London to The Hague via Dunkirk and Dover, cycling – Day 4 – Rest Day!

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The original plan was to have a rest day, mostly just resting in the camping ground/caravan park. But when I discovered that I was in Flanders Fields, and close to Passendale, I decided it would be interesting to visit World War I sites.

It was a stinking hot day, and very humid. Rode out 11km to Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery. The surroundings were all lush and green, and it was hard to imagine them looking barren, muddy, leafless and shelled out.

Riding was all along separated cycle paths on the side of the road, with a little bit along quiet roads. Again, my GPS and sat nav came in handy. But if I had a map of the fietspoints in Flanders it would probably have been easier – unlike other countries, the intersections are marked with a number, so you travel to each intersection (compared to travelling along a numbered route). Some rain came that night, which marked the first time I took shelter, but it was only about half an hour hiding inside my tiny little tent. The camping ground/caravan park at Ieper was good in that it had wifi and hot showers (and the nearby Aldi). Went to the 8pm service at the Menin Gate again.

London to The Hague via Dunkirk and Dover, cycling - Day 3 Dover to Ieper (Ypres)

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GPS route (.gpx) available for Kingsdown to Dover ferry terminal, and Dunkirk to Ieper camping ground.

A freezing morning to wake up to in Kingsdown, and it was supposed to be August. It was an early start, with needing to ride 10km to Dover by 7am, and have first breakfast, and pack up the tent. Set the alarm for 5:15, and stayed in my sleeping bag to eat breakfast and make the coffee. It was freezing.

Once on the road, it was nice and sunny and rolling through golden wheat fields. There wasn’t a single car to be seen and the route is mostly along the main road. I hit Dover, and took the direct route to the docks. This is a mistake. The direct route takes one down hundreds of stairs, descending the cliffs, which is difficult with a loaded bicycle. It’s better to take the route through the town and on the road.

Dover docks is a mess on a bike, and probably in a car, too. It’s one of the busiest ferry terminals in the world, packed full of multiple lanes of moving trucks and cars, and some bridges. The instructions for cyclists are confusing – but you just need to follow the red line for cyclists painted on the ground, which takes you through border control. But then it takes a right bend, with inadequate signing. At that point, you depart from the cars and go towards an empty-looking booth and park your bike and a person looks at your ticket. Then you finish at the booth and move with your bike on to another building, where they also look at your ticket. Then you rejoin the rows of cars.

The idea was to have a second breakfast on the ferry, and skip lunch. It was an 8am sailing, coming in to Dunkirk at 11:30am France time. Second breakfast was had, and then I rolled off the ramp at Dunkirk, and remembered to ride on the right hand side of the road. Even though my route goes east along the coast, I went with the flow of the traffic for a bit, until it was safe to dismount and cross the road and head back. From here, it’s very quiet and easy cycling behind the dunes and along the tarmac-ed beach. They ashphalted the beach, so that now you can conveniently drive right to the water's edge (and further if you want to). I don't know what the culture is like in France, in terms of the north, but I suspect that this may be a northern thing, with a fine appreciation of industry. Entry to the town itself was via its docks and heavy industrial area, but it was all quiet cycling. The town is a fair way from the ferry terminal, perhaps 30-60 mins riding.

In Dunkirk itself, there was a statue of Winston Churchill, who for some reason is revered in that part of the world, along with Britain. They might have a statue to him in Dunkirk, but I doubt the Singaporeans would be inclined that way (or perhaps they might rightly hang him upside down).

On leaving Dunkirk I ran into a summer festival on the waterfront, with so many people around I had to get off my bike and push. Then I discovered that my GPS route was sending me through the dunes. After checking I was in the right place several times, I conceded that I programmed a bad route (a heavy bike and soft sand doesn’t work), headed to the main road and legged it to the Belgian... to get out of France.

