Five reasons to ride your bikes even when it all goes a bit wrong

I wish I'd screen grabbed the weather forecast I read, late on Friday night, as we were going to bed and hatching a plan for the weekend - so that I could have juxtaposed the natty new BBC weather graphics with what actually arrived. 'Sunshine and 7 degrees all afternoon', it proclaimed. After what turned up, I want a refund.

Or do I?

We spent Saturday morning at the gym. Just for once, Katie and I managed to get Wattbikes next to one another, both with working headsets, seat post clamps, pedals - even bluetooth! The final piece of the jigsaw, being able to see one another on Zwift, remained elusive, but we did an hour or so up the mountain towards our Le Col challenge hours, interspersed with some adult conversation and trips to the water cooler to combat the intense heat (none of which later). It hurled it down with rain so we went and got Rhoda some new trainers to ride in, and nipped to Cafe Ventoux for a bit of an outing and something to eat. Katie took the opportunity to see what she might spend her £50 Le Col voucher on - assuming we got some more time on the bike before the weekend was out.

Sunday came, and the sun shone as we sat in church. A bit better than the forecast, we thought. Excellent! We drove home, choosing to ignore the car's temperature warning beep, and threw ourselves into the task of getting everyone's touring kit out at the same time for the first time since last May.

The touring bikes came up from the basement - a feat in itself. Katie's had air in the rear hydraulic brake line. Again.

Ruth's winter cycling jacket was missing. The girls had been sharing one for weeks, which was fine until we wanted them to ride together.

EVERYTHING needed oiling.

Ruth's jacket was still not in evidence.

Rhoda's bottle cage had been robbed from her trailerbike when Thomas Ivor put his foot through one during cyclocross training. Thomas Ivor hadn't tightened the bolts back into the frame, and one was missing on the basement stairs.

Ruth's jacket wasn't in the car. It wasn't anywhere in the pile of coats by the front door. It wasn't in the washing basket, or the cupboard. It wasn't in the girls' bedroom, or their chest of drawers. Running out of places to look.

We had a shortage of serviceable rear lights. About four of them have had the switches fail in wet weather recently. It was looking decidedly dull outside.

Ruth's jacket was not in our bedroom, either. It was not under the settee, nor in the bag we took to her last cyclocross race. It was not in the front garden, or the flippin' fridge. The hunt was becoming desperate and tempers were fraying.

In the end, since all the jacket-searching had cost us so much time we were all 'hangry', we jumped in the car, all each one of us (except Ruth's top half) in full lycra, and went to a well known burger joint which euphemistically calls itself a 'restaurant' but is careful to enhance the eating experience by never bringing to your table everything you ordered. As we arrived there, we were treated to a hailstorm. Words were possibly had with the Almighty, who had apparently hogged the promised nice weather, for the part of the day we had spent indoors, worshipping Him.

I think the children thought that was it, and we were going to go home, take off our cycling kit, put a fire in the grate and spend the rest of the day looking for Ruth's jacket, but somehow, (perhaps that £50 Le Col voucher had something to do with it) Katie and I steeled ourselves to the prospect of cutting back our ambitions for the day's riding, but restoring some honour by being able to say we had ridden, after all. Here's what I think we learned, as we set out under grey skies, which proceeded to dump on us from a great height...

1. There will be 'can't be bothered' days on the road, too. They may of themselves have no particular reward at all - but they facilitate the 'other days' - and you have to do them to reach your goal.

When you reach the end of a tour, you will remember the really tough bits. The stinking great hills. The equipment failures. You'll remember the amazing bits - the natural wonders, a tasty meal, road angels you met. What you're unlikely to remember so readily is the miles and miles you spent just plodding on. The days when getting on the road again was a drag. A nagging headwind. Rain that stops as soon as you've put your wet weather gear on. Even in lovely places, there are boring bits.

The fact is, going the distance is very much about being able to keep on going when the motivation is low and excuse factor is high. If you hadn't done a few hours at 10mph feeling uninspired, here and there, you might be hundreds of miles short of your objective. Sticking with a plan to throw your leg over the bike, even when at the time, it would be much easier not to, is good discipline for days where caving in could kill off your big aspirations.

2. If you don't find the kit you need today, you won't have it for next time, and you'll lose another ride. If one plan goes for a Burton, try and respond in a way that prevents recurrence.

