Condor Acciaio long-term review

Over half a year and several thousand kilometres since I bought it, the Acciaio frame-set is still here. That's not something to take for granted: the turnover in the shed can be brutal. More than that, though, it's still built up. And more than that, it's the bike I ride more than any other. So, what else to add to my early-days review?

Gearing

I played with the setup more or less continuously until about a month ago. The basics have stayed the same: frame plus standard Condor full-carbon fork, Easton seatpost, Ritchey 110mm stem, Deda RHM02 bars, and mainly Ultegra groupset. The fiddling has been with the gearing: I started with a compact, switched to a (105) triple, switched back to the compact but with a 38-tooth inner ring, then switched back to the triple. 

The conclusion? I remain a fan of triples, and an out-and-out heckler of compacts. For me, the jump down from 50 to 34 on a compact is just too big. You shift the front derailleur, then have to crash down multiple gears at the back to get anything like a similar cadence. On a triple, especially a 110PCD triple (50-39-30), one change down at the front and one at the back is just about perfect.

The 30-tooth inner ring is little used, hence the experiment with a 50-38. I would have stuck with that, but the TA 38-tooth ring refused to shift smoothly, getting hung up on the downshift from the 50. So, back to the triple and its extra 100g or so. 

Contact points

I've tried various saddles, ending up with a Fizik Aliante. Fizik say this saddle is good for people who lack flexibility, but I'm actually quite flexible (at least by their simplistic can-you-touch-your-toes measure). The reason I prefer it is that when you want to extend your legs for a bit more power, you can slide back on to the rear of the saddle for a slightly higher, longer seating position.

I've also played about with the bars a bit. After a brief flirtation with some old Big Piegas, I've been using Deda's RHM02 bars. The jury's a bit out on these: the drop and curve are very comfortable, the forward bend (in the photo on the right) less so. A shallower radius would be more comfortable; this bend is so square it forces my hands further out than I'd like, making the bars feel wider than others of a similar size. On balance, I find the old FSA compacts, which were slightly narrower at the top than the drops, preferable.

Wheels

Wheels can make or break a bike. I've used the lightweight Ksyrium SLs shown in the photo on the Acciaio, and also some nice-but-sturdy Harry Rowland 32-spoke wheels on Ambrosio hubs and Open Pro rims. The difference is marked, as you'd expect. With the SLs, the bike responds very readily to a press on the pedals, and accelerates quickly. The Rowlands give the bike a different character – not necessarily less enjoyable. It feels like a machine you can happily ride on cobbles and dirt roads, a real bruiser. Still, though, lightweight enough for fast riding.

Weight

We had to come to this in the end, didn't we? Depending on what bits it's wearing, the Acciaio (a size 55 frame) comes up at a bit under or a bit over 9kg: pretty heavy, relatively, for a bike that would cost about £2000 to build up to this spec from scratch (though about the same as a £1500 Specialized Roubaix). So, you could easily get something lighter for less. It just might not be as satisfying to ride or own.

Summary

It's possible to disguise a good frame using poor kit (especially wheels). It's also possible to make a so-so frame ride better with expensive equipment (especially wheels). I've built up and ridden the Acciaio frame with a range of middling and (in the case of the wheels) a-bit-better-than-middling kit, which has given me a good feel for its capabilities. I'd summarise it as a thoroughly modern version of an old-school steel frame. It's stiff enough to transfer power from your legs efficiently, is still comfortable on long rides (probably the most comfortable road bike I've owned), and is engaging to ride. (I'm trying really hard not to say "lively" here...)

Most of all, the Acciaio has a versatile nature that's welcome in an age of niches within niches. Build it light, drop the stem, and it feels close to a flat-stick race bike. Use more robust components, and you've got yourself a cobble basher. Strike the middle ground, and you have something that can do everything.

And it looks pretty, too.

Condor Acciaio review

Until now, only three bikes have been permanent residents in my bike shed (though many more have passed through): a 2003 Specialized Allez; a Cotic Soul mountain bike; and a Condor Pista fixie. I've now bought a Condor Acciaio frame because, though stiff and responsive, the Specialized can be uncomfortable on longer rides. 

First impressions of the Acciaio are good. The frame seems well made, the paint’s beautiful, and the pre-sale prep by Condor is excellent. These guys do really care about making sure you’re happy with your bike. I chose to build the frame up myself, and it’s kitted out with mainly Ultegra from about 2008, Mavic Ksyrium SLs, and fairly ordinary bars/stem/pedals/saddle from the shed.

