Alas, we’re home and it’s back to work tomorrow. At least we’ve had a fab time and lots of happy memories. I didn’t really buy any souvenirs, but I think I have come home with a few extra pounds thanks to all those ice creams, Dutch apple cakes and French pastries – the diet starts now. If I waver, I’ll have to watch this video to remind myself of my pledge

What with the mechanical incidents and unplanned train journeys, we haven’t cycled as far as we thought we would on this holiday. We’re about 300 miles short of what we’d expected, but nevertheless we’ve still managed over 600 mile in the saddle over two weeks – quite a leisurely holiday for us really! Here are the final numbers:

Bristol – Potters Bar (121 miles)
Potters Bar – Harwich (74 miles)
Harwich – Hook van Holland (ferry)
Hook van Holland – Rotterdam (18 miles)
Rotterdam – Venlo (train)
Venlo – Maastricht (45 miles)
Maastricht – Liege (return) (37 miles)
Maastricht – Seraing (return) (47 miles)
Maastrict – Tournai (111 miles)
Tournai – Ghent (38 miles)
Ghent – Brugge (26 miles)
Brugge – Rotterdam (90 miles)
Rotterdam – Hook van Holland (18 miles)
Hook van Holland – Harwich (ferry)
Harwich – London (train)
London – Bristol (train)

Total 625 miles

We may be back in blighty with all the wet and cold that comes with it, but Froome and Wiggins know how to bring some sunshine into our day. What a fantastic ride from team Sky and a well deserved stage win and king of the mountains jersey for Chris Frome and the yellow jersey for Bradley Wiggins – interestingly it’s fifty years and a day since Tommy Simpson was the first Brit to win the maillot jaune – what a way to mark the anniversary!

I know I keep going on about Warm Showers (the touring cycling hosting group) but it is fab and the hosts we’ve stayed with have helped make our holiday really special. This post is a special blog post to thank everyone who has welcomed us on out travels over the past week.
To Lisa, Stuart, Gwen and Sadie who looked after us on our first and our final night (tonight). Wendy, Tim and Hannah in Venlo who fed us fantastic vegan meals and taught us how to use the Dutch cycle network numbers. Melanie in Tournai even gave up her bed to accommodate us and roamed the streets to find us when we went to the wrong address in a next street. Johan in Brugge took us on an impromptu tour of the film sets from ‘In Brugge’ and gave us helpful directions about the route along the canal to the Netherlands. Finally Emmy and Robert greeted us with an unexpected BBQ beside the lake near their apartment with their friends. To all our Warm Showers friends, we thank you and hope we can repay your kindness if you visit Bristol one day.

Ok, admittedly this isn’t ever going to happen in reality, but I couldn’t resist taking advantage of the TDF yellow jersey photo opportunity at Look Mum No Hands.

So there we have it; our cycling holiday is nearly over. Fourteen glorious days in the saddle through England, Netherlands, Belgium and France -more amazingly, (everyone in Britain may want to turn away now), only one rain storm! Our final day is in Rotterdam before we catch the overnight ferry from Hook of Holland tonight. We’re visiting the Netherlands Institute of Architecture, there are some fab exhibitions and architects models (for those of us who like buildings), and the café isn’t bad either! I particularly liked the display about Olympic cities, as I have a very particular OCD for these. Across the road is the Sonneveld House Museum, a renovated 1930s gem, Then it’s one last visit to the Tour Café to watch today’s stage finish and it’s farewell Rotterdam, it’s been fun.

If you liked the blog post, you might like the film!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFtrxftExuo

After our travels through Belgium, it is good to be finally back on Dutch soil. To be fair, the last Belgian stretch of the journey from Brugge was quite picturesque and not bad for cycling, (by Belgian standards). However, almost as soon as we crossed the border into the Netherlands, just before the town of Sluis, the cycle infrastructure and attitude of drivers to cyclists improved markedly. The next part of today’s route takes us to Breskens, where we’ll board a ferry over to Vlissingen, from there we follow the North Sea coast all the way to Rotterdam via three pretty impressive dikes and dams – expect a special ‘dyke blog update’ later!

