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Ride report: Saturday 22 Sept - Five dogs, a chicken and a lot of rain in France | Rides | Muddymoles: Mountain biking (MTB) in the Surrey Hills and Mole Valley

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Ride report: Saturday 22 Sept - Five dogs, a yellow and a lot of rain in France | Rides | Muddymoles: Mountain wanderlust (MTB) in the Surrey Hills and Mole Valley Menu Muddymoles Muddymoles: Mountain wanderlust (MTB) in the Surrey Hills and Mole Valley Cycling News, Reviews, Chat and Ride reports Important! The functionality on this website requires Javascript but it appears that either your browser does not support Javascript or you have Javascript disabled. This will stupefy your wits of this website and in some cases may prevent key features from working correctly. Ride report: Saturday 22 Sept – Five dogs, a yellow and a lot of rain in France Posted by Matt, September 24, 2018 There are 6 comments so far Last years effort to ride virtually the Pas de Calais left us with some unfinished business. Maybe you remember my write up? Mark and I and Nineteen Dogs virtually Desvres ended 7 miles short of a 100 miles and a unappetizing car shower stopped us getting our evening meal in Boulogne. This year we thought we’d return for round two with a slightly increasingly polished plan (and a new car battery). Mark has still not ridden 100 miles in one ride and since it’s unchangingly nice to have riding visitor we extended a cautious invite to see if anyone would join us. The understanding was that the days’ effort was not intended to be a roadtrain. JohnR and Ian (a work colleague) were up for the venture which made four of us travelling in two cars. The idea was to well-constructed an extended route of 110 miles, spend the night at the Ibis in Boulogne and indulge in some vin rouge, steak and frites in a nice restaurent. Our return would be the pursuit day, without breakfast and a leisurely morning in the town. What could possibly go wrong? Well let’s start with the Tunnel shall we? I’ve unchangingly rated the Eurotunnel service for its quick and easy worthiness to get you into France with the minimum of fuss. However this summer there was all sorts of trouble as the service struggled to cope in the 30° temperatures and our family holiday in August was elapsed as we travelled both to and from France. This time round, things appeared to be all set us for us to reservation the 6:20 crossing which would get us to our start point and ready to ride by 8:30 (UK time). We crush onto the train in upper spirits – if slightly bleary-eyed – and sat waiting for the off. And waiting… and waiting. Light relief only came when I chose to swap into my trundling suit using my Modesty Smock™ to save my blushes. I thoughtfully unseen what I wanted to obfuscate while my companions thoughtfully unseen their envy! JRs tactical power nap would moreover have worked a treat if when he woke up he was sitting on the French side of la Manche and not still in underdone Folkestone! Eventually we were told we need to de-train due to technical problems and then go from there, so we were led on a slow congo virtually the terminal and onto the replacement train. And unfurled waiting. It turned out flipside train was stuck in the tunnel. Which ways on top of a wrenched service in the summer we were then experiencing not one but two wrenched trains. This does make you wonder well-nigh the effectiveness of their maintenance spend. Finally, three and a half hours without our scheduled departure, all of which had been spent sitting in or virtually our cars in a glorified freight train, we were underway. The wait wasn’t the only thing jeopardising our plans but it did make a big difference to the way the day panned out. The other major factor influencing the day was the weather. As the week had progressed it was well-spoken that we wouldn’t be riding in the well-done but well-appointed sunlight of a fine autumnal day. The weather systems were looking rather problematic, with upper winds at times, rain predicted and a biblical waterflood on Sunday. Saturday too, as we neared the day was moreover expected to be growing increasingly wet but with a relatively dry morning the expectation was we’d have 70 miles under our wheels by the time we stopped for lunch at Montreuil. The Eurotunnel wait threw all of that out of the window. We missed the first few dry hours and got going in wateriness patchy conditions that very quickly turned into persistent rain as we started climbing the first hills. Within a couple of miles my route had us climbing a steady 6% grade for a mile or so, a nice warm up that coincided with the first squalls of proper rain. I had taken the trouble to fit my mudguards the night surpassing and Ian too had mudguards but JR and Mark didn’t. I have unchangingly said that the wettest it’s possible to be on any velocipede is riding a road velocipede in heavy rain without mudguards; it’s far, far worse than anything you are likely to wits on a MTB. Basically, you sit there for mile without