At the annual OldVelos strategy meeting early in 2017 there was some dissension in the ranks. Commander Cromer unveiled his plan for maximising the group’s possibility of skin cancer by exposing us all the maximum amount of sunlight. His plan was simple, being from a music background he believed Julie Andrews when she sang ‘The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain’. Oh, how your hero’s can disappoint you. If she had sung ‘The rain in Spain starts falling when you get off the plane’ it would have been closer to the truth.

The decision was made – OldVelos would deploy their troops thus for  2017: an advance party would go to L’Eroica Hispania, a small recognisance group would go to Eroica Brittania and the Chief of Staff would go with the surviving troops for a little R&R to L’Eroica in Gaiole. This was the plan and here follows a brief account of how the plan actually worked there will be more details later…

L’Eroica Hispania:

The theory was flawless, a few days in a nice hotel, soaking up the Spring sunshine and a bit of cycling thrown in to round off the week.

So we will start with the hotel, looks great, eh? Unfortunately no one checked what ‘Argi Eder’ means.

Apparently it means ‘At the top of an extremely steep hill’ !

.. and here is a photo of the crew cycling in the Spring sunshine:

L’Eroica Brittannia.

Once again theories went out the window. Nice weekend in the English midlands cycling in the warm early Summer and avoiding the rain as much a possible. I am afraid not, even our Italian friends fried!

L’Eroica in Gaiole:

Where the whole thing started and it is easy to see why. Beautiful weather, beautiful food and meeting old friends, what L’Eroica is all about.

We will be posting more in depth accounts of our L’Eroica year over the next few weeks so watch this space.