The French food offerings at the border weren’t to my liking, so I proceeded a few hundred metres up the road to a supermarket, with the expected advantage that they were in Flanders, so would be happy with speaking English. The sign ‘Tabac. Prix belges’ should have told me. The supermarket was running a genius idea – operating in French for a French clientele, to take advantage of presumably softer Flemish law.

And it was my first experience of Belgian cycling. After not too long, I was heading down canal paths, which are so quiet in terms of traffic that they are effectively nice smooth bike paths. And on to the camping ground/caravan park in Ieper, seeing the Menin Gate. Ieper is great as a first point on the continent for a trip because there’s an Aldi just near the camping ground. But of course, being Belgium, nothing’s open on a Sunday, or potentially ever.

Sunday in Belgium:

Cadets from Essex (for the nightly service at the Menen Gate):

London to The Hague via Dunkirk and Dover, cycling - Day 2

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GPS route (.gpx) available for download here.

Left the hostel after brushing the previous day’s dry mud off my bike, and making some adjustments to my dynamo for phone charging. As I entered Sittingbourne, I followed NCR1 signs, but then they stop.

This was the only time on the trip when I got lost. The signs really stopped dead and I retraced my path several times. I should have followed my GPS which was programmed to not go through central Sittingbourne, but follow a cycle lane along a road looping around the outside of the town.

Reactivating my sat nav, my route was going down a very dumpy looking road, with makeshift roadblocks (boulders, and some wooden obstructions). It also had some crappy painted rocks and rubbish strewn around. Just like something out of Big Fat Gypsy Weddings. I thought I hope this path doesn't take me through a traveller colony. Sure enough, I turned the corner into a swathe of caravans, and a tired looking bruiser in a singlet. It was 9am, so probably far too early for any of them to care that I was there. I escaped around the side and pedalled for my life. As it happens, I rejoined the NCR1 signs, which makes me think that somewhere along the way the bike path signs might have been tampered with.

This took me through an orchard, and up on top the hill I prepared my breakfast and coffee nestled between a strawberry farm and some variety of vegetables. The path was now a bicycle-dedicated narrow gravel bridleway nestled between the fields and hedgerows. Again, the national cycle route was completely inappropriate for road bikes. Pulled out my trangia and boiled water for a coffee.

The ride was very nice, on dedicated bridleways and quiet country lanes. On the way to Faversham, the heavens opened again and I was completely soaked. On leaving Faversham, the route got a bit hilly, not hard steep sections but lots of up and down, up and down. Little did I know, but with the combination of the grit on my rims from the previous day’s storm, and loaded panniers, this was to wear my rear brake pads down to the metal pins. I was without rear brakes for the rest of the trip.

Lunch time at a pub in a very crowded Canterbury. The ride in to Canterbury is nice, through the university. The ride out is also nice, along dedicated paths through the woods, again probably inappropriate for road bikes.

Then it was to the coast, and a very windy Sandwich and Deal. Riding near Sandwich the cycle route took me through a toll gate - it turns out to be a private road through someone's private estate. But bikes went through free. But shortly in to the estate, there was an awful lot of shooting, and I thought I was going to get a shoot. Still not really sure how I didn't get shot. Still awfully windy.

Arrived at long last somewhere near the camping ground, so I checked my GPS to see if I was remotely close, as I could see some white cliffs - maybe I'd gone too far. It turns out I was just below the camping ground! So I can now confirm that the white cliffs are real and not photoshopped.

Headed up to the camping ground at Kingsdown, with tea at a local pub. They told me that they weren't offering food that night (I've been told this before elsewhere), so I told them I'd stay for a beer then. Deciding I was alright, they then decided that they would be serving food. They had interesting accents - they were using a hard 'a' (æ) for France, rather than an elongated 'a' (ɑː).

Busy and big camping ground, but acceptable. The showers were offering cold water and cold water.

London to The Hague via Dover, Dunkirk, Ieper, Ghent, Brugge, cycling - Day 1

London to Gillingham, National Cycle Route 1 (NCR1). Pretty short day at just around 75km.
GPX (GPS route) from Charlton/Greenwich available for download here.