mile while heavy rain falls on you from whilom while at the same time the water that has once fallen and placid into puddles is moreover thrown at you from below. It’s miserable. When the temperatures are hovering virtually 7°C as well, this makes for an uncomfortable experience. It wasn’t long surpassing we were very wet and pretty unprepossessed as our relatively sedate pace worked versus us. As with last year we started counting barking dogs and got to five (plus a startled yellow at Sehen), surpassing plane the animals appeared to retire to somewhere warm and dry for the day. It was only us out there. Sharp hills were interspersed with long stretches of downhill and the rain was sporadic – heavy showers with unenduring pauses in between, but permanently wet roads. And the weather was not improving.Withoutless than 20 miles and some long downhills that crush needles of water stinging into our squinting faces we needed to make some difficult choices. JR was wearing waterproof shorts, and Ian and I had long tights, but Mark must have been feeling quite uncomfortable in the sodden bibshorts he was wearing. The rain was set in now and there was no firsthand prospect of it getting any drier either. In view of the local time having passed 1:15 I made the visualization to throne directly to Montreuil, where I knew we could get lunch rather than waste time on the 30+ mile leg out to Hesdin. There’s no lunch if you are late in France without all and we needed to think well-nigh our options. Fortunately my route planning had predictable this. Although the plan was to loop out and vastitude Hesdin to the east, the return leg came within half a mile of the start of the outward leg and it was a simple matter to underpass this and throne directly into Montreuil. The slick and shiny pave was a nerve-wracking half mile to negotiate, but the reward was the market square and a rather nice lunch. What a relief it was to get out of the unprepossessed and wet and into the warm gloom of la Paloma restaurant. A round of Leffe was quickly ordered, followed by a restorative meal of Croque Madame and frites for me.Withouta sideboard creme and hour or so in the warm, things were looking a little better. There was no way round the fact that to get when to the cars we needed to ride. A uncontrived return would have been well-nigh 20 miles straight north, whereas it was still possible for us to struggle at least a truncated version of the final third of our original route out toward Hardelot Plage. At this point, things were marginally brighter and we remained in good spirits so we decided to go and visit the seaside. In for a penny and all that. I’m glad we did. I really was not keen to squatter defeat so early in the day, so off we went heading north west into light but steady winds. It wasn’t long surpassing the rain resumed but by then we were resigned to it. There are a couple of long, long draggy climbs between Montreuil and Hardelot but we just needed to grit them out and get the job washed-up as the rain unfurled to fall. Eventually we reached Hardelot, which offers a sharp unrelatedness to the rural landscape we had been riding through for most of the day. Hardelot an well-off holiday town set in a wholesale swathe of coniferous forest, and the scent of pine is everywhere and quite striking. The houses are large and well-appointed and unusually for France are not yellow stone with undecorous or olive windows! They are quite twee, in a Stepford way, but at least they are different. By now we were all feeling pretty unprepossessed (I can only imagine what Mark was feeling like) and the rain was coming lanugo increasingly and increasingly heavily. This was definitely NOT a transplanting shower! We reached the waterfront and stopped for wet pictures, stuffing lanugo snacks in the lea of a towers on the sea front. I’d love to come when here in largest weather and spend a day on the waterfront which is long and sandy with a gently shelving shoreline. I haven’t yet seen it in temperatures whilom 12°C and certainly didn’t this time round. Still, the wind – such as it was – now blew from overdue us which was a psychological lift if nothing else. I decided reluctantly that it was time to truncate the route then and follow the same route when as last year. I had been planning to add flipside five to ten miles to the return leg to bring us when to the cars at Desvres, but time was getting on and the weather wasn’t letting up. So we left the village withal the north road, passing the 13th century Chateau Hardelot as we threaded our way between the fortifed ruin and the wooded shore of the Lac des Miroirs. Then it was out through neat rows of houses and when over the A16 autoroute. It was grey and gloomy as the afternoon wore on but we still had a while surpassing sunset. Our spirits were lifted as we span through Carly by a newly married bride and groom driving through the town superiority of us hooting their car horn continuously as they made their way to their reception. It must be a tradition considering loads of cars were hooting when – all