Mark Jeffcott has good memories of the road trip to the Alps that he, Simon and Johnny Roberts took in 2007.  Sharing the driving of the Mondeo estate with four bikes on the roof, they stopped at a … basic hotel in St Quentin overnight.  After a week of riding including the Croix de Fer and Alpe d’Huez, Johnny flew home and Simon and Mark, fuelled by coffee, made it back to the UK in one long run.

On their last overseas cycling trip, to Girona, Simon, Clive and Mark found it easy to spend the week together, riding, talking bikes, riding, agreeing on politics, and a bit more riding. There was always another bike to discuss, a groupset to consider, some tweak to the riding position and great plans for bikepacking in Scotland taking in a few Munros.  There’s huge sadness that this now won’t happen.

Mark’s best recollection of the trip is Simon emerging from his room one morning after listening to radio 4 on his phone and gleefully announcing, “The Tories are doomed!”

One lunchtime, hungry, the trio stopped in the first bistro they found and Simon made the other two laugh by describing how Sarah would never settle so easily for the first place you passed, when there were menus and reviews across the town to be compared, leaving the girls with lasting trauma.