Month: August 2010

Day 3. Reading to Oxford – ( 45 miles )

So, to the final day. Just a quick jaunt north to Oxford today. No canal path, just quiet roads and great countryside. Started brilliantly with a trip to McDonalds. Double sausage McMuffin, bacon roll and tea. Put mine down on the table and the bacon roll, rolled over to Brendons side. Quick as a flash he’d picked it up and was about to eat it. I screamed like a 5 year old girl who had just seen some tall, posh sounding guy in skin tight black lycra, so tight that you know his religion,  pick up their bacon roll and with some hesitation he put it back and went to buy some of his own stuff.

Onward and upwards – literally. Although me and Brend had experienced the grades before, GD had not. He had previously cycled from Pembs to Paris, but by the look of things it wasn’t just his kit he had put in the “support vehicle”. As I may have mentioned it might of been to do with the extra 2 stone he was lugging around – although his panniers probably weren’t helping either!!!…

Once we left Reading proper, we cycled through some very pleasant lanes, and at the top of one we created a remarkable facsimile of St Paul’s Cathedral out of matches we had fashioned from small twigs, whilst waiting for GD – and admired the view of Didcot Power station (it was better than it sounds). As soon as GD arrived we set off – as I found to my cost on the first cycle trip, once you catch up the guys who were waiting are now refreshed enough to continue, and we went yet again “downhill all the way” (it never is!) Brendon pointed out some red kites, Marsy some guinny fowl and ferrets and I showed them my chocolate assortment. Before we knew it we were as one, well two, well actually three as we cycled passed Didcot.

The previous evening I had told Sian that we might be stopping for lunch in a place beginning with A between Didcot and Oxford, and in one of those “what are the odds of that” moments, just as we cycled through Abingdon around 12 we literally bumped into them. After a refuelling of pints for the boys, orange and lemonade for the girls (;o) we set out on the final 10 miles to Oxford.

Mostly canal path for the final trek, Marsy let GD lead at one point, only to shout he’d gone the wrong way after about a mile. Gd turned round and came back to meet us, only for Marsy  to decide that actually GD had gone the right way, so we passed him as he came to meet us, and I could detect the slightest “tut” from him as Marsy regained the head of the peloton and set the pace for Oxford.

Before we knew it we were at the “Head of the River” in Oxford and enjoying yet another pint. GD and Brend took the train to London, Marsy back home and I stayed in Oxford the night to go on to Portsmouth for a couple of days..

We were done, average speed of around 13 miles and hour, max for me of 35, 145 miles in around 11 hours of cycling over 3 days. As you can see all in all a very pleasant few days, easy(ish) cycling with time for a beer and good nosh – magic.

Now to plan for next year………….

DAY 2 – Devizes to Reading (65 miles)

Up early, had a shower and took stroll around Devizes before the world was up – Weatherspoons was open from 7 for tea, but most other places were still asleep. I following an old guy who was obviously on his daily walk around the town, not for any weird reason – just to kill some time (!!), then got back for breakfast at 8:30.

Me and GD had pretty much finished brekky when the others came on down, Brendon had apparently slept the moment they got in the previous night, and hadn’t woken until 8:30 – we saw them at 8:37. We left them to it, and after a number of #2’s we were ready to leave. After some confusion with the thickest hotel bod in Devizes -who insisted on shouting your card details down the phone to Mombai – we were ready to go on.

About a third of the trip today was on the canal path, the rest, and most of the first 40 miles was on roads adjacent to the canal. This was a real pleasure instead on rough canal path we had smooth(ish) tarmac. Unfortunately when you are not on the canal you have a couple of ups and downs. GD with his entire house packed into his oversized panniers would begin to see the flaw in packing heavy, panniers are great – unless you go up..