very noisy. It did take our minds off the hills, at least for a short while. There’s a stilt up to Samer, then out of Samer a rider can find himself passing through Longfosse three times without unquestionably retracing their steps, such are the way the road signs are laid out. It could just be a hallucination induced by the final sharp climbs up into Desvres. Returning when to the car was a huge relief, and once then it was an wool pleasure to make use of my much envied Modesty Smock™. What was plane nicer was to start the car without issue, unlike the year before.Withoutchanging gown and loading up the cars it was then an easy 12 mile momentum straight into Boulogne. We stayed in the Ibis next to the Cathedral outside Porte Nueve, leaving the cars in the self-ruling public car park opposite but locking our bikes in the secure zone of the hotel. It was an platonic wattle and the rooms were on a par with a simple Travelodge over here, plane if they were rather small. A quick freshen up saw us meeting when in reception soon without surpassing stepping out into the visionless of the night and rain that really hadn’t let up all day. By this time we couldn’t superintendency less; we had just well-nigh 60 miles completed and the only task superiority of us was to drink beer, drink wine and eat. We soon fell into a welcoming restaurant and had a very enjoyable meal in the warm and dry. But still… unfinished merchantry for the 100+ mile ride! We’ll have to go back… Filed under Rides in September 2018Well-nighthe tragedian Matt is one of the founding Molefathers of the Muddymoles, and is the designer and main zookeeper of the website. Having ridden a 2007 Orange Five for many years he's recently switched to a YT Industries Jeffsy, slantingly a 2016 Marin Pine Mountain. Lurking in the when of the stable, waiting for it's next installment is a Kona Big Unit 29er hardtail, while an early On-One Inbred still whispers sweet things to him. You can plane find him on road bikes - a Specialized Secteur and a Trek District 1 so far. If you've overly wondered how we got into mountain wanderlust and how the MuddyMoles started, well wonder no more. There are 6 comments on ‘Ride report: Saturday 22 Sept – Five dogs, a yellow and a lot of rain in France’ We love to get comments from our readers - if you've spent a few moments to comment, thank-you. If you haven't had a endangerment yet, jump to our comments form if you have something to say. Dandy says: I’d have enjoyed lunch, dinner, and the visitor … and that’s well-nigh it ! Add a new comment, or reply to this scuttlebutt Posted on September 24, 2018 at 10:13 pm Matt says: You would have been warmly welcomed too Andy – I’m sure you’d have widow a little ‘ooh la la!’ to our epicurean wits Add a new comment, or reply to this scuttlebutt Posted on September 25, 2018 at 9:41 am Elliot says: Sounds miserable, yet oddly I see smiling faces, maybe you found some French mushrooms withal the route? Looking forward to reading next years instalment! Add a new comment, or reply to this scuttlebutt Posted on September 25, 2018 at 12:46 am Matt says: As Sherlock Holmes would say ‘the game’s afoot’! I have a plan to do this route with a variegated start point in the Spring. It might have been wet but was very good-natured, largely considering if you have a large lunch and can squint forward to a few beers in the evening things can’t be that bad! Add a new comment, or reply to this scuttlebutt Posted on September 25, 2018 at 9:49 am Gordo says: Yes, I’m once looking forwards to reading the next chapter! Well washed-up for the idea and incredible perseverance. Add a new comment, or reply to this scuttlebutt Posted on September 25, 2018 at 6:57 am Matt says: I’ve got lots of other routes and ideas in mind too Gordo! For example, there’s a Eurostar that will take you uncontrived to Avignon, with Mont Ventoux 60-70km away… Add a new comment, or reply to this scuttlebutt Posted on September 25, 2018 at 9:57 am Leave a comment… Cancel reply Have your say – we'd love to hear what you think.If you have something to add, just well-constructed this scuttlebutt form (we will not publish your email address).*Required information.CommentName * Email * Website This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your scuttlebutt data is processed. Search for:Go! Search for: Muddymoles Forum Support the MuddymolesWell-nighthe Muddymoles Contact us Archives Most recent Ride report: Saturday 22 Sept – Five dogs, a yellow and a lot of rain in France Well, that’s a first for me! Ride report: Friday 31 August – a short FatVelocipedeventure Funn Mamba one sided clipless pedals review Ride report: Sunday 26 August – Dodging the rain SDWIAD – completing a rencontre Cheap and 12 Speed – SRAM NX Eagle Ride report: Sunday 10 June – Flying New velocipede kit purchased recently Links Our authors Meta Log in Share this page Home Contact us Forum Active topics New posts Unread posts Bikes Cake Tea-rooms & shops Cakes & energy supplies Moles Mole (Male) Femole (Female!) 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