Contrary to Condor's reputation, the Acciaio seems good value. A hand-built frame made of triple-butted Deda Zero Replica steel, it costs £749.99 including full-carbon fork, headset, and (rather useless) seat clamp. Similar frames from builders such as Enigma, Duell, Pegoretti, Milani, or Zullo cost over £1000 once you include the forks; some of them, double that.

This is an early-days review: the bike’s only covered a few hundred kilometres since I bought/built it. That’s long enough, though, for the shining eyes of new ownership to dim, and the reality of day-to-day riding to come to the fore. So, how’s it doing so far?

• Ride quality

I’ve seen a couple of reviews suggesting that the ride’s a bit stiff on this frame, but for me, the balance between road feel and smoothness is very good. I built the Acciaio up with parts taken off my Specialized frame, which gave a near-direct comparison of the feel. It's certainly not as stiff, and feels a lot less chattery over rough surfaces, but the response to harder pedalling is still quick: it doesn't feel like a bike you have to wind up to speed. For me this frame has the same liveliness as my friend Hammy’s old steel Colnago, but with a much stiffer bottom bracket and modern geometry.

           

• Comfort/fit

This is excellent. I picked this frame because it has similar geometry to my Pista (and better materials), and I find that comfortable to ride for hours on end. Losing 15mm of spacers compared to the Pista (10mm for the taller head tube, 5mm for the lower bottom bracket) gives the same riding position, as the frame angles are the same.

• Handling

73.5º parallel frame angles should equal zippy handling, and they do. The front end feels particularly sharp. Cornering is precise, with no oversteer or understeer, as are sudden changes of line, but the ride doesn’t feel twitchy. There’s no high-speed wobble to the bars going downhill. I'm currently riding with a 110mm stem: I think the frame would happily take 120mm or 100mm without the handling being affected.

• Weight

The Acciaio frame weighs a claimed 0.5 kg more than the E5 alloy frame it has replaced (I suspect that might not be the whole story, but I didn't weigh it before building it up). I can feel the extra weight when I pick the bike up, but not so on the road; I couldn’t honestly say the bike ever feels slower than an alloy or carbon one. Generally, weight in a frame hides itself far better than weight in the wheels and tyres. (The Ti frame I used to own, which was actually lighter, DID feel heavier on the road because it was so soft at the back.)

            Of course, physics demands that on a long climb, extra weight has to slow you down: in the Alps or Pyrenees, maybe I’d be less sanguine about that extra half a kilo. On the other hand, on descents the Acciaio feels more planted and quicker – and I’m not as good at going downhill as pedalling up.

Overall

So far, I’m really pleased with the Acciaio. For general road-bike riding it seems like an excellent choice, with the handling and ride feel particular highlights. The positive ride characteristics of the frame material, plus its durability and reliability, outweigh the theoretical negative of a full water-bottle's worth of extra weight. (True weight weenies probably won't have got this far with the review anyway, of course.)

One likely change: I may try a triple on it. It currently has a compact, but I feel there's a lot of duplication of ratios, and the rouleur character of this bike feels like a natural for a 39-tooth front ring – with a 30-tooth bailout option for safety.

Back in Britain

Back in Britain for two weeks, during which it has rained every single day. What are the ten most important things I learned from a year of travelling around Europe, meeting people, seeing new places, riding my bike, and paddling my surfboard?

1) France is really good, but the lunch thing is quite annoying. 12.30, everything stops. 2.30, some things start again. 3.30, almost everything's started again. (And 6.00, everything's closed again.)

2) The Basque Country is also really good.

3) Spain is actually a bit rubbish, except the bits where the place names have lots of x spellings that you pronounce 'ch' and pelota is a religion. The thwack of those pelota balls hitting the wall is the most evocative sound.

4) If you're going to spend a year living in a camper van, get one with a shower and toilet.

5) Drivers in Europe either don't mind cyclists, or actively like them.

6) Viewed as a whole, British drivers really seem to hate cyclists. And motorcyclists. And, now I think of it, other drivers.

7) TV in general is better in a foreign language, because there's a lot more room for you to imagine what's happening. The plots are better when you're making them up yourself.

8) Not watching the evening news or reading a newspaper is very good for me. 

9) Watching/reading them really isn't.

10) All Tories are heartless shits. Plus ça change. I think this lot is actually worse than the last bunch. At least some of the 1980s Tories climbed up the ladder under their own steam before booting everyone else in the face, rather than being carried up by Daddy's servants.