We followed the cycle route which took us off the path, and although the map showed otherwise, we criss crossed the canal a number of times – it was becoming more and more apparent that GD really truly did not like the grads. We decided after around 25 miles that a stop was in order, so we happened upon the beam engine at Crompton ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crofton_Pumping_Station ) and stopped for a brew.

Once refreshed, and after a number of photo’s against a big chimney which Brend was after we were back on the road “downhill” to Newbury. By the time we got to Hungerford, we had navigated around 15 slight inclines, and we drafted a thesis on theology from Plato through to the 14th Century  whilst we waited for GD to catch up. ( and not one person mentioned Michael Ryan, or giving Taxi drivers a tip at any point – honest.. !). From Hungerford we rallied down the canal to Newbury where we stopped for nosh.

Found a nice place a gain by the river, which unfortuanlty only had parking for bikes on the otherside of the river, which worried Brendon considerably. But we had a nice pint, and a burger. GD had whale and chips – the biggest battered fish I have ever seen. So big that  GD only managed half, and the remaining half Brendon didn’t think he could finish – he did.

Back down the canal path, and Greg took the lead, 5 minutes later we crossed a bridge and he and Brend took off back down the path – Marsy looked worried, then looked at his map – hmm, they have gone the wrong way was the verdict. Unfortunately flush with their newly discovered independence they were off. I waited for them to return, Marsy set off in chase – in the end I followed. There was a reason the cycle path didn’t go over this part of the canal path – it was shit.

Travelling at 15 mile and hour over exposed tree roots on a road bike is not a good idea, especially if you are carrying a few too many pounds (;o) I crashed and smashed my way to catch them, and when I did I discovered that I had snapped a rear spoke, we were quite a way from anywhere, and it was Sunday. Luckily Marsy ripped it out, and utter those re-assuring words – “get your arse on the bike, it’ll be fine”. Well as Marsy is an engineer, who am i to argue. So after a tentative 10 minutes I was back in the groove.

We arrived into Reading after about 60 miles, and it was probably the worse part of the journey, really took us through the arse end of the place, but after a while we emerged at the “Oracle” and we were off to the hotel. I had heard some bad reviews about the travel lodge here, mostly around its location – it was fine in the day light, when dark I think it was probably a bit “gangsta” of an evening. Rooms were large, and it was cheap – but very warm. After a quick shower we walked the mile or so into town.

Marrsy had heard about this “hob-goblin” place, I was slightly worried – but by means of gentle persuasion (the best kind) we found ourselves outside it. It played rock music, it had served over 3000 guest ales, and had a single lager on tap. They quoffed ale, I drank a lager – it was nice. Had a Nandos and another pint back outside the ‘goblin then another bus (two in two days!!!) home to bed….

So, another year, another cycle trip. This year we decided to travel from Bristol Temple Meads through Devizes to Reading, then up to Oxford.

This year we had another new entrant, Greg “where did I put the map” Dow – who put himself through the pain and suffering along with me, Mr Marr and Big Brend..

The expected route would take us along the Kennet and Avon Canal route – Cycle route 4, and would be 145 miles long – and although we didn’t know at the time reasonably easy.

DAY 1. Bristol to Devizes – (40 miles)

GD had arranged to stay over with me in Magor on the Friday before, so although I tried to persuade him to take the train connection to Severn Tunnel we agreed that I would pick him up from Newport. So at 3 I set off on the 11 miles down to Newport station. As I took my bike from the garage it poured. A sign of things to come?

After meeting GD and cycling some miles back home, we “happened” upon a country pub – well it would be rude not to eh? GD did actually believe that I had actually stumbled upon this pub – but none the less to get into the spirit we knocked back a couple of three beers then set off for home.

After a nice hot ruby murry and a couple more beers we decided to play a couple of ends of wiff waff. GD used to be a champion at this, but time takes its toll and I wiped the floor with him ;o) Well until he got his eye in and started to take me to task (we had played 43 games by then so my excuse was my arms had seized up and I was now blind). Then to bed….

