A blog about skating and cycling, or vice versa

Deeply Dieppy#

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 13:04:49 +0000

Another long skate this weekend, this time on the Avenue verte Dieppe > Forges Previously a railway line (meaning it's mostly straight and very nearly flat), it's a (very nicely) tarmaced path that's closed to motorised traffic, for the use of cyclists, skaters, walkers, etc etc. We started at Neufchâtel-en-Bray, skated to the north end (then onto the roads for the leg to Dieppe) then to the south end, then back to where we started - total 105km or thereabouts.

Arrived on Saturday morning about 10:30am after a very early Eurotunnel crossing. Having been caught by a couple of fairly torrential showers on the drive down, it was a relief to see that the sky was dry when we set out. On the first leg up to Arques-la-Bataille progress was hard work due to a very stiff wind and slippery patches under trees, and despite forming into a fairly tight paceline we were averaging only 20km/h or so. At Arques the path rund out, so up the hill onto the main road into Dieppe where we skated around the harbour, took some photos, and stopped to refill water bottles.

The trip back to Neufchâtel was much much faster ... The group wanted to go at about 22-23 km/h but at that speed and with the tailwind I wasn't feeling any advantage from drafting, so struck out on my own and held a steady 25-30km/h the rest of the way back. Leaving the voie verte for to pay a visit to the hotel bathroom, I then returned to try and catch the two of our number who'd decided to do the last 15km stretch to Forges-les-Eaux. The railway line ran out after about 10km and was succeeded by a reasonable (though steeper) tarmaced path, which was succeeded by a rather lumpier gravel-strewn path, then eventually by a steep uphill into Forge-les-Eaux. Where there was a bar that served us Orangina and croque-monsieur, so that was all right. Skated as a group on the way back to Neufchâtel taking it fairly easy.

Total distance 105km, moving time 5 hours - not all of it at "trying especially hard" pace. For once I actually remembered to wear my HRM strap: picture below demonstrates the headwind, I think. Raw patch on my inside left ankle and outside right ankle, but I already know my right foot is collapsing during the stride unless I pay it lots of attention. I think the left foot problem is due to having used wheels which were already t-stopped to death and distinctly asymmetrical, so will probably go away when I put new wheels on. Oh, and knees a bit sore.

:http://ww.telent.net/tmp/dieppe-hr-big.png

Photos on Flickr

Whatever #

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 15:03:15 +0000

It's been a busy week, albeit that little of it involved actual skating. In the order it occurs to me

Does anyone know of a Lisp library that understands Textile markup? I think it's time to write new blog/wiki software

Baaacccckk!#

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 22:02:14 +0000

One of the reasons there's been nothing posted here lately is that I've been away from the net this last week, in Sardinia for the [[Experts in Speed]] training camp. (The other is that every time lately I start thinking about writing stuff, it turns out to be the blogging software rewrite instead of the actual data it operates on. But more on that some other time)

A full report on Sardinia will follow after I've got some sleep, but in the meantime here's the summary by comparison with [[last year => http://www.coruskate.net/view/Skate20063#sardinia]]:

Techniquey round-up

h2. Other stuff

And now I am going to bed, in the hope that I will wake up less grumpy