Tag Archives: Ian Hendry

The Parish Notices

Posted on April 4, 2010 | 2 Comments

Just catching up with some people who have been in contact with me and who I have contacted over the past few months….

  • George Jemmott continues his journey to Calais and you can read his blog here. It will be interesting to see his GPS data when he finishes
  • Laura Birchenough, another WordPress blogger is heading in the other direction after having started her cycling trip in southern Italy she is now in Greece. For accommodation she is using a mixture of camping and Couch Surfing. I’ve mentioned Couch Surfing before (albeit quite a while ago). I’ve asked her how she is getting on with the CS and may well spend a few minutes reacquainting myself with the CS site. I am able to offer a “couch” in my flat now that the lodger has gone…
  • Australian Ian Hendry has postponed his trip to Europe for the time being due to personal circumstances but is still hopeful to do the Eurovelo 5 from London to Rome at some point in the future.
  • No news from Neil Shirley who contacted me a couple of days ago about cycling from Oxford to Milan but a chap called Vernon Osborne has commented on the post where I answered Neil’s questions. He writes: ” Have chanced upon your webpages and have read your correspondence with Neil from Oxford. I was so pleased to have done so as I too am planning a (charity) cycle from Siena to Valletta in June 2011. I intend following the (west) coast of Italy down to Reggio di Calabria then ferry to Messina and hugging the coast to Syracuse before getting a ferry to Malta. I am desperately trying to get information on the best route to take from Siena to Reggio (like Neil, I am a novice). The information on routes in Italy seems to lessen the further south you get ! I will keep in touch with your progress but would be grateful if you have any advice / information for me. I am doing this trip with friends to raise money for child cancer – CLIC). Training in the UK has begun already !! ” I’ll make sure that I get back in touch with Vernon, hopefully with some more detailed information about the Italian Cycle Network Route 3 than I currently have! The map shows how there is quite a stretch of similarity between his route and mine. He does have 10 months to reflect upon my experiences as he isn’t cycling until June 2011. Watch this space Vern! :)

And if you turn to page 146 we will sing Hymn number 23……

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Bike Love

Posted on January 24, 2010 | Leave a comment

Ian Hendry is planning to cycle the Eurovelo 5 this coming summer – a bit earlier than me – and as you can see, he has bought a new bike….

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Australia calling

Posted on September 27, 2009 | Leave a comment
I forwarded Jean-Marie’s detailed maps to my two contacts in Australia and received the following replies:

Andrew
I only have a brief minute to reply, but thank you ever so much for these maps!!!! Outstanding details!!! I’ll reply in more details shortly. As we are overdue some enthusiastic conversation on this thing! :-P
Hope you are keeping well.
Ian

Ian, if you remember, is doing more or less the same journey as me although probably a few weeks earlier.
Thanks Andrew,
There seems to be quite a bit of detail there. Your French is very good! I could skim through and get the gist of some of that but you’re much more capable than I am. I’m trying to get at least a grasp before I leave. Italian I think will be my sticking point, I really have no idea there…
it will make it interesting though!
Cheers,
Jon
Jon is doing the journey in what I consider reverse: Rome to London (although to him it will be perfectly normal!).
I hope Jean-Marie reads this – the credit is due to him, not to me – as he has saved all three of us a lot of hard graft at the computer trying to work out a route from Brussels to Italy. I did update my own Google Map a little with the details from Jean-Marie but that’s going to be a long job and, quite frankly, unnecessary now that the detail is elsewhere. I am, however, interested to see if the route does follow the EV 5.
On other matters, not much progress over the last week or so. I have been feeling off colour for a few days and although it wasn’t bad enough to prevent me from cycling to work, I did feel a bit down come the end of the week (perhaps it was the withdrawal symptoms from coming off the concoction of drugs that I have been taking: I was using the odds and ends from previous packs of medicines purchased from previous bouts of colds and sniffles!). No broken commuting records, no great leaps forward in fitness. In fact, I am not sure that my recently bought waterproof trainers are doing the business: I have developed a numbness in my left big toe and index toe (does that exist?) that I am currently putting down to the trainer not giving me enough support while cycling but more probably, jogging on a Sunday morning. I gave my Sunday morning jog today a miss.
Someone else thinks I am “deluded” on the vote. At least I still have 0% “insane” and “inspired” is still up there at 93%.
October – it starts on Thursday – needs to be a month of action!

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Very jealous!

Posted on September 13, 2009 | Leave a comment

Ian Hendry has invested in a new bike and I am very jealous! It looks so beautiful… Click here to read about how and why he chose the Trek 1.5. Click here to see the thing in all its beauty on the Trek website. At least we won the Ashes…. (don’t mention the ODIs).

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Via Francigena / EuroVélo 5 Blogs of note:

Posted on July 28, 2009 | Leave a comment

Both Ian Hendry and Jonathan Scott have now got their blogs up and running! Ian has chosen the name “Hendo2010” and Jonathan “Cycling Via Francigena“.

Ian is cycling London to Rome but probably a bit earlier than me in summer 2010. Jonathan is cycling Rome to London in summer but not sure exactly when. Perhaps we’ll all bump into one another up some Alpine mountain :)

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Posting at 2am should be banned

Posted on July 24, 2009 | Leave a comment

Not sleepy so on the Internet. Just had a Facebook chat with Ian Hendry – he seems like a nice guy – I admire the guy’s motivation to come all the way over here to cycle London to Rome. Not sure whether I would go over to Australia to do the same thing or something similar. Respect to him! My rediscovery of Facebook – I had gone cold on the whole Facebook thing – has got me 13 friends back in one evening. Don’t really want to start advertising the whole Puglia 2010 thing on there just yet… the website URL is hidden away somewhere. It would take a bit of detective work to find it :) Time for bed, no?

