Hello Cyclefrance
( Who was it who said that I wouldn't be able to stay away ? In my defence , I have to say that I have at last finished what I had to do , and for family reasons , I simply cannot avoid replying to this post . )
My grandfather fought in the Somme , in Mametz Woods which is near Albert . He was seventeen , and with the Royal Welch Fusiliers . Very famous battle . The signs towards the site are bilingual French/ Welsh , and there is a dragon monument on a hillock overlooking the woods . I went there with my children a few years ago . Did you go there yourself ?
And did you go Ypres ?

Hi Buddug - sorry for late reply - work has been exceptionally busy and I've been using spare time to start buildiing the website. You can access it via www.geocities.com/cyclefranceuk - still a way to go at the moment...

Ref yr question above - I haven't visited Mametz Woods yet. This year we were short of spare time and so I did some research around Courcelles au Bois (where we were staying) and also around Colincamps - I'll be adding this to the website in due course.

Ypres we cycled to in 2000 and spent a good week there visiting Paesschendale, Popperinge, Menin gate, Messines Ridge, Plugstreet, Hill 62 and other sites. We are planning on a return trip next year, all going well.

Very interesting , Cyclefrance . Did you go to the Anglican church in Ypres ? And did you visit that extraordinary new museum there ?

When I arrived in Albert , I had been driving for hours from the Alps where I live . I was starving and bought a loaf of bread , which I stuffed into my mouth as I was walking . I then proceeded to choke on the bread . It was awful . I leant on a wall in the road and choked and choked . I could not breathe , and I thought I was going to die . My eyes were frothing , and the lines from Dulce Et Decorum Est came to me as I was choking . You know, the part where Owen describes the gassed soldier :

'In all my dreams , before my helpless sight ,
He plunges at me , guttering , choking , drowning'

I managed St George's Chapel, but not the museum (In Flanders' Fields?). Probably next time. When we went before I lost quite a bit of time as a result of broken spokes on my front wheel. Had to find a cycle repair shop at short notice on two occasions - never easy. Broke 5 spokes in all, and tiurned out that the guy who had re-spoked the wheel before I came away has somehow managed to fit them wrongly so that they lost the majority of their strength. Never a dull moment!

Clearly your problem that your spokes are fitted on the English measurement system, and those damn Frogs only have metric hammers.

You're almost right, Wolf. The wheel was made in Belgium and the spokesman was a Brit. His 'reason' for the mistake given when I returned to his shop with bike and baseball bat was that English wheels run spokes left to right, but my wheel went right to left - which meant that he bent the spokes to make them fit in the holes that were designed to take them from the other side of the hub. That probably doen't make sense , but basically they were bent at such an angle in order to fit the way he wanted that they sheared all too easily! Needless to say I don't go to that shop so much these days...

I don't blame you. If it doesn't fit, find out why..... don't alter anything until you know why.
I learned that lesson with windshield wiper linkage.....a couple times. ;)

Sounds like a good recipe for conjugal joy too , xoxoxoBruce .

Excellent project , Cyclefrance .
( by ze way , ze Tour de France will be passing below my very window tomorrow . )

anyone's race this year - good to see Rasmussen win a stage though. We get chronically bad coverage of it here in the UK, have to rely on the papers more than anything and of course the Web...

Unlike you , I am not one of the cycling cognioscenti , Cyclefrance . I have just driven my husband to Geneva airport though , and I see that all the roads have been jazzed up for the Tour . New tarmac all over the place . Loads of caravans have already been lined up too, and I remembered not to park my car down in the street . There is a delightfully excited atmosphere around town .

Have you read the hilarious 'French Revolutions' by Tim Moore on the subject of the Tour de France ?

Sure have - hilarious! I haven't mastered the art of the pissant-au-dessus-de-la-cycleframe yet - and, luckily, also haven't suffered the adverse effects of Savlon deficiency. Cyclefrance2004 was a bit of a tribute to Mr Moore - not as funny but almost as quirky, that's for sure...

Cyclefrance , I looked at your link and see that you too are a true fan . I have read all Mr Moore's books , apart from that monopoly one about London . Tears of laughter , and shaking shoulders . No-one has made me laugh so much since Noddy . I especially liked the account of his voyage around France in a knackered Rolls Royce and a velvet suit .

Do you think our American friends would like him too ?

Give'em a nudge via the 'books you are currently reading' thread. BTW, if you like Mr Moore for reality, try Robert Rankin for surreality - can recommend The Brentford Triangle and also The Armageddon Trilogy