A young Stratford Cycling Club member recently took on a challenging, 335 mile, cycle ride to the Netherlands and back raising money for Katherine House Hospice charity. Here his father and cycling companion, tells the story of their epic five day trip.

Over the last number of years, like most father and son activities, every activity, tends to get bigger and more ambitious, but crazier! Our little man struggles at school and is attending a specialist school for his “cognitive learning disability”, but his main passion is cycling. We started with a cycling overnight trip to Birmingham, when he was about ten years old. Then as he got older, a three-day trip to London. But like all projects the challenges grow harder. His aunty is living in the Netherlands, so that seemed to be right for the next challenge. So, with a little bit of organising, booking people to be in the right places, ferries, hotels etc, “Operation Orange Egg” evolved for Easter weekend this year. Following his cyclocross autumn/ winter season of racing, we engaged in some extra winter training, which concluding in a 50-mile ride to Leicester with our fully loaded bike, and the traditional train ride home.

Being the ‘fools we are’, we started early on the 1st April, with the quest of 80 miles to reach Cambridge for the first night stop over. Well-wishers from our village set us off on our travels. We where soon stopped by a ‘HS2’ closed road, but we fought our we through. As a surprise for the little man, up the road, was, one of our training partners from over the winter, and supported us by riding with us for about 5-6 miles, before he returned home. We made our way up and down the southern Northamptonshire hills and out into the river Nene valley and across to a well earn coffee and cake break at St Neots. The final twenty-mile push was into Cambridge, and around the college back roads to the east of town for a well-earned rest!

Day two, ‘Cambridge to Harwich’, with the ferry not leaving until the late evening and mother meeting us at Harwich. We made for a late morning start, with a long drag uphill onto the Suffolk Wolds. We rode through some beautiful picture postcard village’s and rolling valleys. The little man was eager to keep going to reach the ferry thus pushing the old man to a well earn halfway stop at Long Melford for soup and hot chocolate. After our rest we had a short climb out, and the weather brightened up, we pushed on over the rolling hills down to the coast at Dedham, and onto another stop to slow the ‘tiger’ down with drink and cake stop at Mistley. The little man was now refuelled and ready to go! he then dragged his father over to Harwich, making some good time, and arriving early at the Harwich port. Mother arrived shortly after. We eventually join the vehicles queuing to get on board the ferry and found our cabin. A small night cap for Father & Mother, and a hot chocolate for little man and sleep.

Good Friday, Grey cold overcast day, early start, little man did not like the 05:30 rude awaking of the boat’s musical chimes, down for breakfast, a little too early for the little man. We departed the cabin, loaded the bikes, and out into the cold, to join the queue of traffic waiting to get through passport control. The delay was that everyone in the cars had to have a photo and fingerprint taken. After an hour of waiting on the dock side in the cold wind, we jumped the queue into the booth to get warm. With Fingerprints and photos taken, we were off.

Leaving the port ‘Hoek Van Holland’ straight into some side winds, head down, we shortly took shelter from passing the miles of glasshouses and ducking and diving in and around the canals. We started to make good time around the south of ‘The Hague’, before warming ourselves up at our halfway stop for coffee and cake in ‘Bodegraven’. We then receive a message, from the little man’s, ‘Aunty Anna’. She had cycled out from Utrecht to the next village. We quickly ate and drunk up, and we were off again to meet up with Aunty Anna. What a nice surprise. She announced to the little man, that she had hidden a small number of easter eggs in around trees, signposts and benches for the last 6 miles, a great motivation to get him to Utrecht. Total mileage so far was 192 miles.

Before we knew it, the family fun had come to an end, and it was time to load up the bikes and return to the Hoek Van Holland. After a leisurely breakfast and we were on our way out of Utrecht over the bridge of the River Vecht. Sun was shining and less windy, taking a relaxed pace a couple a café and cake stop. As it was also a Dutch bank holiday, the little man decided he would jump on the back of a couple of cycling groups and disappear up the road at great speed with them, then slowing down to wait for the old man to catch up. We finally made up to the beach at the Hook of Holland for an Ice cream. We had time in hand, waiting for Mother & Aunty to arrive. Following a local evening meal, we then, thanked Aunty Anna for her hospitality for the last few days, and departed for the ferry, and an early night. Big day tomorrow!

Last day of the challenge and a big push of 90 miles from ‘Harwich to Marylebone Station, London’ and the traditional train ride home. Again, the little man did not to like the tunes of the rude awakening from the ferry, breakfast at 06:00 am. We departed through passport control in record time, being back in the UK, we found Mothers car and unloaded our panniers and extra bags so we could travel light.

We departed from Harwich at 07:00 am and we made good time into Colchester for 09:00 but spent 10 – 15 mins trying to find an open coffee shop with the little man’s first Bacon butty down, we headed out to Kelvedon, 10 miles out, to find the little man, walking and pushing his bike. He had twisted his chain. We quickly repaired it and were back underway and onto Chelmsford, another Bacon butty down. A few miles later he struggled with a slow puncture in his front tyre, which we pumped back up, and carried on. Next, he dropped into a massive pothole hidden in a river ford. It was time to replace the inner tube! With a welcome off-road section, we finally made it under the M25 and found ourselves traveling through one of the parks around ‘Harolds Hill’, and the little man spotted a massive herd of deer. We nipped and tucked around the east end of London, which headed down the long drag of the A118. It was ‘rush hour’. So, using the cycle lane with a tired teenager behind me was interesting. To add to our character building my cycling navigation computer battery ran out. So, the little man ‘stepped up to the plate’, shouting the directions from his cycling computer from the rear, before we knew it, we had made our way into the Olympic park and the Velodrome.

It was time for a well-earned rest and a burger for final refuelling. We had a fantastic ride seeing the sights, ‘The Tower of London’, ‘The embankment’, ‘London Eye’, ‘Big Ben’ and ‘Buckingham Palace’. It was quite magical in the evening sunshine. The final mile through ‘Kensington to Marylebone Station’. We arrived with twenty minutes to spare before our train back to Banbury. The final day finished with thirteen hours of cycling! One epic day and challenge completed with a total of 335 miles in 5 days of riding.

The Little man has been raising money for a local charity Katherine House Hospice and so far, he has raised £1600. If you would like to contribute please visit the the JustGiving page.