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EuroVélo 5 Facebook Group

Posted on July 23, 2009 | Leave a comment

The EuroVélo 5 route has a Facebook group… so I joined of course. The other two members are Ian Hendry – the man from Adelaide who I’ve mentioned and quoted from before and a guy called Massimo Mazzone who writes in his opening post:
“Let’s improve the route! It’s very important that cyclists’s associations and individual contacts from the towns crossed by the route gather together in order to support the project.So, let’s share ideas and thoughts, local practices, best actions. Main cities and smaller towns in UK, Belgium, France, Switzerland and Italy wake up. We need pokes from you! London, Brussels, Strasbourg, Basel, Luzern, Milano, Siena, Rome, Brindisi …and ALL the other small towns…Are you a cyclist living along the route? Please, join the group and support Eurovelo 5!”

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Adelaide calling

Posted on July 19, 2009 | Leave a comment

Ian Hendry, the guy from Adelaide has been in touch again and gives some useful musings about distances etc (he is in blue, my comments in red):
I was anticipating 100km+ per day from Waterloo to Central Rome (only going to Rome as it will easier to fly out and meet my parents as they will be maybe in Spain by then).I’m prepping for 140km per day (5am-1 or 2pm) with a rest day every 4th day so I can see some more significant sights and carbo-load. I will aim for 5 weeks. Sounds reasonable. This is my initial pre-plan, of course…I’m off on a 100km ride tomorrow to measure my average speed and what my recovery is like. i can ride that distance easily, but the big difference will be backing it up day after day after day :) I expect shortly I will be taking the long way to work to increase my bike endurance.I hope you get the time off. Should do – I have to sacrifice four of my weekends escorting students to France in June / July of next year which is useful timing. It will be good to enjoy a challenging ride that pushes you, but not ridiculously so. I’m predicting a train ride through the Alps might be required. I don’t want to carry anymore than a small pack. I will hybridise as much of my gear as I can and stay in hostels/hotels so i don’t need to camp (means more gear). This is a question I have been debating today and my current thinking is to camp – it is very flexible and adds to the adventure. May well change my mind however when it comes to gathering all the equipment together. These are my preliminary plans, but as I’ve never done a cycling tour before, I might be well off the mark so I will refine and change as the year goes on and my training escalates. Exactly my situation and attitude to the whole thing! Man, I’m getting a buzz just thinking about the next northern summer!!! Where are you at with your training now? Just really starting – I set off in exactly one year today so it is a good time for things to really kick in (see previous post) What are your capabilities? I’m cycling to Yorkshire – about 250 miles in four or five days – in a couple of weeks time. That is going to give me an indication of what I am capable of…. my bike is very old and is reaching it’s limits.:) I bought a “hybrid” earlier in the year and will be using that to cycle to Yorkshire but not sure whether it will be up to cycling all the way to Puglia. Thanks for not mentioning the cricket, too. Don’t talk too soon:
Just for the record, as I type, Australia are up against the wall at Lords :)

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An email from Oz

Posted on July 14, 2009 | Leave a comment

Just recived the following email from a guy in Adelaide. My comments to his various points are in red….
Hey Andrew,
My name is Ian Hendry and I’m from Adelaide, South Australia (yes, Tour Down Under territory). I have just been reading your Puglia 2010 blog after googling away looking for Eurovelo 5 info…seems we have a similar thing in mind. I am looking at London to Rome 2010. Your blog is very good, btw :) I didn’t pay him to say this :) – thanks Ian
I found your googlemaps plot along the A2 very useful as EV5 data is hard to come by in detail and the route out of London was a curious thing to me.
My goal is either June, July or August in 2010, so not far from your goal. I’m staying fairly flexible with dates as it’s dependant on work and rec leave etc.
As I’m from Australia, I was wondering what you know about the A2 road out of London. Is it a dedicated cycle way or a shoulder lane? Google Earth is a powerful tool, but I was wondering if you had cycled the London-Dover route before. Regarding the map on Google Maps, don’t take this as more than an indication of what the route might be. In the UK we have a fabulous signed cycle network – see the Sustrans website for more info about this. You can see that from London down to Dover (and the ferry) it is route 1. You can see that actually it goes all the way to Edinburgh if you fancy a challenge! The green bits of the route on the map are off road and you can see that a fair bit of route 1 from London to Dover is green. When it is on road, the national cycle network tends to be well segregated from the road itself, very often a shared path with pedestrians although this isn’t brilliant for picking up a bit of speed. I’m super pleased to see you have a similar goal and I wish you well with your planning. You seem to have done some cycling before. I’m doing more and more as time goes by – I sold my car a couple of years ago and have been on the bike ever since. Over here cycle networks are nonexistent but I prefer road riding over veloway. I cycle a little bit (25km round trip to work each day - I bit more than me: my commute is a 20 km round trip) and do a lot of running so I’m looking forward to the training to get my cycling endurance right up there. Me too: I have 370 days to get super fit and am up for the challenge!! Let me know what distance you hope to cover each day. I need to average about 80 kms a day I think but I need to do more planning on this… I can’t estimate a distance for myself just yet as I have to assess my endurance shortly to train up. Me too!
Great to see another rider planing to take on this ride…I really cant wait to get going, but accept there is some hard graft ahead. It’s fantastic to get emails like this: keep in touch!
Take it easy and I’ll keep reading your blog. Hope you don’t mind that you have become part of it. :)
Ian Hendry
Glenelg, Adelaide, South Australia.

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