We covered less than half the distance we had hoped, in the end, but if we had used 'we can't find everything in a hurry' as an excuse, we'd not have gone out at all - and we'd have left ourselves the same excuse for next time, too. In the end, we figured that if we only rode up our street and back, to have done that before the day was out would be a sign that we were able to get moving more quickly, and fully equipped, next time. Today's ride became a facilitator for the next one! (See point 5, below)

Repurpose a ride that isn't going to hit all the original targets. Roll with the blows and do something purposeful with it - even if that's short of, or different to, what you'd hoped. It might mean next time goes more smoothly.

3. What doesn't kill them makes them stronger - children get used to what they've experienced safely, and will be calmer next time. Use incentives.

What is training for, if not a bit of conditioning?! A small dose of hail in the faces, endured by choice and survived, makes for better endurance next time it comes and can't be avoided. Use mitigations (being able to turn round and put the wind at your backs, and doing that before things get ugly) and rewards (hot chocolate and a warm bath at home afterwards) while you have them. If we encounter a full-on hailstorm again, in the middle of nowhere, the children know what to do, and that it will be ok. They won't die. It will still be a good adventure. We were well impressed with the girls' willingness to endure a burst of rough weather and keep going; Thomas Ivor was able to get used to the 'new' sensory input of cold stuff hitting his face whilst riding a road he knows well, and could process his response at his own pace.

Children today are often shielded more than is helpful to them, from the weather. Properly equipped, with careful management (both important caveats!), they can endure more than they think - and if you are willing to do it close to home, out of season, that unexpected storm on your next tour will be far less of a curved ball. Which brings us to the next point...

4. Train hard, fight easy - test your contingencies and ability to deal with problems when you can choose to, rather than when you have no choice! 

Last year, we were privileged to go to visit Islabikes in Shropshire. In preparation for a staff outing, a weekend's off-road touring through Wales, founder Isla Rowntree presided over (and participated in, and won) a competition in which every participant had to change their rear inner tube against the clock, unaided, using only their own equipment for the trip, fully packed up as it would be on the day.  I won't say who found they'd packed a 26" tube on their 29er, but several of the participants encountered trouble they'd not foreseen, and a few doubtless tweaked their preparations subsequently! As Isla pointed out, they'd be glad of the frustration now, if they had a puncture out on open moorland in a freezing cold deluge the following week.

Solving problems you hope you will never have, with a safety net, might lead to packing new or different things (or knowledge!) that improve your chances on tour, when things go wrong. If the things you fear most on tour, you've already tried and found a response for, you have rather less to fear. In our case this time, it wasn't so much equipment based but a test of 'can we ride on in these conditions', in a situation where we could bail out at any time -  and the answer was "yes - and Rhoda needs the peak of her hat adjusting for her when it happens". If that's the worst of it, we won't be so worried next time the BBC forecast turns out to be so lamentably inaccurate!

There is a general level of satisfaction to be had from having 'done it anyway', and if children bank positive experiences of dealing with situations you'd prefer not to deal with, but might have to, everyone stresses less. Even if unbeknown to them, you dialled things back a bit having satisfied yourself it was ok, everyone gets a feeling that nothing can stop you next time. Some days, when you're digging deep, that's what you need upon which to draw.

5. Evaluation is the mother of preparedness - a.k.a. 'Always look in the toy box'.

We got home, got warm, got the girls some hot chocolate and a bath, and Katie set to, continuing the hunt for the lost jersey, finding a number of other things we didn't know we'd lost, along the way, and filling two bags for the charity shop, largely of toys that the girls didn't need any more. At the bottom of one of the toy boxes, patiently waiting all along to be discovered, was a Size 1 HUP cycling jacket.

We made a list, from which the missing jersey was cheerfully removed, of other things that had come to light during the afternoon. Ruth's trailerbike seat needs to go up. Rhoda's gloves are getting tight and she is probably ready for the larger crankset her sister uses. We have a new 11-34t cassette that needs fitting to Katie's tourer, along with bleeding those pesky brakes again. I ended up recording Ruth's heart rate, not my own (although that was instructive, during the ride!). I've got a loose front lamp bracket. We need to sort out some more rear lights, or fix the ones we have. These are all things we can try to fix before our next full team ride, rather than consigning ourselves to repeating them - and whilst it's been decided that the girls are to have special bags to put their cycling clothes and accoutrements in, we will be sure to check the toy box, next time something's gone astray...