Hiding from the heatwave

We've spent the last few days hiding from the heat, high up in the French Alps. Since we were last here a large hole has appeared in the ground next to Hammy's chalet. This has made late-night returns hazardous, as we used to short-cut across the adjacent plot. Must remember to go round...

Bits and pieces here, mostly work: good, because I don't want to become one of the town drunks down by the fountain outside the tourist office, and without money to pay for stuff that's what could happen. Also because it's been too hot to do much else. We've done a bit of biking, a bit of walking, and one gorge exploration that ended in a wonderful swimming hole underneath a waterfall. The Glamorous Companion, and even the dog, took the plunge. Chilly, but that's what you want when it's 40 ºC and rising.


Now we're en route for the Basque Country. Waves! Too long since I got my scales wet, over a month. In a ritual every surfer knows, the board has been taken from its cover, inspected and replaced. The van has been reorganised in a get-into-your-wetsuit-quicker way. And I've woken up dreaming about dawn patrols on a little reef break south of... Ah, but I can't say, can I? Not without risking a car bomb. It's a spot between Guéthary and Lafitenia: easy to find, with a bit of wandering, but a long paddle over dark water. Bigger than it looks from the cliffs.

Soon come.

The world's best swimming pool

Two weeks in Chamonix, mountain-sport capital of Europe, finishing a book about snowboarding. In August. We arrive to afternoon thunderstorms that roll around the valley, bringing the Mutt trembling and shaking to lean against my leg. Later, after the showers, a walk in the cooler air and perhaps an ice cream. Allowed, because every day the Glamorous Companion and I swim in the World's Best Pool.

Where else can you do backstroke looking up at the continent's tallest mountain? Well, nearly, if we forget about Mt Elbrus in Russia... and in Chamonix, everyone does. An outdoor, 50-metre pool of the kind most British swimmers can only dream of (hence the woeful performance of British swimmers in London: it may no longer be true, but there used to be more 50-metre pools in Sydney than Britain).

In fact, the mountains loom everywhere here. I'm writing this in a shoebox apartment (the block is shown on the right) with a view of the glacier below Mont Blanc and the Aiguilles du Midi. It's easy to forget – you're walking along a normal street in a normal mountain town, then suddenly you look up and there they are, towering above.

We're leaving tomorrow, heading back to the Southern Alps for a few days and then out to the Basque Country. Too long without waves! We'll get a few days in Guéthary, then north an hour to meet up with my friend Moose, his partner Nicola and their shared horde of children, all jammed into his new-old pride and joy Hymer. Then, sadly, we're on our way proper north, slowly back to the UK in time for winter. Boo.

You've got to love this...

Hubris I and II

A few days in the old stomping ground of Allos, and I take the opportunity to get my cycling legs back with a climb of the Col d'Allos, down to Barcelonette, and back. It's 12 km up to the col (which is the penultimate of the five that did for Eddy Merckx in the 1975 Tour). Then 25 km down to Barcelonette, then reverse the route for home.

Any sportsman, of any stripe, knows to beware of hubris. I know to beware of hubris. Nonetheless I expect to manage this beast of an afternoon, near 40 km of relentless climbing, without having ridden a road bike for 2 months. The idiocy of this is brought home about 2.5 km from the top of the col, coming back. Suddenly, I start to feel like Dorando Pietri, the Italian marathon runner who was so exhausted that it took him 10 minutes to cover the last 350 metres of the 1908 Olympic race. I push on the accelerator, but the vehicle doesn't really move much.

I eventually grind over the top too tired even to pedal one more stroke, and coast all the way back to Allos. Tomorrow is declared a rest day.

Two days later, more trouble. My friend Hammy and I decide to explore the woods around Allos on mountain bikes. We grind up out of Seignus, where in theory the Tour du Verdon bike route should take us all the way down to Colmars for a coupe. In practice the Tour du Verdon bike route only makes infrequent appearances, signposts even fewer, and we very quickly get lost.

Six hours later, we roll down through Seignus again, bloody, battered and weary. We've manhandled our bikes further than we rode them, at least it feels like it. Having rekindled my love of off-road riding in the first hour, I now never want to see a set of suspension forks again.

It'll wear off, though.

Tour fever

“Wiggins is four minutes down. Nibali’s attacked.”

“Wiggins has cracked.”

