept than you would in the UK.

Currently struggling a bit at chez H, - I was down at Ditchling Beacon (a hill on the south downs) doing some hill reps about 3 months ago and had a bit of an off, suffering a fractured skull, a few other bones, and what the docs helpfully call multiple injuries and a TBI. I still can't walk in a straight line (constant vertigo), and have no sense of smell or taste, -apart from the constant pungent pong of burning which I've got 24/7. All of which have their advantages.

I'm hoping I can get my act together to enter this:

http://www.24heuresvelo.fr/en/

Let me know if there's anything specific I can help with.

H

Sorry to hear of your accident old boy. You are in good company, three of my friends have had big uns in the last month- one is still in hospital and has lost the use of his right arm due to the severing of the nerves in his shoulder.

I like the look of the velo 24hr. I've done a few 24hr races over here as part of a team. Didn't take it serious at all, just the craic, beer, heckling etc. we should put a Club Arnage Team together!

Logistics are looking better now with the kind offers of getting the bike home. Getting back on Sunday is critical to getting a pass out. A quick look at the timetables shows I can be home in time for last orders at the Tap and Spile.

I need to look more closely at the outbound side of things now. I'll be using my Fargo which although it runs 29" wheels and drop bars, it's still a mountain bike. 100 miles a day is fine on a whippet like carbon road bike, but harder when running a 3" wide tyre up front. I'll also be unsupported, therefore carrying all my kit.

(http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/ab79/Dr_S/4F546289-B724-480C-8808-DD43B3EC47AD-480-000000DAA90E70E3_zps886b94b6.jpg)

It's 122 miles from the station in Paris to the circuit. If I can clear Paris on Thursday evening and chip 30+ miles off before finding somewhere to sleep then I think the rest should be ok. I'll whack 45 psi in the tyres and get down in the drops. If its reasonably flat I should do it in 11-12 hours. Adds few hours for food, rest and drink and my aim to be at the track by midnight Friday should be achievable.

I think I have my kit list sorted. I will travel light- Alpkit Bivy bag, 3 season sleeping bag and Alpkit sleeping mat, spare clothes, a few tools, a spare tube and pump plus 3 x 150ml bottles. No tent, i will make do with a ultra lite tarp if the weather turns. I will eat as I find, rather than carry food. I will also want to take camera gear plus a GoPro HD camera to do a wee video diary of my adventure. Navigation will be via IPhone with Memory Map loaded up. Slight concern over battery life there, which I need to look into.

If you can think of anything else I might need then please shout. Any suggestions welcome.

Sorry to hear about your napper H. The human skull, as you are probably finding out, is a remarkable thing. Without it our faces would be very untidy and all slouched like the belly of a fat man sitting down. I hate Ditchling Beacon. I was up there in December and it was a litter-strewn shithole.

I very much took against it after I'd trodden in dogshit with BOTH feet (seperate turds). Perhaps dogshit caused you crash? I watched a TV prog about Sterling Moss, he has no real recollection of his Goodwood crash; there's a theory it was steering failure but nobody knows for sure. Would you be prepared to cite a canine excrement-based skid as the cause? Oh, I wonder if the burning smell might actually be dogmuck still stuck in the cleates of your cycling shoes wafting from the closet especially if the dog had eaten Caesar for Small Dog's as it's basically liver? It comes out like graphite grease. Just a thought...

I think I was part of the litter...
Dog sh*t!! that's it! It's up my nose, in my hair, it barely has time to cool after emerging from the canine bung hole before it's spread all over. Like Brut. It was definitely the culprit Andy, and I'll swear in a court of law. In fact, the language will be terrible. Will there be any kangaroos? I hope so, I love the little bastards.

Doesn't sound like you need much advice on gear Si, - slicks, a bit more psi and smaller cassette if you can be arsed, will do it. I found the French roads great, but unlike the Brit roads you very rarely come across any signs of life or habitation. Over here you can rely on a village grocers or the odd petrol station fot a bit of grub, but not over there. It's worth planning your route to arrive near some sort of civilisation when you reckon you'll be turning hungry, and/or carry a bit of grub with you.

H

Good points.

