Simon Healey is organising a spring club tour to Normandy over the last weekend in April. Departing Andover on the afternoon of Friday 25th April to catch the overnight ferry from Portsmouth to Caen. Saturday and Sunday will be spent touring the Normandy countryside and coast before catching the overnight ferry back.
The details of this are now starting to take shape. Simon and Billy have already booked ferry crossings as follows:
- Portsmouth to Caen - Friday 25th April departing Portsmouth at 23:00 (arriving in Caen at 06:45 Saturday 26th April)
- Caen to Portsmouth - Sunday 28th April departing Caen at 23:30 (arriving in Portsmouth at 06:15 Monday 28th April)
The proposed route for Saturday is:
And Simon is currently making enquiries with https://www.falaiseguesthouse.com/en/ for accommodation on Saturday night. Falaise is a picturesque town with a mix of both medieval and modern history to it, so it should make for a good base:
The route for Sunday is TBC, but is likely to be a similar length route as Saturday, but heading west out of Falaise instead.
Logistics mean that all the riding will involve carrying luggage. This, combined with the distance of Saturday and Sunday's rides, means that the average speed of rides will be a lot lower than the normal Wheeler weekend rides. As a guide when we did the Exeter tour we rode at around 22.5kph (14mph), although the routes were hillier, so we may be able to go a bit quicker this time round (15mph!). In any case this will be tailored to suit the riders who sign up for the tour, it's possible we may run multiple groups to increase flexibility.
Contact Simon at simon.andoverwheelerswelfare@gmail.com to register interest and to be kept up to date with further details.