16/09/2026
WESTERN FRONT WAY – DAY 2 Ypres Salient
Today was one of those days when the cycling almost became secondary to where we were riding.
After breakfast we began with a small mechanical drama when one of the panniers needed attention. A local bike shop sorted us out quickly and kindly, and we were soon heading out into the Salient.
Our first major stop was Essex Farm Cemetery, beside the canal where John McCrae worked as a medical officer and where he wrote In Flanders Fields. We also found the grave of Private Valentine Strudwick, just 15 when he died. Standing among the unidentified graves here is a reminder that behind every famous name are thousands whose stories are far less known.
From there we rode to Yorkshire Trench and Dugout, a surviving piece of the trench system discovered when the industrial estate was being developed. It is an extraordinary place precisely because it now sits amongst modern buildings and businesses — the old battlefield still appearing beneath everyday life.
We also stopped at the site connected with Thomas Whitham VC before riding on to Langemark German Military Cemetery. It feels very different from the Commonwealth cemeteries: darker, more enclosed and deliberately sombre. Thousands of German soldiers lie here, including many in a mass grave. Whatever uniform they wore, so many were simply young men caught in something unimaginably bigger than themselves.
Then came Tyne Cot.
You can read about Passchendaele endlessly, but standing there and looking back down towards Ypres gives the landscape meaning. The rise looks almost insignificant today, yet in 1917 every bit of elevation mattered. After more than three months of fighting, the advance was measured in only a few miles.
From Tyne Cot we rode on to the Brothers in Arms memorial on Polygon Road. Dave is pictured there, and it had a particular resonance for me because I have written a song inspired by the same idea — comradeship, loss and the terrible waste of war.
After that came the Black Watch memorial, another chance to stop rather than simply ride past and tick off another location.
And then, in the evening, came something completely different.
We returned to Ypres for the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate, changed and ready to present our wreath.
Standing beneath the Gate as the crowds fell silent, hearing the buglers and then walking forward together to lay the wreath was something neither of us will forget. Thousands of names are carved into those walls — men with no known grave — and for a few minutes tonight we were privileged to play a very small part in remembering them.
It felt like the right way to finish a remarkable day.
Although, in the interests of complete historical accuracy, Dave insists that the official record must also show that sometime during the night I apparently farted in my sleep and then began giggling uncontrollably at my own efforts.
Apparently even serious expeditions need balance.
Tomorrow we leave Ypres and begin heading south towards Lens.
If you’d like to support our ride and the cause behind it, our fundraiser is here:
https://www.justgiving.com/page/iananddavewesternfw?utm_medium=FR&utm_source=WA&utm_campaign=lc_frp_share_transaction_fundraiser_page_donation_received_-_nth_donation