Rumours fly up and down the mountain, word of mouth flashing through the atmosphere faster even than modern electronics. British faces start to fall. A Swiss driver in one of the Tour cavalcade cars sees the Union flag on the road and slows to enlighten us: “Cadel! Cadel attacks! Wiggins – twelve minutes down already!” He zooms off, blasted away by a welter of honking from behind. The heat – nudging 40 º all day – beats down.

Even watching the Tour is a marathon of endurance. We arrived here 3 days ago: driving up, all the parking spots on the roadside are full. Places that aren’t parking spots are full. Cars and vans are stopped at crazy angles, or with one wheel hanging over an abyss, advertising their owners’ non-sleeping intentions. People have laid out sleeping bags on the roadside, £3000 carbon-fibre race bikes are parked in bushes, naked men are showering using tins hung in trees. The whole mountain has been transformed into some kind of crazy vagabond camp.

Our van ends up parked in a field, where we and about 3000 other vans and campers have paid €35 to stay. The money’s apparently going to repair the local church; tours are offered. There are a lot of people in this field, and others like it up and down the mountain. Not all the vans and tents are self-supporting. There are no facilities. The sun’s been baking down all day, every day. It smells like a London back alley in the 1600s.

On the third day the organizers realize their mistake and bring in some Portaloos. Eight of them, reserved for the use of those without their own toilets. But give the owner of a white-box camper van a choice between: a) emptying the van’s waste cassette and b) shitting in a Portaloo, and he picks – extraordinarily – b) every time. Within hours the four Portaloos the organizers have opened – the others are being held back against some future poonami – are an overflowing poomageddon. The queue to use them is notably free of female customers, heavy on massive-bellied Frenchmen wearing unsuitable sports shorts. Back to a trowel in the woods, then.

The day of the race’s arrival, the endurance challenge ramps up. It’s baking, the sun hitting open spaces like a blow, but by 11.00 in the morning the roadside’s starting to get jammed. The riders aren’t due for another five hours.

We head down at about 3.30 in the afternoon, having sent an umbrella-ed, be-flagged advance party down to claim territory. Muscle in at the edge, between them and a bunch of plastered Basques (how did this get to be the richest region in Spain? They’re always drunk). The Union flag on the road, British bunting, nylon football tops, cheap lager, inappropriately large and brightly coloured trainers, and shouting all mark this out as a little corner of England in a hot and foreign land. I don’t spot any pickled eggs, bomb craters, cloth caps, plump ladies playing pianos in pubs, or ferrets, but they’re here in spirit.

And spirits are low, due to the rumour mongering. Then, thankfully, we’re all distracted by the arrival of the publicity caravan. Yippee! A chance to get loads of free plastic tat. I bag an inflatable beach pillow advertising a hire-car company, a money-changer’s shopping bag, a dog-food rubber keyring thing, a rubber wristband, and two sachets of fruit-drink sirop – though I do have to wrestle a small, fat child for the rare and sought-after tangerine-flavoured one.

Then, at last, the race arrives. Voeckler goes past looking, as always, like a demonic child. He’s ridden away from some of the world’s best riders, over four fearsome cols, 197km in 40 º heat. Tomorrow every French newspaper will have a photo of him on the front page. 

Then a group of three, then, a couple of minutes down, Nibali, Wiggins and Froome. They’re clearly moving faster up this final climb than anyone we’ve seen yet, or will see later, but Wiggins – Wiggins is smiling. I think at that point, with the hardest stage behind him and his biggest rival unable to shake him, he knew – rightly or wrongly – that the Tour was won.

The next day, Basso and Nibali do everything they can, but the Englishman won’t be shaken. In the end it’s Nibali who cracks, and Wiggins takes more time from him. The day’s marred by Froome’s showboating in the final kilometres, but nothing can really take the shine off it – barring disaster, Wiggins converts Olympic track gold into stage-racing yellow. I can’t, for now, think of a more incredible British sporting achievement. Answers on a postcard, please.

Portugal and Spain

Long time, no blog. We’ve been in northern Portugal, which was too nice to spend much of our time there writing about, and northern Spain, which definitely wasn’t because our time was mostly spent leaving. Readers who also follow me on Twitter will have seen the photo, shown left, of the official* Worst Campsite In Spain. It may be of interest that we actually drove round an even worse one (though this is a bit like saying that the Somme was worse than Verdun). Probably it goes without saying that we chose not to stay there.

*not actually official at all.

