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Last Updated: Feb 12th, 2008 - 10:07:52 |
IrishCycling.com readers may be interested to read about the adventures of Dave McLoughlin, a racing member of Orwell Wheelers, who is riding from Dublin to Capetown, South Africa. Dave left Dublin on 10th December and rode to Rosslare where he took the ferry to Cherbourg, and then rode through France, Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, and across the Sahara desert through Mauritania. He's now in Senegal.
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| Dave McLoughlin seen here leading the bunch in the 2007 Shay Elliott memorial race |
Most of you will know Dave from the road racing scene where he regularly competes in the Orwell Wheelers colours.
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| The proposed route from Dublin to Capetown |
Dave's progress can be followed in his Blog on the web at www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/Hatchetsholidays. Here you can read a detailed account of his adventure as it unfolds. I came across his blog last week and I find it fascinating, it's a great read, a great cycling story as it happens.
He's living the dream.
I've attached some excepts from Dave's blog, I do recommend you visit the real thing.
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An African Adventure:
By Dave McLoughlin
THE ROUTE:
The specifics of the route were the easy part, as there is effectively only one road open across the Sahara. This road leads from Morocco through Western Sahara to Nouadibhou in Mauritania, and on to Dakar in Senegal. From here I will probably go East to Mali and Burkina Faso(probably taking a detour to Timbuktoo. I don't think I could resist). After Burkina the next on the list are Ghana,Togo and Benin, and thats as far as I have worked out for now. When it comes to picking a route through Nigeria I'll wait 'til I'm in the region and look for advice from people coming the other way. And after that I don't see too much point in speculating as I may well have thought of somewhere else to go/lost interest and gone home/been eaten by wild animal etc. And that's all assuming I even make it out of the desert in the first place.
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| This is the Rohloff gearhub. All self contained and perfectly indexed |
HIS BIKE:
For this tour I'll be using a steel framed bike made by Thorn of Somerset, Rohloff gears, drop bars, V-brakes and Andra tungsten carbide rims. It's a heavy lump of a machine, but should be very durable. The carriers are Thorns own steel tubed racks front and back, again sacrificing weight for durability.
I have Altura 56 litre panniers on the rear, CreektoPeak 36 on the front, giving me more luggage space than I could possibly need. The rear carrier has a good sized deck on it allowing me to load up with extra water whenever I need, or whatever bulky items I might need to carry for a while.
I'll be using look pedals rather than SPDs because I like to change my shoes at the end of the day, and I'd prefer to have 2 pairs of shoes that are good at their respective jobs than 1 pair which is equally bad at both.
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| The bike for the trip is a Thorn Raven Tour pictured here before loading |
TRAINING: The preparation both physical and Mental
The simplest answer to the question of how much training I've done for this tour is effectively none. I have come off a long and varied season of racing, touring and audax, and the past few months have been a mixture of rest and play, with the main aim being to recover my desire to be out on the bike.
Most of the events I've ridden this year have been stand-alone, ridden on their own merits, resulting in a cumulative build up of strength and fitness without ever aiming for any specific goal.
The season began quietly with a mixture of open races and 100-130k club spins with the Orwell Wheelers,before building up to a peak in May.
First up was a nighttime 400, ridden on a Friday night after work in perfect conditions. I was fortunate in getting such a good night for my first big spin of the year, and I arrived home in time for a late breakfast in good shape and eager for more.
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| Dave with Joe Daly in his bikeshop in Dundrum 12 hours before the off |
Only a week later I got the other side of that coin, riding in horrendous conditions in the 3-day tour of Ulster. The tone was set when I was dropped on the first hill of the first day, and it all went downhill from there. In 3 short days we got climb after climb interspersed with wind, rain and crashes, and while I was never at risk of winning any prizes the experience certainly toughened me up for the hard days to come.
Two weeks passed before the next test,which came in the shape of Ireland's national tour, the RAS. This has been the benchmark for amateur road racers in Ireland for many years, an opportunity to compete against the Pros for 8 days, over rough roads, often in harsh weather, with the hope of someday nicking a result. In what turned out to be 8 days of pain, with mountains, 70km/h lineouts,all day chases to meet the time limit, and a few more crashes for good measure, I achieved a unique result.I finished after 1200km of racing in the same position as my race number(113th). This mightn't sound so good but it's pretty tricky to do. Since I'm never going to win a race I'll hold onto unlikely achievements like that as my best claim to fame.
While many cycle-tourists will see no connection between stage racing and cycle-touring the strength and speed gained from events like the RAS is invaluable when faced with mountain ranges, headwinds or having to race the sunset to make the next town.