Steaming socks on the 'spine road'

Tom takes up the tale of our 2017 Hebridean Way experience...

I woke to a hot tent, sunshine, and rain. It was Katie’s turn to have sneaked out early, not for a swim but to photograph the huge rainbow straddling our camp, and only to discover that I’d left her camera’s memory card in the reader last night, thereby causing her to miss the best moment. Whoops.

It’d been a later night than we’d expected. Having paid for a campsite and not knowing where my next opportunity for ablutions would arise, I for one had taken the opportunity to have a shower after finishing culinary duties in the ‘dining shed’ (very handy indeed - every campsite should have one). Possibly more importantly, I was able to rinse out my utterly minging socks. I’m not sure how I’ve done it but I only have two pairs with me, and one of those is the ‘I’ll take them just in case’ spare pair I grabbed from the car’s door bin as I was about to leave Oban. Flippin’ good job I did, because even with two pairs, it’s going to get ‘interesting’. This is definitely not a place where I am going to find an M&S selling size 15 socks and mail order doesn’t quite cut it when you don’t know where you will live by the time a consignment reaches the islands.

The unfortunate side-effect of a time-constrained tour, especially when you’re dependent on relatively infrequent ferries, time-limited border crossings, or a train to get you home, is that you end up with more intermediate ‘deadlines’ than you might like. They’re all self-imposed of course, the world won’t end if you don’t make it, but the prospect of making it to all the places you’re hoping to, is always set against the pleasures, or necessity in extremis, of staying where you are. It’s especially hard to make that trade-off when you are entering new territory, which for us this time is North Uist, Berneray and Harris, in particular. For the more intrepid traveller, a good knowledge of the CalMac booklet’s contents is invaluable if you are to avoid an awkward call to your employer to break the news to them that the next ferry off the island is the day after you were due back at your desk in the city.

As a result, the equation of ‘waiting for the tent to dry’ vs ‘losing minutes off our margin for making the ferry to Eriskay’ was particularly finely balanced this morning, and having bade a final farewell to Clem, Steff and a notably disappointed Noel, our almost-dry tent was shovelled into the panniers so fast we hardly noticed the midges, and we dashed off for the 1110 Eriskay ferry, my still-damp socks installed under the legs of my bibshorts; a hint of steam emanating from their new thigh-powered drying system.

The road from Eoligarry past the airport became a heavyweight time trial course, and we knew we were missing some beautiful beaches just out of sight to our right as we went haring over the lumpy, sandy road. At the end of a long, draughty straight back to Traigh Mór, I made the mistake of stopping to wait for Katie within sight of the baggage handling facility, and nearly had a mutiny on my hands when Rhoda, and then Ruth, wanted another ride through it.

Back towards the junction with the island’s ‘ring road’ and we found ourselves on familiar tarmac, alas with little time to stop and take in the stunning view of the beach we’d sat and drunk in last time we were here. We attacked a couple of sharp little rises, which we remembered slogging up with the trailer pushed on foot by Thomas Ivor, and it became apparent that if we were going to make it, it would be very tight. Frustrated by seeing a lorry,  which I knew would make the ferry comfortably, turn across our path, whilst possibly leaving us to watch it depart, I decided to go on a solo break (well, Rhoda and me) in the hope of ensuring they hung on for Katie and Ruth’s arrival. Cresting the last rise before the slip, a little bit anaerobic, sock-steamer on full blast, and wondering where I put my Ventolin, I saw the MV Loch Alainn, which looks broadly similar from both ends, some distance from land. Relieved by the realisation that I hadn’t seen the tell-tale line of cars coming the other way, I rolled to the terminal, having, as it turned out, ‘spent my tokens’ for nothing.

As is often the case in the Hebrides, the ferries are the place where you bump into other wheeled travellers, often the same ones in different permutations, to swap tales of what’s happened on the road (and sympathise about the direction of the wind) since last you crossed paths. Some of the cyclists we had seen on the ferry to Castlebay were rather shocked by the solid progress we and the girls had made, as were an elderly couple with a motorhome, whose dog the girls had played with on the crossing from Oban. Presently, Katie and Ruth rolled in, showing similarly the effects of needless exertion. Ruth had been pushing especially hard to make the ferry, Mummy noted. Jelly babies and fist bumps all round.