Portugal, in contrast, remains a favourite place to visit. The people have a tinge of amity and engagement that reminds me a bit of Australia: helpful, but not too much so. Staying with Sao near Ericiera was as much a treat as always – the best breakfast fruit bowl in the country. A larger one was pressed on us as we left: “I got up early to pick them, I know you like the fruit.” 

From there we rolled up through the Minho, green, green Portugal. This was a new landscape to the Glamorous Companion, though I’d visited it years ago with my friend Bonga. In retrospect I’m a bit embarrassed that we didn’t explore more, even just in surfing terms: we surfed pretty much the same break every day, in an area I now know is rich in waves. Mostly I surfed standup, but once in a while I managed to find an un-lifeguarded beach and get out on the mat. Image below, shot by the GC from the comfort of her beach towel – which is why it’s rather distant.

One change in Portugal: the people have, in general, got tremendously fat. It was like Chubby Night at Brighton’s Wild Fruit night club, all day, every day. I think they must have spent the EU cash on cakes. The country’s similarly bloated with empty property: beautiful modernist apartments and houses, all unoccupied, all for sale. Someone somewhere made a bundle on this, but it’s not – of course – ordinary Portuguese, who are suffering badly.

Spain saw us make first acquaintance with a gloomy band of drizzle that followed us across the entire country like a rheumy-eyed, smelly old dog. This will clearly elicit little sympathy from British readers busy building Arks in their back gardens. It’s a tough place to travel with an actual dog, Spain: they’re not allowed inside anywhere, so the pavement table is the dog-owner’s domain. OK if it’s sunny, but it wasn’t. The campsites – stop me if I’ve mentioned this – are also dire. The best night we spent in Spain proper was in a beach car park; also the last night before we reached the safety of the Basque Country.

The highlight of non-Basque Spain was probably Galicia. It’s a wild, wet, rugged country, where the grain stores have to be off the ground to keep them safe from vermin and damp. Two or three jaw-dropping surf breaks, out in the far west, made me think this would be a good place for a full-on surfing exploration.

The Basque lands always feel like a good place to be, and after a not-particularly wonderful time in the rest of Spain, it was very welcome to reach them. The coast road between Zumaia and Zarautz is an Amalfi? What Amalfi? treat, and the campsite in Zaratutz is a real gem. A few days there to recharge in the sunshine, and now we’re in the Pyrenees, waiting for Wiggins with about… actually, I have no idea how many other people. We’re camped in an enterprising farmer’s field near the top of the Col de Peyresourde, and there must be at least 1000 other camper vans within sight already, more arriving all the time. I can see about 10% of the col from where I’m sitting. Go figure.

I rode up the col this morning, feeling slightly out of place among the lycra and carbon fibre, then sat in the sun at lunchtime, alternately writing and watching the amateur riders going up and down the route the pros will travel at double-quick time on Wednesday. All the lovely bikes on display gave me that terrible itchy-credit-card feeling.

Oh no, not again. 

Strange days

Met a red-eyed South African, out in the dawn surf this morning – let's say his name's John. I called him into a wave; he paddled back out and we started chatting.

"Thanks, bro. Stoked to be out here. I live outside Madrid, just back from three years in Iraq. Not too many waves there." OK, I'll bite: what were you doing out there? "Bomb disposal."

Just stop myself asking what he thought of The Hurt Locker, and instead say I hope it was well paid? "Shit, yeah. At the end I was pulling down $15,000.00  month. But I can't do it any more; I'm retired."

So here's this guy, taking home (tax free) $15,000.00 a month, for disarming bombs that are probably only there, in some sense, because he is.

Strange days, these.

So long, old friend

Warning: this post is only of the remotest interest to surfers. Everyone else, move on please; nothing to see here.

It’s a poignant thing when a much-loved surfboard leaves you. Surfers and their boards go through a lot together. Nightmare sessions when you couldn’t catch a single wave, or the locals were ganging you, or your leash broke and you had to swim in and see whether the board had come to rest on rocks or sand. Epic sessions where you seemed to hoover up everything that came through, or you caught just that one wave that made it worth paddling out, and which stuck in your mind for a long while. Most of all, those regular go-outs – onshore, crunchy, too small, closing out, dirty, cold, rainy, foul-tasting, shivery, aggro – which make up the median life of a British surfer.