After ten days of no rain, (except a couple of spots in Newbury on day one) our summer holiday weather turned decidedly British yesterday. Our day wandering around Ghent had been sunny and increasingly humid so it wasn’t much of a surprise that as we departed and headed towards Brugge the sky was beginning to become darker and darker. About ten miles into our thirty mile journey, (the shortest one of the trip) the heavens opened. Riding in the rain is one thing, but riding in the midst of a ferocious thunder and lightening storm is quite another. It was at times quite scary, I found myself considering the odds of a cyclist being hit by lightening and (on a more positive thought) that if one was to be hit by lightening, being on a bike with rubber tyres was probably as good a place to be as any. By about 15 miles the sky were well and truly ‘raining on our parade’ with us having to dodge or ride through the vast puddles that were forming. Any semblance of waterproofing in my jacket was well and truly fading – but to be honest everything else was wet so having a dry top seemed a bit futile. As we arrived in Brugge the storm passed. Johan our Warm Showers host was waiting for us and soon warmed us up with coffee and a nice shower. After throwing our damp gear into the washing machine we headed into Brugge town for dinner, with Johan giving us a quick tour of some of the locations used in the film ‘In Brugge’. After dinner and a sample of the local beer (for me and Johan, Mike stuck with orange juice), we headed back to Johan’s house – alas in the rain again, but at least not so heavy this time. We’re cycling to Rotterdam today via the coast over some impressive dykes – so fingers crossed for a favourable tail wind!

As if having a shrine to a painting of a sheep wasn’t enough of a homage to Damien Hirst the cathedral in Ghent is attempting to be uber cool and ‘get down with the kids’ by hosting a contemporary art show. I’m not sure that the video installation of the pigs in muck in the crypt or the mirror clad coffin were in particularly good taste, but I guess everyone has their own take on modern art.

As we checked out of our hotel in Maastricht a few days ago we had a conversation with the receptionist about Belgium and Belgians. As we bemoaned the state of Belgian roads and their attitude to cyclists, the receptionist nodded and agreed, but added, “They’re Belgian, they think they’re cool – so they’re not worried about anything else”. I was a little surprised by this statement as ‘cool’ was not amongst the things that had struck me about Belgians – that was until we reached Ghent. Ghent is ‘cool central’. Yes it’s all very old and ‘chocolate box’ picturesque but there are an awful lot of young trendy people here and everything that goes with them, bars, restaurants, clubs, art galleries boutiques etc. Ghent is also not shy of adding some contemporary additions to its mediaeval centre, we’ve seen a lots of modern additions to old buildings and a very striking new hall is being built in the centre cheek-by-jowel with some very old buildings. This fusion of old and new shows a lot of confidence and quite a few places in the UK could learn from Ghent’s example of how to be ‘cool’ and still have old-world character.

We’re spending the night in Ghent, which is in the Flemish part of Belgium. It is much more like the Netherlands, the architecture is similar to Amsterdam and many more people are cycling (on better roads too). Here are a few shots taken on our stroll around the old part of town this evening.

Personally I thought the dancing Haribo bear with the Strada bidon was the peak – but others may disagree. I know you have to squint a bit but, here is the Strada bidon with Fabian Cancellara (aka Sparticus), in the yellow jersey!!

Alas, we saw the last live stage of this year’s Tour de France today, (well until we go to Paris to see the finish!). We’ve turned north and are making our way back to Rotterdam and Hook van Holland via Ghent and Brugge. Here is our video from Tournai/Orchies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxu_Wlk4tyY

I’m sure That I’ve said this before, but cycling is a great way see an area. The pace you travel at (in our case between 15-20mph) is perfect for looking at the scenery and if you want to stop off anywhere pulling over and parking is never a problem. Unfortunately the down side of the cycling pace is the amount of road-kill you see. Travelling between Tournai and Orchies today (and back again) there seemed to be lots of animal carcasses littering the sides of the road. One poor creature seemed to be particularly affected – the hedgehog. I guess that their slow traveling speed makes them very vulnerable on some of the main roads. Thankfully we managed to avoid their remains as I don’t think riding over a deceased relative of Mrs Tiggywinkle would be very respectful, (or very good for the tyres)

You may have noticed my displeasure with Belgium and Belgian drivers – well I’m pleased to be able to restore some balance to my view of the Belgians. Melanie, our warm showers host in Tournai, made us exceptionally welcome. Despite us turning up late and initially to the wrong address (one street away) she made us feel very at home – even giving up her own bed for us to sleep in. Her apartment, a stones throw from the centre of Tournai was tiny but that didn’t stop her preparing a lovely meal of pasta, salad and fruit. After a sound nights sleep we bid our farewell this morning and are having a quick look around old Tournai before we head off to see the start of today’s Tour stage in Orchies. We also need to find a bike shop to try and get a new cleat for my shoes (they’ve worn a bit) and oil for my chain or I’ll be squeaking all the way to Ghent!