The Sound of Barra ferry is a pretty dour affair, for what is in fairness one of the shorter and more frequent crossings, where motorists can elect to remain in their vehicles. There’s an open car deck with a waiting room befitting a tired NHS hospital to the side; a small promenade extending along its roof for tourists and sunny days. Unusually, it affords access to your bikes during the crossing, which is particularly handy for us and something we would be glad of more often! The chance to adjust things, oil chains, swap pannier contents around and set up cameras whilst making forward progress is to be seized with both hands.

Readying ourselves to get off the boat, we were in the invidious position of knowing that we were about to tackle our nemesis from our last visit here - the short, sharp climb from the slip, over the hill to the village and the causeway to South Uist. We decided not to put on an ‘ambitious, but rubbish’ display of heroic failure for the other tourists, so as we usually do now, we waited for everyone else to hit the beach and get up the road before setting off.

I’ve been in training for the last few weeks, attempting to ride 10% of Mark Beaumont’s mileage as he cycles round the world, and so am rather fitter than I was in 2014. Mark climbed the steepest part of the climb, segmented on Strava, in 59 seconds, when he launched the Hebridean Way. The new trailerbike, and its occupant, even accounting for luggage, are probably a shade lighter and definitely more stable than Thomas Ivor’s Mountain Train was, last time - but the gradient still kicks to 22%. In my book, that’s sick and wrong on any kind of bike - but especially when you are taking a bike and rider totalling near enough 200kg. I had been having nightmares about having to trudge up this one again ever since we chose this itinerary.

The first part of the climb isn’t so bad - you have to walk off the ferry, and so that’s your excuse to stay on foot up the steep and potentially slippery slipway to the road, which then points you straight at your objective; the ribbon of tarmac leading you deceptively towards the hill on a trajectory that looks really quite reasonable. The view over the beach is a pretty one, and your attention is briefly diverted as you settle into the climb. Like a pilot in an action movie, suddenly it dawns on you that you’re not gaining enough height. The road bends left, a junction off to the right leading sadly to a dead end rather than a way out. You won’t see that lovely view again for a couple of hundred yards, measured by your brain as an absolute eternity, as the legs, which were coping with the first slope, meet the brutality of the ‘kick’. - 

One-in-five. Single track road. No way out. 

I stalled and had to walk last time; what Mark shrugged off in less than a minute took me six and a half of them, in an unedifying spectacle of grunting and straining. I wasn’t going home this time without having at least tried.

Red mist mode engaged, and having already more than warmed the legs through on the approach, I was resigned to dropping Katie and meeting her at the viewpoint near the top of the climb with the camera already on the tripod ready for a picture. We’ve not had chance to swap Katie’s cassette yet and so she was running a slightly longer gear than me. Without the benefit of training miles and with Ruth unlikely to be able to carry her own weight by the time the climb stiffened, it seemed likely that it would be a ‘Mummy walks, Ruth rides’ kind of climb, as we’d done on Vatersay.

As the steepest section really starts to bite, there’s a jolly tempting passing place on the nearside, but I could see the viewpoint I was aiming for, and I wasn’t having any of it. I dug deep and committed, sights set on a non-stop, pedalled ascent. The only animal noises this time would be a celebratory roar…

Yeah, right. 

I laid into it as well as I might have, but ultimately, I’d have needed teeth on the rim of my wheel to have been geared to make it right up, in the seat, with Rhoda as dead weight on the back, and with my heart rate topping 160, only just able to unclip my feet, I had to admit defeat. Tell you what, though, it was close. I walked all of 50 yards, tops. That was as good as a win, in the circumstances -  justification for another jelly baby, at least.  6 minutes 34 seconds in 2014; 2:36 this time. Mr Beaumont can hang on to his place on the leaderboard - for now!

Looking back down the hill, Katie was indeed walking, and some way back, with Ruth twiddling away on the rear, but it turned out that this had happened sooner than she’d hoped, because the extra bottle of water we’d strapped to the lids of Ruth’s panniers had made a bid for freedom and rolled back down the hill. We swapped war stories, strapped the bottle down again, got the obligatory photograph (the sun being in as bad a place for this as last time, which is, I suppose, logical, since the island hasn't turned on its axis in the interim) and carried on, knowing we’d overcome a hurdle with less bother than we’d anticipated and keen to finish the day in similar style.