The Fat-Assed Wombat and I experienced it all. It was a pretty short board for me at the time I bought it – 6’4”. No one ever believed it was that short though, because it was so, well, fat-assed. It looked more like a longboard than a shortboard, and latched on to waves like one, too. I took it to the Outer Hebrides for the best-ever (so far) surf trip. It endured many skunky sessions huddling away from southwesterly gales in the lee of Brighton Marina (and once got blown along the undercliff path by a wicked gust). I lent it to my friend Bonga, and he dropped his microwave oven on it. Portugal and Morocco both saw the Wombat making me look a much better surfer than I really am, by virtue of its design. And now it’s gone; gone to the second-hand rack at 58 Surf in Baleal, though probably not for long. Someone will snap it up, and André’s immense turnover of boards will continue.

Disloyal to say it – but I’m glad. The Wombat, you see, had become a bit of a crutch. It worked in just about every kind of surf, from knee-high to a little bit overhead. It always caught waves, performed reliably, resisted airline baggage handling’s every attempt to crush it (I once saw it being thrown nose-first to the ground from the top of a teetering luggage stack, then having a load of prams and golf carts chucked on top: not a mark). But if it did everything well, it didn’t do anything brilliantly. It was slower down the line than my twin-fin; harder to turn on steep faces than my 6’7”; didn’t ride bigger waves as well as my 7’6”  – all in all, a bit of a Ford Focus.

So, we’ve both moved on. No hard feelings, on my part at least, only gratitude for all the things I learnt while we were together. The Wombat will find someone new: a neo surfer from one of the schools in Baleal, perhaps, keen to change up after an intensive couple of weeks learning. It’ll be a bit much at first, but they’ll grow together. Ride on, Fat Ass – ride on.

Twice in two days!

Told off by the lifeguard again, this time at Baleal, for bodysurfing when an orange flag was up. At least he waited till I'd got out, and said he hadn't come to order me out of the water because "I can see you don't drown." An improvement, I think.

Meanwhile, England claw their way to group-match victory against Sweden. There's no pleasure in an England win, just a release of pressure. It's like riding an Italian motorbike: you spend your time in the saddle with buttocks clenched, constantly wondering what new way it will find to break down before you reach your destination. If you do actually arrive, you can relax – until it's time to climb back on and go home.

Kooksville

Did I really write the sentence, “I never, ever have a bad surf on the mat” in the previous blog entry? Consider this a correction.

I knew I shouldn’t have bothered, but sometimes you just need to get your scales wet. It’s onshore surf, crunching on to some kind of sandbank. The wave are really just folding over all along their length – but once in a while, an unpredictable shoulder appears. It’s just enough to tempt me in.

After last week’s glorious mat session, I elect to go in on that. Getting out through the crunchy shorebreak turns out to be really hard work. Several minutes of paddling and about halfway out, I’m starting to feel a bit like Katie Price: the airbag seemed a good idea at the time, but now I can’t get rid even though I’d like to.

I finally make it out the back just in time for a cleanup wave to sweep through. Unlike the Buddha Wave, I’m most definitely not in the spot. I make a try at getting through the cresting lip, but without really thinking it’s going to work. Almost straight away I get the same feeling in the pit of my stomach that Captain Matthew Webb must have had, the moment when he realized halfway that his attempt to swim across the rapids at the foot of the Niagara Falls wasn’t going to come off.

I’m pulled back over the falls, and get royally rinsed. Bounce on the sandy bottom a couple of times, and come up in waist-deep water, still clutching Katie to my chest. I’m standing in the shallows trying to decide whether to paddle out again when I hear a whistle. Turn round with a sinking feeling: this can’t be happening. But horrifyingly, it is; the lifeguard’s whistling me in. The thing is, I qualified as a lifeguard myself, years ago, and I’d be whistling me in too. What a kook.

In the end we have a chat. His name’s Junior, which is a hell of a misnomer: he’s the biggest, most muscle-bound, most heavily tattooed Portuguese man I’ve ever met, and looks more like a member of Da Hui than a municipal lifesaver. Junior tells me it’s OK to come back with a surfboard – but “Not this thing”, he says, pointing at Katie. I can’t blame him for doubting.

Poor Katie: some you win, some you lose.

Buddha wave

The thing about the Buddha Wave is, you have to know it when you see it. Most sessions, you won’t catch it at all. It’s a good wave, and a wave you couldn’t have ridden better. If you catch the Buddha Wave, paddle in. Anything else will be a diminution.

Yesterday a new swell hit the coast: about 2 metres, a good size, but lumpy and bumptious. A good day for sightseeing – so that’s what we do.