Got the bikes in the car, and by 9:30 we arrived at Temple Meads, to be met (thank god) by Brendon and Marrsy. I had been very worried that Brendon would have forgotten/taken the wrong train/got distracted but he was there in (very) skin tight cycling gear – at least he looked the part!!

So off we went, in the first stage of the journey. I had noticed it was very hard work to start with, then realised that Marrsy had deliberately put my front wheel on the wrong way round, so once that was sorted away we went.

We stopped for “coffee” at Browns in Bath – very civilised I must say. A couple of coffees that sound as expensive as they were, and a cup and saucer of tea (I asked for a mug and the waiter looked at me with a cup (and saucer) of disdain). After a photo opportunity we set off to the canal path.

Well, there are a lot of stigs that live on the river I can tell you. They all look the same, wool jumpers in green or orange, with at least 7 holes in, brown cords or jeans, dank slightly too long hair tied up (boys and girls) and smell of marijuana. They are all sanding their “homes”, and none of them pay any tax no doubt ;o) We cycled passed hundreds of them, we also saw some folk who were pretending to be “river folk”, by attempting to look like the real ones but spending a grand a week to do it – you could see them a mile away – they were the ones actually moving the boats along the canal.

After a fairly long run, and approx 20 miles in we stopped for lunch right by the canal side in the Lock Inn ( http://www.thelockinn.co.uk/breakfast/ ) where three of the gang had the “world famous.. as seen on TV…” Boatmans breakfast – two of them cheated slightly by having a vegetarian version (whats that about!! ;o), but The Brend had the full fat meat one. (I had a couple of faggots – but that’s another story). The breakfast was HUGE – Brendon had the extra black pudding, which was massive, it was about the size of two ice hockey pucks together, but without a blink he ate it, in 4 mouthfulls. He finished before everyone and even helped GD eat all his veggie “sausages”. After food and a pint we set off down the canal path once more towards Devizes.

As this was a short day of only around 40 miles, we arrived just outside of Devizes early afternoon, so we stopped at the bottom of the 16 locks at Caen Hill ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caen_Hill_Locks ) for a breather and watched one of the boats struggle up the hill. This was the biggest, in fact probably the only hill we had all day, as we were following the canal obviously there wasn’t much in the way of grads – but we did discover on this one, that GD and hills do not mix!!! We got to the top and spent a moment chatting about the locks whilst GD caught up. 10 minutes later we were in the hotel.

After some showers we were ready to hit the town, luckily it was still early evening around 4 so we set off to the canal path to find a “nice pub by the water”. We passed a 7 day river person, who we could tell was enjoying his holiday as he was on one end of his 50 ft boat and his wife was on the other, who regaled us with tales of pubs on the river some “half an hour” away – now as his boat travels around the speed of grass growing we thought it must be close. We set off. And walked. And walked. And walked for quite a long time. After about a day, I joked to Marrsy how terrible it would be if we got to the pub and it was on the other side of the river – ah how we laughed when it was!! There was no bridge in sight, but the pub was only around 15 ft away, we toyed with the idea of trying to make an “ant bridge”, but decided to continue walking instead.

After another half a mile we came to a bridge, but Marrsy suggested there was a great pub “just down river” and perhaps we should try that – we did, it was shut.

So instead of cutting our loses, we ventured on, through a cornfield to another village, where we spotted an open pub. We sat in the sun and had a couple of beers, it was nice. Brendon told us about the time he went husky racing somewhere cold, where the dogs looked like Corgis..

We had to head back to Devizes and we took – wait for it,  a bus. Yep public transport, with other public people on it. But it was a double decker, and the three Hieneken’s had effected my cycle weary body, so on we went – it was fun.

We went for a ruby, then had a couple of beers – and went to bed surprisingly drunk and tired at about 11. Greg introduced me to the brilliance which is ear plugs, and although the world was noisy, I had a reasonably good night.