Last time we crested that hill, we rolled down the other side and shot through the village, straight over the island and stopped off at the beach by the South Uist causeway; this year, we had business to attend to in the Eriskay community shop, in the way of procuring lunch. We’d been hoping to get some cheap scallops from the seafood company on Barra, but our late departure had sadly killed that plan. We sat outside, eating an eclectic mix of short-dated and thus reduced-price items, until the rain suddenly pitched up, causing us to retreat to a nearby bus shelter to finish our yoghurts. The cycle-tourist's dining room always comes to our rescue at least once per trip!

“If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes” is a common mantra up here, and sure enough, by the time we were ready to go and togged up in our waterproofs, the rain stopped and I was drowning inside my own trousers. Crossing the causeway onto South Uist, we arrived at the junction where the ‘Spine road’, which runs the length of the Uists and Benbecula, properly begins. Three years ago, this was the most soul-destroying piece of riding we’d done with the children.

Everyone tells you to ride the Hebridean Way South-North, to account for the prevailing winds, but this means that if you meet with nice weather, there’s a good prospect of a headwind, because the prevailing wind brings the persisting rain. Pedalling to stand still is purgatory at the best of times but all the more so when you’re heading across open moorland on a straight road; after the beautiful beach trip on Eriskay, our only happy memory of South Uist was the moment a lady took pity on us and kindly let us pitch our tent in her garden as night was falling. It really had been a bit grim.

We got quite a shock, then, at the speed (nearly three times as fast) with which we climbed the first hill past the brutal form of the Catholic Church of Our Lady of Sorrows, and were quite unfazed by the periodically squally weather as the wind propelled us towards Daliburgh and our next Co-op.

Castlebay - Eriskay - Daliburgh - Benbecula - Solas. The spine route is broken up, for us, into the gaps between Co-ops, and working out the resources we need to get from one to the next. They are our primary source of food, and of cash, a commodity one needs more often than we are accustomed to at home these days, in order to contribute to the economy elsewhere on the islands. Sure, there are a few other places to get food in between, notably the Fish, Chips and Petrol station just before Daliburgh, but a Co-op is an event. A moment to stop, take stock and obtain whatever supplies we’ll need before the next one. It’s like being on the M1 with a toddler and doing a ‘bladder audit’ on your prospects of reaching Toddington with dry seats, before you've left it too late to dive into Newport Pagnell. Frankly, the consequences of getting it wrong are just as catastrophic. Hell hath no fury like a junior touring cyclist who’s ridden all day and just been told you’ve run out of Stroopwafels.

Looming over us as we parked up against the wall at the Co-op was the question of where we were to stay the night, because we still hadn’t sorted it out and so we didn't know what our cooking arrangements would be. History was repeating itself, albeit with time and a favourable wind on our side compared to last time - but the forecast was for a draughty night. For all the uncertainty, at least my socks would definitely be dry...

Coming up next - “I know, but is it socially acceptable to sleep in a graveyard’s car park?"

Chasing the day

I left the tent quietly at dawn and as I showered by the light of a lazily-flickering hurricane lamp, contemplated the challenge ahead. We were a day down.

The itinerary I'd designed had recovery time built into it, for just such eventualities and to make sure we made it to St Malo for the ferry home, but to shift the next few days' arrangements back a day would wipe out our margin for the rest of the trip and be a serious logistical headache. Ideally, we had to pull back a day's mileage and get back on track within three days, so we arrived with our first 'Warmshowers' hosts, Morgane and Marin, on time.

If we could do two days in one, I figured, we would give ourselves the least to do - doing two 'days and a half' would require a new overnight stop as well as two cancellations.

We weren't the only ones a day down - the weather yesterday had delayed other cyclists on the campsite, and I gave them a wave and wished them luck as they got on their way. We still had the tent to pack away! I got back to the tent and used my recording of the music from the ferry to wake up those of the team who were not already climbing over the others.