Back that evening, I wander down to the beach to have a look at the waves. Still junky, still big and a bit wild, but I decide to go out on my surf mat. This has been an object of guarded reaction on several continents, notably Australia, where one surfer took a look at it and said: “Jeez, I thought those were only for kids.” I tried to take this as a compliment on my youthful exuberance, but I’m not sure that’s really how it was meant.

To be fair, there probably is something childish about going surfing on what’s basically a cut-down li-lo. I like the portability, though: last night’s full kit is shown in the photo: board shorts, fins, thermal rash vest, short-sleeved wetsuit top, surf pursuit vehicle. Also, I never, ever have a bad surf on the mat.

The shorebreak was a bit tricky: chest high and heaving with sticks, bits of weed, small pebbles, etc. I stood there for a while working it out, charged ahead when I thought I spotted a gap, tripped over my fins, splatted, and got washed up the beach, hoping no one had noticed. There was an older couple on the beach, and one of those general-issue blonde-dreadlocked surfers you get living in beach car parks around Europe. He’d studiously ignored me as I walked down the ramp to the beach: one of the Mat Haters, clearly.

There’s a knack to getting out through big waves on a mat. On a surfboard you duck dive, shoving the board under water. That’s pretty much impossible with a mat, which is basically a giant bag of air. Instead you can either swim out with the mat tucked into your wetsuit and blow it up out there; or roll over as a wave hits you, clutching the bag in the kind of death hug the wrestler Giant Haystacks once used. The second option is my preferred technique: I get scared of sharks if I have to tread water too long while blowing up the mat. I know this isn't the reaction of a strong, powerful man, but I can't help it.

A couple of waves ridden, I start thinking how smooth and fast the mat is compared to this morning’s surfboard session. Then the horizon darkens: a whopper of an outside wave is pitching up, approaching the crease like Dennis Lillee wearing a pair of uncomfortably tight trousers. Amazingly, I’m in the spot.

The wave lifts me up, up, six, eight feet, and then chucks me at the beach. I’ve got the mat at such low inflation that it’s more like bodysurfing than anything; we take off together, bounce once about halfway down, then again near the bottom. For a moment I wonder if the mat might burst – but then it finds the sweet spot about two-thirds up the face, and we’re flying along.

How do you measure a wave? Height, speed, distance travelled? This one is big, long, steep and fast. It breaks perfectly, all the way to the shorebreak. Given a hundred chances, I couldn’t ride it better. It’s a Buddha Wave. I paddle in.

As I walk up the ramp giggling like a schoolgirl, dreadlock man leans across. “Eh!” I catch his eye. “Mat man. Bonne vague.” 

[Bonus photo of Glamorous Companion enjoying The World's Biggest Beer on the terrace above the beach.]

The music of life

Three days of good, head-high waves out here on the far western tip of Breizh. This country’s very like Cornwall: windswept open moors or fields, tight little valleys with trees huddled in the bottom, granite coasts, low houses.

Just down the road is a beach with at least three names. An attempt by local surfers to keep its identity obscure? More likely the product of being somewhere with two languages, and an uneasy relationship with the rest of France. The local Mairie has a plaque outside, noting that two deputies from this region voted NON to Pétain’s accommodation with the Germans in 1940.

The surfers here are the usual mish-mash: kids practising aerial 360s in the shorebreak, older gentlemen on larger boards (more and more, stand-up paddleboards), everything in between. You couldn’t, in your wildest dreams, say the surf was busy. I haven’t seen more than 20 people in the water, in conditions that would have an equivalent British beach looking like a sea of fibreglass.

I’ve been riding my 6’4” Bear Wombat. It’s a board that has a particular feel to it. The soundtrack in my mind when I’m riding it is always the late, great Michael Petersen in Morning of the Earth: all pivoty, jangly 70s fun. Though obviously there's less hair, less style, less speed, and quite a lot less heroin involved in my version than MP’s.

In an attempt to give the board a different soundtrack (Sure Feels Good by Brian Cadd wears thin after a while), I’ve been experimenting with different fin setups. (Apologies to non-surfers reading this: just skip to the photo of the food, if you prefer.) The results so far:

1) Single-fin only: slow, boring, ponderous – some Wagnerian overture, or one of those mind-numbingly endless guitar solos by Lynyrd Skynrd.

2) Full-size FCS side fins, but nothing in the middle: unreliable, frivolous, you shouldn’t like it but you do – it’s got to be Middle Period Kylie, some time around I Just Can’t Get You Out Of My Head. Or maybe the Pussycat Dolls' Don't You (Wish Your Girlfriend Was...). 

