As some one with more years than I care to remember behind me I wondered if perhaps I could give some thing back with all the people who have helped me in the past. The idea for this blog came up so that people might benefit from it and find it interesting, and maybe I could have some fun along the way.
My name is Shaun Jepson and I spent most of my childhood up until the age of eighteen in Macclesfield, Cheshire UK. I have fond memories of cycling in that region. I have lived in the South of France for more than thirty years although when I was actively working I travelled a lot and was away for long periods. My travel was mainly to the rest of Europe, the USA and Canada. I spent long periods in Florida and cycled there in my spare time and acquired a Cannondale road bike in the 1990's.
I came late to cycling in the South of France and was presented with my first near road bike on my sixtieth birthday in 2011. I joined the cycling club when I turned sixty five and have been cycling with them since then.
In 2018 I upgraded to a Giant Defy Advanced 1. With this bike I did many climbs and routes which are available on the site
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On my seventieth birthday in 2021 I finally realised that I needed some help up the hills and transferred to a an electric bike, an Orbea Gain D10. This allowed me to keep up with the cycling club instead of them waiting for me at the top of every hill. I was by then the slowest in the group as the other 3 who were as slow as me had already transferred to electric bikes.
The year 2020 was a very strange year and the Covid-19 pandemic has taken several years to settle down before things return to almost normal. One of my interests is cycling and that has been severely curtailed in last few years. My cycling has been interrupted by a painful joint illness which stopped me riding from May 2020 to October 2021 until it was treated. 2022 has also been interrupted from the end of May to the end of the year by a heart issue. I am now on my second artificial aortic valve. I am looking forward to restarting in 2023. I have created this blog about my experiences cycling in the South of France which I hope people enjoy and can help them plan a cycling holiday in the south of France.
It is always possible that there are errors on the site, or errors in the information or instructions. If you find a problem then please use the contact page to tell me so that it can be fixed.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my long suffering partner Cathie who has helped me and not complained about the time I spend away from her either cycling or on the computer. My son Michael also has helped greatly. He has reviewed these pages for flaws and needed improvements and was always willing to help with any updates I made.
Acknowledgements for cycling
I would like to thank Gerald Navas the President of the cycling club, Gerard LaCoste, Christian Sylve, and many other members of the ASPTT Cagnes-Sur-Mer cycling club who have shared their knowledge of this part of France. They have also helped me with encouragement on many occasions when I was failing. They have often taken charge of puncture repairs and other running repairs to my bicycle so that I did not even need to get my hands dirty. Without them and their support I would not have been able to write this story.