I plan to stay just outside of a town on the Thursday night, so after breakfast I'll grab a baguette, some sliced meats and cheese and eat as and when needed. Plus I'll have the usual cyclists stash of stomach churning gels and powders to keep me going.

Good call on the casette. There's a 12/34 on there at the moment. I'll probably drop down to a 12/26 for closer spacing and go up to a 46 on the front. I have a well worn pair of Conti Race King 2.3 tyres which roll well with 40psi in. Tubeless too, so no punctures. Might pop some gel pads under the Brooks bar tape to ease the hands, but that apart I think it'll be fine.

Fitness wise, not done much this winter so need to get some miles in. I've been off the fags for seven months now so that will help. Could do with losing a stone, and will need to look after my left knee, but otherwise all good on that front.

Regards power for an iphone.
Power monkey's are good, hold enough power to charge your phone about 3 times, very light, and you can get them with a little solar panel that, when plugged in, recharges the nut.

I was going to say that...

Hey Si.... on yer bike  ;D

>Martini...LB

They sound ideal. I'll look into them. Of course I will also plot on the map where I'm going too as a back up. I'm going to start detail route planning. I want a direct as possible route but want to avoid hilly areas, and busy main roads (there's always some right knobhead motorists about at that time of year  ;D ). I hope France had its own Dr Beeching at some point and there are lots of lovely flat disused railways kicking about- excellent for making rapid cross country progress!

Gawd, you guys are gross.  I don't think I want to bike in the UK based upon this thread.

Cycling here in the UK is great. Problem is H is down South, and it's over populated. Come up north and it's wild. We have some awesome riding up here.

A few months back we decided to get together for a few days riding with friends, talk crap, drink beer, mess about with tools and bikes, burn meat on the BBQ.... You know, the usual sh*t. Word gets around, the numbers build, and here we are with just three days to go and we have over sixty folk turning up including two dudes flying in from Iowa.

I love motor racing, but cycling comes a close second. It's the same craic, good people, good times. We are no athletes, unless drinking beer and talking rubbish becomes a sport. Look at it this way.... We have yet to invent a time machine, yet at the weekend I'll be hanging around in the woods, pulling skids and popping wheelies, flying along through the trees, getting muddy, tearing holes in jeans, jumping off things, and generally acting like a twelve year old kid again with all my buddys. It's good for the soul man.

So who cares about a bit of dog sh*t occasionally!

It's not nice down here.

I live in the epicentre of the 'stockbroker belt' (and I have to say, here and now, I'm not a stockbroker, and never will be...). The two biggest problems are 'erberts in Range Rovers who insist on travelling at full throttle and giving way to no-one, and the desperate state of the roads. There's plenty of angry men in vans too. Surrey seems to be famous for being pathologically unfriendly, I've worked in various parts of the world, and some of them pretty dodgy, and haven't met a more unfriendly populace. There was some lads in West Africa once who had the real hump and tried to eat me, but it was all a misunderstanding, and once we sorted that out we got along like a christian on fire. Strangely, it's noticably different once you cross the borders into East and West Sussex.

Cycling in the country lanes is still damn fine though, mainly because it takes a while to learn the network, and generally satnav doesn't send people into them. A mate of mine lives just south of Berwick, and I had a day or two riding with him last year, and it was fan-shimano-tastic! I'll be doing that again. I missed the whippet sh!t though.

Take plastic bags for your maps Si, - June is a good time for sudden French deluges (I love the Speedtribe film of LM, - that's raining alright!), and mine turned into paper mache.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI7o-FJM8f4

H

Good tip. I have a pouch thing somewhere for maps. I will dig it out.

Be sure to give me a shout next time you are up this way. I have a few good routes that are essentially just a cycling pub crawl that I'm sure you will enjoy.

Too right it's not.  Aside from the exponential growth in suspension-wrecking potholes (on major trunk roads let alone normal roads) there is a Home Counties penchant for not being arsed to change blown light bulbs, thus driving around in the dark on one functioning side light bulb....

MG Mark     

Hi Si,
      In reply to your line" unless drinking beer and talking rubbish becomes a sport." all I can say is.
I'll be on the podium  ;D
My arse hurts just thinking about your adventure. see you in France.
Phil