3) Proper Mark Richards twin fins: fast, zippy, snappy – no-brainer, it's Acid 8000 by Fatboy Slim.

4) Thruster setup, made possible by Ade Keane, a well-respected former shaper who got tired of the toxic fumes of board manufacture. I was telling him how I wanted to try a thruster setup, but couldn’t because an FCS centre fin wouldn’t work in the longboard-style finbox. Two days later, a thing of great beauty (albeit to a very specialized audience), shown left, turned up on my doorstep: a handcrafted fin. Merci beaucoup, Ade. I haven’t tried this fin combo in good waves yet, but I have high hopes the opening chords of The Ace Of Spades will start to play as I paddle for the first wave.

Meantime, yet more beauty. Yes, my Glamorous Companion – but also, look at that fish supper! Without going into detail, it tasted as good as it looked – apart from the cockles. Why do they always have to put in a bum note like that? An Islamic stitch?

Back in business

We apologise for the interruption to our service over the last 6 weeks. The author has been cloistered in a low-ceiling cottage in Dorset, alternately banging his head on the beams and writing Swim Better, Swim Faster (Bloomsbury, available in all good bookshops next year).

Manuscript sent to publisher this afternoon, van being packed up tomorrow, Eurotunnel on Friday, and we're back on the road. First stop, Brittany. Whoo.

President Claude

“No no – you must stay another night and ride with Claude and his friends in the morning. He is the President!” Too good to miss: a club run with the Vaison la Romaine bike club in the morning, a bit of wandering around Roman ruins with my glamorous companion in the afternoon, a quick ascent of Mt Ventoux tomorrow, then home.

At 8.00 a.m. the next day I’m feeling self-conscious about my lowly Cannondale. It doesn’t even have a four-figure price tag, for God’s sake. On a quick tally up, the 30-odd bikes gathered in the car park have a total value of about €75,000.00.

Fortunately one or two of the riders aren’t, without wanting to be unkind, quite as lightweight as their machines. Isn’t it the way? Start to feel relieved – at which point, my overweight safety net saddles up and rolls off on the débutants ride. What’s left behind is me, Claude, and a bunch of wiry old roadies with hair-free, sinewy legs and a kind of lean looseness that spells trouble. “Allez!” And we’re off.

Actually, they’re very gentle. They still screw me, with just short of 100 km in three hours of classic puncheur territory – but at least they’re gentle about it. I even get to top out a couple of climbs ahead of the pack, and take a few good pulls on the front of the chain gang that rolls through the last 25 km in about half an hour.

Next morning, 10 km into the climb from Malaucéne to the summit of Mt Ventoux, those pulls don’t seem like they were such a good idea. My aim of roaring up here like a mountain lion is long forgotten. This lion has mange and a thorn in its paw. Possibly also toothache and a touch of cat flu. Canine dysentery, even. This is a hard climb, almost all of it spent on the triple’s 30-tooth inner ring. A couple of times I have to look around to make sure no one’s watching, then click it on to the 28 at the back. Not a soul here – the road's closed – but I'm embarrassing myself.

The snow that blocks the road and forces a Torvill-and-Dean ice dance in cleated shoes almost comes as a relief. 2 km of tippy-toes later I’m out of the trees and into the lunar landscape of the summit dome. Spooky-lonely, like an old Doctor Who set – the ones that were all filmed in a deserted quarry somewhere in Hertfordshire, and which had the 7-year-old me hiding behind the sofa. Keep looking behind to make sure nothing’s creeping up on me. Must be the altitude.

From the top, rather than skid down across the ice I carry on across the summit and down to Bédoin. Anyone who races down here without shouting Whooooooooo! Woo-hoo! Whaaaaa! at least once just doesn’t have any love in their heart. Think of my friend Tim, the demon descender, who must have loved this. Miss the Simpson memorial, but that’s easily done at 70 kph on a sun-dappled road surface. Concentrate.

Bédoin very pretty; the ride back to Malaucéne over the Col de Madeleine even more so. Back at Vaison there’s just time before we go for President Claude to sandbag me one more time. “We drink a good beer, yes?” It turns out to be a Belgian leg-wobbler that makes steam spout from my nostrils and my feet start tingling, and sets me up nicely for the drive home.

[Bonus photo of the Sky boys shepherding Wiggins, B. through Castellane, on the way to victory in Paris-Nice:]