Saying goodbye to Judi at the campsite

We bade farewell to our friends at the campsite, drawing a sharp and disbelieving intake of breath from one chap (whose children were merrily lapping the campsite on their bikes) when we said we were considering a 40+ mile day with Thomas Ivor and the girls. We knew we could do it because we'd done it before - but it's amazing how often strangers think they know your capabilities better than you do! Nothing like the disbelief of others to fuel you as you hit the road.

Back we rode towards the Réseau Breton. As we did so, Katie took her first 'scalp' with the trailer, overtaking a family with a horse-drawn caravan. I'm not sure where they stood in comparison to one another on power:weight ratio, but downhill, the horse and steel-tyred caravan were no match for Mrs J and her Croozer!

Down at the station, the caravan we'd seen on Monday night was hurriedly departing, likely in some way connected with the presence of the Gendarmerie in their van at the top of the path! These guys looked a lot rougher, possibly Romanies, but it was tricky passing them on a bike, never mind with a trailer, on a path barely as wide as their outfit and decidedly soggy at the edges. As ever, it seems, no piece of 'cycling infrastructure' ever caters exclusively for cyclists. Either you have to share it with cars, pedestrians, or in this case, horses.

Aside from a couple of such encounters, and cows crossing the route at one point, the path was a bit depressing, truth be told. What must have been a beautiful and challenging piece of railway has been allowed to be turned by nature into a 'tree tunnel' for much of its length, totally isolating the cyclist from the surrounding countryside; it may as well be Bedfordshire as Brittany. The path, saturated by two days of rain, offered considerable resistance but limited grip. It was something of a grind - to the point where even on a slightly falling gradient there was no prospect of rolling freely. The guide book suggested that the surface would deteriorate and so it did as we zoned in on Carhaix. If we couldn't make Carhaix as our first leg of the day, we weren't going to make up any lost distance.

We got as far as Poullaouen (which looks more Welsh than French as a place name!) and I decided I'd had enough. We scrambled up onto the road and found some of that lovely, smooth, tarmac stuff we'd almost forgotten existed. The road was hillier than the railway, but we decided we'd happily deal with that; it immediately felt like we had returned to France. Unfortunately, our pace to that point meant that lunchtime was slipping away. We would have to ride well into the evening to do today's mileage as well as yesterday's.

Our departure from the railway route deprived us, very sadly, of the sight of the steam locomotive on the path nearer to Carhaix, which was a real shame, but we had to press on. Arriving at the edge of town, D54 got busier and we raced towards what turned out to be a stonking great hill, on a bend, to get to the town centre. It was like Dawlish all over again, but bigger, and in the heat of the day. We found another way up the hill, on a shaded road with almost no vehicular traffic at all, and ferried people, bikes and trailers up as a team effort.

Thomas Ivor captured the second of what was ultimately four legs shuttling us and our kit up the hill into Carhaix.

Carhaix-Plouguer is a pleasant little town. We rolled round the one way system in search of somewhere suitable to eat (Katie catching a kerb and having one of those embarrassing, slow-motion-falling-off episodes whilst also looking for an ATM), somehow crossing paths four times in the process with a fellow cyclist who had passed us on the path earlier in the day, but as the guide books warn of much of France, if you miss the 1200-1400 lunch period, you can expect to find a lot of places not serving food, or indeed totally 'fermée'. As cyclists and particularly with the demands of the children, it is harder for us to conform to this pattern; you learn to carry more cash than usual, and to take what is available, when you find it. In all fairness, this doesn't work out too bad, because the discerning French don't tolerate poor food, and we haven't been sold a duff or hideously pricey meal anywhere we've stopped so far. The children have definitely eaten better than usual, Thomas Ivor and Ruth especially so. We must aim to take something of this home with us.

Lunch had to be a picnic from the supermarket in the end, in the company of a statue of three old Breton ladies who periodically sang, with water squirting (without warning) from the floor around them! Katie was at least able also to find a jeweller's shop to buy some ear studs from - one of the more bizarre items to have forgotten!

Looking once more at the plan, we decided that, since combining the next two days on the route amounted to a smaller daily total than trying to do a double stint today, we would get ourselves to the site we should have stayed at last night, and have another go tomorrow. It wasn't that we couldn't do it - more the case that tomorrow should be better. Despite the dodgy roads, my wheel has held up, albeit now running a very low pressure to cushion it. I'd rather a puncture than a broken spoke, I figure.

