Due to the confinement measures dictated by the government, to prevent the spread of coronavirus, the meeting is reported to September 12th and 13th.. With the bikes built, we rushed to the start just as the first riders set off. Despite not making the full 100 miles aim, Hannah had still done her longest ride to date, a personal best always worth recognising. He wasn’t the only person we saw clearly waiting to be picked up to go home on the ride.We were now clearly well behind everyone as we didn’t see anyone for a while. Quite why it had stung me instead of just flying off I don’t know. Événement organisé par le T.O.R (Team On Off-Road).
We had a bit of tailwind on a section through the Plaine des Moulins, which lived up to its name, and the average speed was creeping up again. We started following the route when I decided that it’d be easier to stick to the original undiverted route.Ignoring the Road Closed signs, we soon saw why it had been diverted. We lost count but it must have totalled close to 50 or 60 early on. I looked down and saw a bee sat there. C’est très simple, postez sur FB vos plus belles photos de votre week-end sous le #MaRP19 . Taking place in Northern France and centring around Abbeville, La Ronde Picarde would take in a large part of the coast and the Bay of the Somme.We woke up to the sounds of rain hammering down on the roof of our chalet, which didn’t show signs of letting up during the hour it took for us to get ready. I pulled alongside and gave her a push so that she finished ahead of me. Not taking part in the racing part of the event, we were dropping slowly backwards but still overtaking plenty of people. This meant we only had about 20 miles or so left to complete. The road had been fully lifted up and was just packed gravel now. Impossible !! There hadn’t been any corners to speak of until that point so the logical explanation was a touch of wheels in the melee. We came into a village when we though there was just over 5km to finish to find that actually there was 15km.
4x4 meeting - Ronde Picarde 2020. We watched lots of people persevering in the rain and ended up staying there for about 35 minutes. We pushed on regardless, doing a bit of cyclocross and chopping the extra bit of route off. I’d doubled up on socks so wasn’t too bad but Hannah’s were sodden. We walked from the car to the registration point under an umbrella to keep off the drizzle, sorted everything out and began walking back.The walk back to the car involved walking through the latest really heavy lot of rain, the umbrella doing nothing to keep our legs and feet dry.
We followed one group across the top of Ault before being braver on the descent and overtaking them into Ault proper.I’d remembered reading one review which suggested there was a short but very sharp climb in Ault.
We claimed our free post-ride food, had a beer or two and toasted the ride.
As we rounded the last few corners, I encouraged Hannah to go for it and beat him. La Ronde Picarde. Ils étaient hier à Bologne et sont actuellement sur le bateau. Ouvert au Quad / SSV / 4x4 / Classic 4x4.
A short gap in the rain was what we needed to throw the bikes into the car and drive into Abbeville, where it started raining again. By the time we were back at the car, our socks and people shoes were soaked through.
As we pulled over we noticed that my tyre was squidgy too. By this point we’d had some sun and the rainjackets had come off but the drizzle began again before turning into big dropsWe saw a little bus stop hut and took the opportunity to hide in it from the rain. We picked up our medals, our times in our categories being good enough for Hannah to get a silver medal and me a bronze. As we were getting ready to leave, he did the same with another person who stopped and waiting to get picked up to abandon. Someone had severely missed the toilet bowl with a number 2 and someone had subsequently walked through it in their cycling shoes as there were cleat shaped marks everywhere. We could tell that we’d been really slow up to this point because the feed stop was being packed away.We helped ourselves to some bits and then Hannah went to the toilet.
Promotion pour la sortie 4x4 La Ronde Picarde 2016 Le Raid des Plaines qui se déroulera le 30 avril et 1er mai 2016. Taking place in Northern France and centring around Abbeville, La Ronde Picarde would take in a large part of the coast and the Bay of the Somme. Between we smashed down a pack of fig rolls with the sea view.With the sea on our left and the wind behind us, we found the next section quite quick. Presumably people had put on their super racy summer tyres and the heavy rain had dumped a lot of debris onto the roads.Promised as a pretty flat event, this first section had quite a few rolling hills, the first of which went up to a tough 15%. Vérification du premier roadbook fini ! I declined to go in once I’d heard what it was like. Whoever did It must have an unfunny sense of humour.We soldiered on, the decision now made to do the shorter Medio Fondo route of 128km.