Being a bit of a shopping enthusiast I’m always interested to see what’s hot and what’s not on the European high street – particularly when it comes to which British brands are doing well. It seems that the current UK exports that pop-up frequently are confined to the Body Shop and Lush. There are plenty of names that were once familiar in Britain that have now retreated, in Maastricht we even spotted a Tupperwear store – alas it was closed. C&A is the most familiar. I have fond memories of the C&A store in Coventry’s’ lower precinct, as when I was growing up the C&A ‘clock house’ range was right up my street. In the late 80s and 90s C&A was also pretty cool for affordable ski wear, which if you were going on a school skiing holiday (as I was) then a trip to C&A ski shop for the latest ski jacket and sallpettes was de-rigour. Being the 80s most of it was bright neon colours – goodness knows what we must have looked like!

We’re back on the road proper today after leaving base camp Maastricht. The ride is about 120 miles so we set off at 8.30 with the aim of getting to Tournai before 7pm. The Tour finishes in Tournai this afternoon after taking a slightly longer route than we’re taking. We didn’t expect to reach there to see the end today so have stopped in Halle just west of Brussels to watch the finish on TV before we complete our final leg to Tournai. We’re staying with another Warm Showers host this evening and again tomorrow night (in Ghent) before a night in a hotel in Brugges on Wednesday.

As if the poor roads and bad driving weren’t enough to put us off Belgium, we can now add ‘victim of crime’ to the list. When we got to Seraing to watch the finish yesterday, we locked our bikes to a rack next to the Medical Centre. We took all the valuables and bags off the bikes – well so we thought. The only thing left was Mike’s bike pump, we thought – who’d want to steal a bike pump? The answer to that is ‘some Belgian tyke’. It’s not that it’s really valuable, but its theft is just annoying. Fortunately we didn’t have any punctures on our ride back to Maastricht and Mike has decided it was probably time to upgrade anyway (there’s probably a titanium pump he’s got his eye on), but he’s buying it in the Netherlands, certainly not Belgium. I shall also be suppressing any future urge to vote for Belgium in Eurovision, not that it’s likely they’ll even qualify – good, that’s what I say!

As we’ve ridden along today we’ve passed through corn fields speckled with bright red poppies. They remind me of my mum who loved poppies – she’d have liked pictures like this one. The poppy also makes me think of the First World War. We’re not quite far west enough to be in Flanders’ fields, but it isn’t so far away. We’ve passed lots of war memorials as we’ve cycled along, each very poignant. Ninety years ago people had little inkling of the carnage that the first mechanical war was about to unleash. My grandfather (my mum’s dad) fought in the First World War, but had the fortune (in other circumstances it would have been misfortune) to break his ankle the week before the Battle of the Somme. He was lucky to be in hospital rather than fighting in the blood-bath of the Somme. If it hadn’t been for that broken ankle, who knows I might not even be here.

More blatant product placement for the Strada bidon! This video alone has got to be worth an extra discount from @stradacycles http://t.co/TvGcQVx

