Simon Nicholl
Name: Simon Nicholl
Age: 50
Location: The Peoples’ Republic of Wesham, Sunny Lancashire.
Experience
“Could certainly use some” (his words, not ours! Ed). As a keen roadie, Simon took on the Grand Loop challenge (all 21 stages) in 2015. In 2016 (as he explains) he took on the epic challenge of riding across America, unsupported
I rode the full 2015 TdF route, sharing a room with my occasional cycling-partner-in-crime, The Tractor. It was a terrific experience and on a selfish note, it allowed me to realise one of my few two-wheeled ambitions for which I will be grateful to everyone on the TdF/Le Loop team for a long old time. It is these folks that make those 3 weeks so special and ensure that the strenuous and frankly daft event is doable - there are too many people to single out for praise so let me say that they are all unfailing in their humour, enthusiasm, practical nous and sheer encouragement and they will do everything in their gift to help you finish each stage: it’s up to you to meet them half-way and at least get yourself in half-decent shape. As you’d expect with such a group of cyclists there was a range of abilities on display but there was a shared determination and a shared good humour even when things went a little awry, as they sometimes will. It was also a joy to welcome the folks who were dipping in and out to ride a few stages - their fresh enthusiasm was contagious I reckon! If anyone has a few minutes that they’ll never need back, I kept a shoddy blog at https://2015tdf.blogspot.co.uk/ There, told you it was shoddy!"
Where are you now?
“Heading to the fridge for a beer. Oh you mean ‘what have you been up to since you rode the TdF’? To be honest, the only challenge that I could think of that really caught my imagination was a solo and unsupported jaunt from Seattle to Miami: this took me 30 days.
2017’s challenges will hopefully be to ride up some more mountains but I haven’t ruled out another tilt at the TdF some day. If you’ll have me back, of course…”
Of course we’ll have you back! Ed