As we left town, we passed the railway station - this one, almost disconcertingly, open, as part of the portion of the Réseau Breton that was upgraded to standard gauge in later years. The GPS showed me a street name I had to get a picture of Thomas Ivor with - if one day he ever does make it round the world on his bike, it will be priceless - although I fancy he will need more than 80 days...

All this being so, thanks to our earlier push, we've arrived earlier than we might have done yesterday at Maël Carhaix, on a beautiful and very cheap municipal campsite (no toilet paper!) with barely a soul on it. The advice that Brittany's interior is quiet even during the French holidays has been well worth following, thus far. We have a field almost to ourselves, the girls have made friends with one particular tree near the tent, the pasta is cooking and I've even had time to set up the camera to do some filming; there's a lake, play area, and all the amenities you could reasonably need for a night's stopover. All for something like €8. We're still chasing that day and we must do something tomorrow, but I can think of worse places to prepare!

We forgot to close the garage...

We're off. It's persisting with rain and the traffic bound for the South West is predictably appalling, but we made it to Gloucester services for a pitstop and Katie is now in the 'hot seat', or the queue as it is currently known. We will get there when we get there!

This is the bit of the trip where I always think of the MacCallisters on their plane to Paris. We can be sure we've forgotten something - it's just a question of what, whether our guesses are right, and how severe it is. Every trip seems to follow a similar pattern - we shall see if this one conforms!

So here we have the Family ByCycle guide to things you forgot, with apologies to Donald Rumsfeld...

1. Things you forgot you forgot (5 Points for each)

The sunglasses, camera mount or map that you find on the settee when you get home, having never noticed you'd not taken them. Otherwise known as 'inadvertent weight saving'. Don't bring them again and bank the benefit on future trips. Win.

2. Things you forgot you remembered (5 Points for each useful one, -5 points per 100g for duplicate items, or things you shouldn't have packed)

More good news. At some stage in your tour, you discover that you have something with you, that comes in handy, even though you never meant to have it with you, or thought you'd forgotten it in the first instance. Remember not to forget it next time.

On the flip side, if you grabbed something at the last minute and it turns out you have two, or didn't need it, or it's the wrong one, you've just lumbered yourself with dead weight.

3. Things you remember you forgot (see tariff)

Oh dear. Eventually, something you forgot becomes very much remembered. There are sub-categories to this one, depending on severity:

3(a). Things you forgot, that you can manage without at a push (-10 Points for each)

You may smell more, ache more, go a bit hungry, or miss out on a useful piece of technology, but your trip still happens, and you just deal with it.

3(b). Things you forgot, that you have to replace locally at a price (-10 Point per hour lost, AND -1 Point per pound wasted)

Sometimes you get lucky and it's something consumable. Sometimes it's not very expensive. More usually it's a swine to get your hands on. It will cost you time, effort, definitely be very poor value and not quite the right one when you do find one. In certain cases it will also sit accusingly in your home in future, reminding you of the whole upsetting affair by not being as good as the one you left behind and still own. I bought the most expensive 'changing bag' in the world from a camera shop in Cologne one Christmas over a decade ago, and it still rankles!

3(c). Things you forgot, that totally kibosh your trip. (-1000 Points for a total loss, -500 Points for a trip home that costs you one more more nights of your tour, and/or -10 Points per pound spent on gifts for the friends, relatives, neighbours or total strangers who dug you out, if you miraculously recover the situation)

The towing arm off the trailer (Wales, Spring 2015 - Katie and the girls rendered unable to ride for the duration of our visit). The quick release bolt for the arm on the Mountain Train (Devon, Summer 2014 - friends went to our house and posted one to the campsite).

Thanks to our friends Hilary and Graham, that's the face of a man who's just avoided a catastrophe.

And finally...

4. Things you remembered you remembered

i.e. most things from 3(b), and anything that has previously featured in 3(c) having become a source of neurosis.

I'm just patting the trailer's towing arm smugly, wondering how many points the last 24 hours' packing effort has earned us. Tomorrow we shall start to find out!

PS: The Amazon delivery arrived at about 1830 yesterday, having written the day off for any tasks needing to be done in town. I had a haircut at 0800 this morning whilst Katie fitted the bike rack and loaded the 'Daddy Bus'! It was worth it - review to follow this tour on the products concerned....