Like many amateur cyclists, I am fascinated with the history of our sport - the good, the bad, the ugly - all fascinate me. Stories of the golden age of cycling, the days before gears when cyclists had to ride a single speed bike up mountains, the days when the Tour de France consisted of stages over 400 km, when riders were labourers who could make a years salary and escape from constant poverty, cyclists wore tweed and leather, bikes were fashioned of heavy steel, and of course, roads were rudimentary with gravel, cobbles and dust. It makes my 60km Sunday ride to Versailles with a stop for a cup of tea and a pain au chocolat seem frankly ridiculous.
Hippolyte Aucoutrier
I listen to a podcast from the guys at The Velocast (http://www.velocast.cc) where they detail events that have fallen into cycling folklore. This week they detailed stories of Mick Murphy who sadly passed away on 11th September 2015. In these days of diving footballers faking injuries, cyclists stand out as hardmen of the sporting world. Geraint Thomas from Team Sky is one current British hardman - this year he finished on the podium of the Gent-Wevelgem despite crashing hard during the race, and also took an enormous crash during this year's Tour de France, crashing head first into a post during stage 16.
These stories were eclipsed by what I heard this week about Mick Murphy. Famous for being a certified oddball and absolute hardnut, he won one of the hardest races in the sport - The Ras in 1958 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A1s_Tailteann). He had broken his collarbone earlier in the race, and had to jump out the window of hospital to be able to continue racing. He broke the freewheel on his bike one day, borrowed a "normal" bike from a farmer and chased hard to get back to the leading group. He worked in the circus and had picked up unorthodox training methods from the Russian circus colleagues - including rustic weight training (unheard of at the time) with weights made from stone, and ate a raw diet. Whilst riding he would drink water topped up with blood taken directly from cows in the fields - he perfected a method of tapping the vein from a cow to add the blood into his water bottle, which he would then stop by pinching the skin.
Another story mentioned in the podcast was regarding the first winner of the Tour de France - Maurice Garin, the winner of the first Tour de France in 1903. Known as the White Bulldog, he was famously sold by his father to a chimney sweep in return for a bucket of cheese. These were different times indeed.
I'll raise a glass to the sadly departed Mick Murphy, a true hard man, the iron man, and one of the convicts of the road.
We are heading south through Vietnam, as part of our "sabbatical" - riding around SE Asia (and maybe other countries, tbc) on our tandem (www.badgerandfrog.com). In the past few days we've been following the main artery through Vietnam, the QL1 which runs all the way from the north to the south of the country.
Our experience of Vietnam has been incredible: wonderful people, beautiful countryside, excellent infrastructure, fantastic food, great quality guesthouses - all perfect to make for a great cycle tour.
However, following this arterial road is tough. We are riding a bullet proof Cannondale MT1000 mountain bike from 1999. It handles everything we have thrown at it - has been shoved inside of and on top of planes, vans, buses (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyFHnC1mpKE), trains - has been ridden over crazy rough roads, handled biblical rain, lightning, sand, dust, rocks, everything! Despite this, the roads have been hard to handle.
Setting the scene
Let me try to set the scene... Noise
First: imagine a world where engines stop running after 200 metres. That is, unless you beep your horn. A lot. About every 200 metres. Second: imagine a world where traffic violations are negated if you beep your horn, before, after, and ideally, during the performance of a crazy manoeuvre. Third: imagine a world where car, bus, scooter horns are so loud that they temporarily partially deafen you as they rattle pass inches from your nose.
Fourth: imagine a world where if you are a truck or bus driver you are expected to drive like a dangerous lunatic, safe in the knowledge that it is part of your job description, and that other road users will respect you for doing this (I will excuse car and scooter drivers from this category - they are by and large good and respectful drivers), as long as you beep your horn!
Fifth: image a world where this is the norm. Where this is established driving culture.
(Nota bene: I seem bitter about this - but remember I have lived in London, Italy, and Boston (MA) so I'm used to crazy driving, but this is unlike nothing I have ever experienced - yes, even in London.
To add on to this - most guesthouses and hotels back on to this main road. They have poor sound insulation, so you are exposed to the ongoing cacophony 24 hours a day. And, to add on to this even more, in some cities we have what I can only call "The Communist Alarm Clock" - between 5:00 am and 06:30 am public address systems in the streets blare out music and talking which wakes you up.
The bells the beeellllls!!! Mud and rubble
Like much of the rest of the country, the road is being constantly developed. It is being dug, widened, re-surfaced, extended - seemingly along it's entire length. We can see where houses that used to line the original road have been simply cut through by the developers - leaving exposed staircases and inner rooms exposed to the elements. Maybe in the near future the road will be wide and perfect and wonderful, but for now, February 2015, we find a muddy, dug up road, that forces us to leap between road and pavement, and rubble, and mud. Despite us having a mountain bike tandem we are finding the bike taking a pummeling, and we've ripped up another tyre yesterday, despite us using the toughest continental touring tyres we could find. We can also add sand into this part. This road kind of follows the coast. I say "kind of" because sadly it does not hug the coast, only allowing us infrequent tantalising glimpses of the beautiful coast. However, there is plenty of sand and salt around, just adding to the fun we've found from the mud and rubble.
The traffic forces us to hop between road and the hard shoulder/pavement area. Buses and lorries particularly will overtake at any moment, on a single carriageway, approaching a blind hill - and, as detailed above, as long as they beep their horns, then it's all fine. Yesterday, on top of our usual near misses, we had two very very near misses, once from a bus and once from a lorry forcing us to evacuate the road. That's not so easy on a fully laden tandem, with about 235 kg in total, including the riders. Here's a video showing the view from the back of our tandem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2thP3LDlKM Other options?
There really are no other options to get from north to south, without spending weeks finding side roads. That's a shame, as the side roads are truly stunning, but it would take some significant time out of our trip, which will sadly not last forever. Solution:
So, we will fast forward from our current location, in Qui Nhon (http://badgerandfrog.com/where-on-earth-are-we-now/), thankfully off the QL1 to Ho Chi Min City (ex. Saigon) on the train. This will save us about 8 days and 700 km, and whilst we are disappointed that we will not complete this part of the jounrey, the combination of saving about 8 days, avoiding the pollution, and avoiding the crazy driving, make it an absolute no brainer.
We are very much looking forward to being able to enjoy this awesome landscape again!
