The Chain Gang Cycle Tours

Click, Click, Click

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Back in the Eighties there was a fabulous animated version of The Wind In The Willows, featuring David Jason as Toad. I bought quite a few sets as gifts for children and adults, I thought they were hilarious. I’ve no idea where any of them are now, and as they were all on VHS I couldn’t play them anyway. But one episode I remember particularly involved Toad of Toad Hall getting into photography.

“Click, click, click”, he said. “Photography is just the latest thing, the ONLY thing!” Obviously it all went horribly wrong, but that was Toad’s role in life - discover a fad, throw money at it, screw it up, get caught by the Weasels and rescued by Badger.

But it does illustrate a common prejudice about photography. Until I started the Chain Gang I was very much part of the ‘point and click’ school of photography. As a bricklayer might say to a painter, if you can pee, you can take photos.

But trying to find photos to use on our website or in our brochure is next to impossible. We have access to the archives of the National Tourist Offices of both France and Italy, as well as web-based photograph libraries and our own photos. But no matter what you do, when we’re cycling we don’t look cool. Rain jackets are a no no, and I try to avoid the appearance of too many hills. I don’t like clouds, and it’s nice to imagine we might have pictures of cool and pretty people always looking manicured in the sunshine enjoying themselves. But you try, it just never, ever works out.

But I’m from the Toad school of click, click, click. Some people know what they’re doing, people like Paul Lawrence and Simon Moss, and the King brothers, Toby and Ben. Another one is Peter Wesolowski, a cycling nut and an all round good bloke, although we did have the occasional ‘discussion’ on the difference between tax (me) and essential services (Pete). He thinks they’re the same thing.

Pete brought along a little compact camera - although the way he wields it and sets his shots up you suspect he has some serious kit back home. We’d be cycling along, and there’d be Pete lying in a ditch trying to get an angle. But his pictures are just much better than mine. So I’ve set up an album on our Flickr site so that you can enjoy his photographs too.

For some of them, you had to be there. For example, Sasha leading the group out - some people who were there will think Pete’s used Photoshop for that one! And people smiling cycling up a hill? But that’s why Pete’s better than me. I hope you enjoy them - I’ve included a few examples at low-resolution here, but for the real deal have a look at Peter’s album on the Chain Gang Flickr page.

Thanks Peter.

Burgundy - Sally leaving Clos de Vougeot

Burgundy - the next bit must be downhill.

Burgundy - desperate overtaking manoevre from Toby.

Click here to see a gallery of these photos, and more from The Chain Gang on the Chain Gang Flickr page

Swimming in Dijon

A few weeks ago we had an incident in Dijon with a very funny ending. I hope Sasha will forgive me, as he’s the butt of the joke, but he’s such a nice bloke I think we’ll be OK.

They’ve tried hard to make the centre of Dijon an attractive, pedestrian area. And it works – in front of the Palais des Ducs there is a huge semi-circular piazza (that’s Italian isn’t it? What’s French for Piazza?) lined with bars and cafes. We were heading for one of the bars for a well-earned beer after a lovely bike ride from Chateauneuf.

A central feature of the piazza is a pair of water features. There are 2 strips of glass paving set into the pavement, and out of the glass erupts perhaps 20 little fountains of water. So if there was no water, you could cycle straight down this strip of glass paving slabs. But there is water, lots of it.

The fountains are on a cycle, so at times they’re enormous, 5 foot high. At other times they barely reach your pedals. I thought, if I timed it right, I could cycle straight down through the fountains and only really get my feet wet. It was a roasting hot, beautiful day so I’d soon dry off. I was wearing my favourite cycling top, a black ‘Santini Italia’ number which, naturally, doesn’t quite fit me. Anyway, with the rest of the group behind me, and an audience lining the piazza, the temptation to show off was too much, so timing my run I cycled straight down the middle of the fountains.

The water is just about holding off

I must have timed it pretty well because my feet and legs got pretty well soaked, but nothing much above the knee.

OK so I did get a bit wet

Pete, a keen snapper, had positioned himself at the end of the fountains and persuaded Ian Benton to try his luck. But with Pete kneeling down at the end of the run, Ian was faced with a terrible dilemma as he approached the end of the fountains. Luckily for Pete he took the honourable option, and had a bit of a spill avoiding Pete. He also got a bit wetter than me.

Ian is definitely getting wet

But then Sasha decided to have a go. Is it possible that Sasha didn’t realise that the fountains were on a timer? He seemed hell-bent on taking a bath right there in the middle of Dijon – we couldn’t believe our eyes as he careered through a tidal wave of water in the main pedestrian area of Dijon. It was hilarious, and Pete managed to get it all on camera.

You can just about make out Sasha underneath that wave of water. Forgive us our moment of schadenfreude Sasha, but it was pretty funny.

Somewhere under that tsunami is Sasha

Click here to see a gallery of these photos, and more from The Chain Gang on the Chain Gang Flickr page