A tale of two cities or how to tire yourself out.
As Pippa had bought herself a nice new bike, clearly, in a moment of madness, last Saturday she decided to cycle from Bath back to London, and wanted to assemble a crack team of elite cyclists to assist her, in her bid to become a better cyclist. As such a team wasn’t available, she had to make do with me, Jurek, Adamski, TimO and Alan.
As cycling there would have been a tad overdoing things, we all assembled at Paddington Station at silly o’clock to get the train.
Adamski decided it was still too early and caught up on a bit more sleep.
Anyway, after getting aboard the 7am train and filling all 6 cyclists spots, we installed ourselves in the quiet carriage and promptly got a bit noisy. Adamski was however still able to get a bit more sleep. After arriving at Bath, where it was a bit dark & drizzly, it was time for
lunch second breakfast, so we popped into a nearby café.
Pippa checking no-one has stolen her bike.
Eventually we set off at 9.20 over the footbridge behind the station, turned a corner and found a hill. Not just a hill but supposedly the steepest hill in Bath.
Widcombe Hill
Eventually we wound our way up and had some splendid views.
Of course the best bit about going up, is that you then get to go down, as we then descended Brassknocker Hill towards the A36. That was a blast! If I wasn’t a) a bloke so unable to multi-task by cycling downhill and shoot a camera at the same time and b) wanting to stay alive, I could have got a fantastic shot of Jurek doing a fast rate of knots leaning over round a hairpin bend with a lovely backdrop of hills. Of course that does give us an excuse to try this route again.......
There were a few more up and downs, but nothing as steep, although going up Winsley Hill, a bus tried to take out the back of the peloton, whilst on the A365 after Melksham, a lorry came about 2 inches away from me & Adamski at the front. Which made me wobble a bit.
The ride almost turned into a silly names ride when we turned up Cock Road into Rowde (is it pronounced “rude”?), followed by Conscience Lane, where Jurek wanted us to confess all our sins.
Most of this ride had been designed to try and avoid the A4, which we managed to do quite well, and followed some lovely country lanes through quaint villages and rolling countryside.
There were even some White Horses (although they looked rather brown). After stopping in Marlborough for a comfort break, we realised that their lovely High Street was missing a mega Tesco, Primark, Poundstretcher, Aldi, McDonalds and all the other famous names which make shopping such a wonderful varied experience.
Rolling on, we could tell without looking at the signs that we had entered West Berkshire, as the roads instantly deteriorated. On the plus side, it was brightning up with some sun appearing. However, we were now getting a bit hungry, so we pressed on, and rolled into Hungerford.
And the Tutti Pole café.
I think it was after 2.30 pm when we finally left. After skirting south of Newbury, we were now onto some roads I was vaguely familiar with, although they were ones I hadn’t cycled on for 30 years, so things had changed a bit.
We made a slight detour to the boarded up control tower at Greenham Common.
I gave a brief history lesson to the younger ones. As time was pressing on, we headed off into the countryside again until we came across the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermarston.
Clearly, magic hats protect you from radiation!
We detoured slightly off track a couple of times either because I knew the road, although twice it was due to side roads we were supposed to turn down being marked with a different name from that shown on Google maps, although as both Pippa & Tim had GPS, they provided a quick shout to turn us around. In both cases, the road signs showed the expected name after a few hundred metres.
For a tea break, I’d organised a slight detour to my sister’s house in Twyford, where she provided a little snack for us all!
At 5.45 pm with full stomach’s we headed back onto the road, carefully avoiding the bollards. I had gone over the final section from Reading last week, and I knew there wasn’t any major hills to cover, and it was either flat or rolling roads so generally we all stuck together. Going on the back roads, we went round to the north of Bracknell and dropped down into Ascot. Sadly the racing was over, so it was all a bit desolate there. We then headed eastwards, going parallel to the A329 initially, as I knew that road would be quite busy and narrow in places, and not much fun, especially as it was starting to get dark. Heading through Virginia Water, then under the M25 and over the M3 we followed the River Thames. On this stretch, it was surprising how little traffic there was, considering how built up the surroundings were.
As this point was where I’d got a little
lost unsure of my position on my recce ride, Jurek then lead us through some back streets to Richmond Park, where we stopped to have some of Adamski's lovely cake. The park was a delight to cycle through at night, as no cars were in there, just us, some cyclists with no lights (!), a family doing some star gazing and of course the deer. There were loads of deer, standing around either on the road or right next to it. I didn’t take any photos inside the park, to avoid creating a stampede.
After coming out of the park and saying goodbye to Tim who was going to brave the South Circular back to Croydon, the rest of us headed across Putney Bridge and into Chelsea and then into central London and past the House of Parliament. Someone then suggested heading off to either Southend or Whitstable for a night ride seeing as it was now rather late……
I left the others going along the Embankment and headed back to St Pancras and managed to get a fast train back to Luton, where of course I was welcomed by a passenger of a speeding Corsa with the traditional greeting of “w…er”. I’d promised my wife I’d be back sometime between 11 and 12, and managed that time frame with a few minutes to spare! About 144 miles in total for the day, in 10 hours of cycling.
A really good day out in excellent company.
A few more photos
here.