36 hours after the RAS finished I set out on my 600k audax, an essential event to qualify for bigger things later on in the season. It started well, the first 300k rolling by easily, favourable weather, easy roads and no ill effects from my week of racing. As evening began to fall fatigue gradually caught up with me, slowly dragging me down, making every hill a mountain.In the small hours of the morning as I was reaching my lowest ebb the inevitable rain arrived, turning what had already been unpleasant into a horror show. I tried to sleep under a bush for a while, wrapped in all my soaking gear, too cold to sleep, too wet and miserable to get back on the bike, paralysed by the misery of the circumstances I found myself in. I was eventually prodded into moving again when a puddle formed in my ear and shorted out my earphone, giving me a series of tiny electric shocks to the inner ear until I couldn't stay still anymore. The final 200k took around 12 hours, but felt like a lifetime, and I spent the next 3or4 days in bed regaining my will to live. With days like this it really is the case that if they don't kill you they will only make you stronger, and bad weather just hasn't seemed so bad since.
A week in the Alps was next on the list, with big mountains and good sunshine, fabulous descents and quiet roads, for a week the world was our playground. I came home in the form of my life and with my love for the bike thoroughly rekindled.
Last but not least came the legendary Paris-Brest-Paris, a race that the pros had abandoned in the '50s due to its gruelling nature, but which lives on as an audax event, attracting thousands of amateurs every fourth year all hoping to be part of the legend. P.B.P. is a 1200k event to be completed in under 90hours, travelling from Paris to the Atlantic coast and back again. It has a unique nature due to the overwhelming support of the French public, and most riders finish vowing to return. Apparently the weather was France's worst summer in 50 years, with a huge failure rate as a result, but after the Irish qualifiers none of us seemed to notice. It was probably an improvement on the weather we'd become accustomed to, and we achieved a very rare 100% success rate, a tough event made easy through all the hard days on the road beforehand.
Since August I took it easy on the bike, riding the occasional club run, and mixing in mountain biking, hillwalking and rockclimbing for variety. My fitness has dipped significantly but the strength that was built up throughout the year is still there, and I plan to ride into fitness in the first month of the tour. I think(hope!) that the mental strength I found during the year will stand to me on the hard days, so I can focus less on the cycling and more on the journey.
Some pictures and text from his blog
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| Day8: First close look at the high peaks of the Pyrenees |
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| Day 9: Tuesday December 18, Total so far: 1,176 km (731 miles) Viva España; I just wish it wasn't so f*****g cold. |
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| Day 19: Looking down the gorge to the old bridge in Ronda: I got up this morning planning to take a quick look at Ronda before motoring down to Algeciras, but one good look at the town and I knew I wanted a day there. So I have my 4th day off in just over a week. It's worth it though, and there's always tomorrow. The towns' most prominent landmark is the "Puenta Nueva", which joins Moorish and Spanish towns over a massive gorge. It's a stunning bridge, at least 10 times as high as it is wide. The gorge is crossed by two other bridges further down, each as picturesque, just smaller than the later bridge. |
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| Day 23: New Year, New World - January 1, Total so far: 2,501 km (1,554 miles) Sunrise from my hotel room |
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| Day 34: January 12, Total so far: 3,401 km (2,113 miles) One more sunset, I've lost track of how many I've ridden through on this tour |
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| Day 39: Thursday January 17, Total so far: 3,968 km (2,466 miles) First loose camels I've seen. They have no markings or harnesses, and the nearest shack is about 10k away, so I'm presuming they're wild but I really don't know. It's fairly dry up here, and not a scrap of shade, nor anything to block the wind. |
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| Day 45: Wednesday January 23, Total so far: 4,617 km (2,869 miles) There's a bend coming up. I'm savouring the moment because it may be hours before the next bit of excitement. |
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| The technical term is sandblasted - The Bike Technical stuff: All the bike needed this time round was the chain tightened up, it's been quite stretched so I needed to take two links out. I changed the oil in the Rohloff as well, a surprisingly simple operation. The chainring and sprocket are showing absolutely zero wear, and since they're both reversable I can see them lasting 100,000 km easily. The Swisstop brakeshoes are also showing no detectable wear, and I can't imagine them wearing out in the duration of this tour. The rims are also in mint condition, and considering the treatment they've got so far that's fairly impressive. The only thing that won't last the tour is the chain, I think it'll need changing at around 10,000k, |
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| Day 54: Thursday January 31, Total so far: 5,492 km (3,413 miles) Well I'm here now, and Nouakchott is quite a nice town, although very third world. Many of the residents here were formerly nomads who were forced into the city by drought, and though it is a big city (800,000), it feels like an extended desert campsite. There are hustlers here, but you only have to say no once and they leave you alone. There are some well stocked shops, although I generally have to visit two or three to get all I need |
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| View of the streetscape from the hotel. Even on the main roads the sand rules over all else. It doesn't bother the drivers, donkeys or goats but it's a pain in the ass on a bike. |
Dave's progress can be followed in his Blog on the web at:
http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/Hatchetsholidays
(Copy and paste this link into your browser)
IMAGES COPYRIGHT:
Any images included in this article remain the property of the photographer, by whom all rights are retained, 2008 ©. Use of images for electronic or print purposes is may be possible with the express, written permission of the photographer.
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