Our video of TDF stage one http://t.co/pyCSomX

When it comes to all things cycling, the Belgians are simply not a patch on the Dutch. They might be able to produce a fine waffle, fritte and beer – but they could take some lessons on how to treat cyclists from their continental neighbours. Maastricht, (our base for the past few days) is in the Netherlands – although only just. As soon as you head out of the city heading west or south you cross into Belgium and that’s where the contrast in cycling provision becomes very stark. Gone are the excellent separate cycle lanes on virtually every route; cycle signage becomes patchy and less clear; road surfaces are not so good and worst of all, the drivers don’t show cyclists as much respect as they do in Holland. In the Netherlands cyclists are pretty much the top of the transport tree – even pedestrians give way to cyclists, (given that most pedestrians are cyclists, this maybe isn’t so surprising). I took this picture on our way back from Floriade, I love that it shows a ‘peloton of female pensioners’ (+ Mike), demonstrating that everyone cycles in Holland. Drivers in the Netherlands ALWAYS stop for cyclists at road junctions, crossings, roundabouts and even at their own private driveways. In the Netherlands if you’re cycling along a cycle path that crosses in front of someone’s drive that they have pulled out of to turn onto the road, then the driver will always reverse back onto their drive to give the cyclist a clear run – could that ever happ in the UK? It’s a pity that for the next few days we’ll be cycling in Belgium and not the Netherlands, but the return on Thursday to ‘cycling utopia’ is something to look forward to.

Following comments from one of our blog followers, we are attempting to improve the ‘product placement’ opportunities for our Strada bidon (drinking water bottle) with the faint hope of an increase to our 10% discount at Strada Cycles on North Street. Alas, Bradley and Cav were both busy today, but we did get a couple of shots that were an improvement of the one of ‘grumpy Mike with a bidon on a train’, and of course we’ll keep trying!

If you think the Tour de France is just about cycling – think again. Like most major sporting events these days, there is plenty of product placement. “How do you do product place in a cycle race”, you may ask? Each stage of the race is preceded by a ‘caravan’ where sponsors’ floats are accompanied by loud music, advertisements and the sight of grown adults scrabbling like refugees at a feeding station to catch the ‘tat’ being thrown into the crowd from the caravan. Amongst the tat on offer today were pens, key-rings, shopping bags, sun hats and spectacle cloths – all emblazoned with the sponsors’ logos. Alas all we managed to catch today was a packet of ‘Madeleines’ (small buttery cakes) and as Mike won’t eat them I guess I’d better eat them all with a cup of tea!

So the Tour de France has begun, and although the Brits didn’t quite conquer, they certainly put up a good fight with a taste of what’s to come. Chris Froome, Stephen Cummings and David Millar were all fantastic securing 11th, 14th and 15th place respectively. Clearly the star of the day was Bradley Wiggins who was narrowly pipped into second place in the Prologue time trial by Fabian Cancellara, (although only by 7 seconds). Hopes were high for Bradley and he didn’t disappoint, putting in a storming performance. There were plenty of Brits and Union flags in the crowds, (which were very large). We cycled to Liège straight after breakfast to make sure we secured a good spot, which we did right next to the 450 meter marker with a view up and down the course. There was also a good view of a giant tv screen until – rather annoyingly – some staff from FranceTV Sport decided to inflate a giant pink microphone, obscuring most of the screen. Nevertheless, if we craned our necks we could just about make out the leader board. Tomorrow the Tour leaves Liège for the first proper stage from Liège to Seraing – we’ll be up early so we can get a good spot to cheer on our boys!

Well today started well – lovely breakfast and a pleasant departure from Venlo. Unfortunately following the cycle route took us on a very windy and not very direct course. By lunch time we’d barely covered a quarter of the journey to Maastricht. We decided to go on the more direct road route and did manage to make up time – but the temperature was rising and we were getting hotter and hotter. We eventually touched down in Maastricht just after 5 but by the time we had checked into the hotel and got ourselves sorted it was gone 6 and the presentation of the teams started at 6.30 in Liege (30 mins away by train). We decided to risk it and walked to the station. The next train wasn’t until 7.20 but we thought we’d at least get there to see the end of the presentation. What we didn’t bank on was the unscheduled 30 minute stop at Vise to deal with some kind of incident that happened elsewhere on the train. Still don’t really know what it was, but it involved the police and lots of unsavoury looking characters. The train has now set off again and we’re nearing Liege – over an hour after we left Maastricht. We’ll probably just have time to turn round and catch a train straight back again :0(

We’ve had a lovely couple of nights in Venlo with our fab hosts Wendy and Tim. It’s a bit sad we have to move on, but exciting to be heading for Maastrict today and then Liége this evening for the presentation of the Tour de France teams. I’ve had my gardening fun and it’s now Mike’s turn to have some cycling treats – lets hope Bradley and Cav don’t disappoint!