We are sailors but we are also mountain bikers so if we can’t sail, we are just as happy to go biking. We are currently in Guernsey and the weather forecast is talking about gusts up to 40 knots and three meter high waves so we – sensibly – decided to go for a bike ride. We found a GPS route around the north of the Island so, after unpacking and folding out our bikes, we set off to follow it.
It became obvious that the route was suitable for road bikes so we started to add in our own little diversions always following the coast as closely as possible. This was much more fun and allowed us to see much more rocky coastline, a few forts from Napoleonic times and lots of German bunkers from WW2.
The sections of deep soft sand and the head on storm also increased the training effect considerably. It is not often that you need to tack in to the wind on a bike.
On the far side of the Island we watched motorbikes and buggies racing on the exposed sand at low tide. There was some serious drifting going on and we saw one or two tumbles. It was obvious why there were two ambulances on standby.
Bikes are the perfect way to see the Island. Almost all our route was inaccesible to cars and it was much too far to walk in an afternoon. Once again we were so thankful to have our bikes with us.
Link to the route at GPSies is at https://www.gpsies.com/map.do?fileId=qdopbvutwhwtggqq.