The plan was to leave London very early, but didn't leave until 7am. There was a heavy rain and thunder storm, so I waited it out. Once it stopped, it was nice and clear to go. Made it to the National Cycle Route 1 at Woolwich all nice and dry. Then rode along the foreshore (dedicated cycle trail) and then along the side of the industrial area and docks.

The heavens opened and the thunder and lightning started again, and it was some of the heaviest rain I’d ever seen. I had to make a quick change into just bike shorts and a tshirt on the side of the abandoned docks, as everything I was wearing was going to get soaked. Continued on in the lightning and downpour along the Thames wasteland, and then hit the marshes around Erith. Mud was flying everywhere. Even though I have mudguards, this is just testament to how strong the rain was. Mud ended up all over the top of my pannier bags and all over my back.

I don’t know what they put in the soil in the marshes around Erith, but the mud corroded a 2L water bottle that I had, and corroded a heavy duty plastic bag. The whole area out there seems like the wild east. It's quite isolated and has a lawless vibe. If anything happened to you, there'd be no help for miles.

Note that the NCR1 is totally inappropriate for road bikes through the marshes. Flash flooding at on NCR1 in Gravesend. A nice section of NCR1 just out of Gravesend, on a dedicated cycle path.

On the approach to Rochester and Strood the NCR1 is on the road and goes through a wood. Very nice, has a nice looking quaint pub in the woods. Then it bends around an army base before dropping into Strood. By this stage my back brakes were kaput, and it was only day one. It was probably the toxic grit, combined with London grit, and all the mud and water just wearing them down. I had no spares.

Stopped by the River Medway in Strood to change out of my muddy clothes (the mud had now dried and was a horrible chalky dust). Lunch in Rochester, checked out the castle and cathedral. Nice cobbles around parts of the old town. The pub was great for lunch – chose the one right next to the old bridge. The cricket was on, which was also good.

Stayed the night at a YHA just out of Gillingham. They had a bike shed which was handy, and there was (an expensive) pub down the road. Actually the hostel is a converted oast house, which made it all the more Kentish. But I wouldn’t stay there again on this route. It was just too difficult to get to on a bike (cutting across the A2 in Chatham is easier said than done). The whole oast house thing is a bit of a con, because when you're in there it's just a normal building - the pointy roof is invisible inside. The showers weren't particularly clean and the front desk was more interested in chatting on the phone.

The Mediterranean by bike, in lego.

Flakey connection - Magicshine MJ-816

Came back from a month travelling around Asia and Europe and strangely my fantastic 1400 lumen bike light (Magicshine MJ-816) had developed a very frustrating and annoying flicker... so much so that I couldn't use it anymore.

The 1400 lumen bike light is as bright as a car light so I can see where I'm going, rather than my other light which lets people see me.

Putting my ear close to all the connections in the cables, it seemed to me that the connection where the three cables (switch, power source, light) join up was flakey. Inside the plastic mold where the cables join up is a circuit board.

So I had to get the circuit board out. There was no easy way to access the circuit board as the plastic had been moulded on. This meant cutting away the plastic with a blade – very carefully. I was lucky that when I cut it open, I started on the side of the circuit board that didn’t have all the important things.

With the plastic out of the way, I cut off the switch cable and cut away the switch cable wires from the circuit board.

Next came the tough part. I had to re-solder the wires to the switch board (I could have left the wires on and just fixed up the connection – but it seemed less fiddly if I started from scratch.

So I made the 10km bike ride over the mountain. I bought a soldering iron, solder and a fine tip for the iron.

I soldered on the wires (having previously taken note of the correct order of colours - from the power source, red, white, green, black). Then I had to check if it all worked. I plugged the power source in and it all worked! without any flickering!

The connection needs to be water proof, so I taped it up and then put candle wax on it, using a candle and a milo lid as a pan. The wax was too crumbly, and was a failure.

Then I tried hot glue gun, which worked perfectly.