Sat 28th July – The “big” one (about 65 miles)
Have a different car at the moment because the last one has been written off, so the two bikes squeezed in with room to spare. Quick run up to Bristol Parkway, saw us at the entrance around 9:30 – waiting for the rest of the contingent to arrive. Mr Marr made an appearance next, and once Brend had finished his coffee in the cafe he appeared too. Then we paused for reflection as we awaited Dave. He came, we faffed, we took a photo op, Span nearly got run over, we left.
This year had little in the way of cycle paths so Marrsy had created the route and was, once again, the chief navigator. So forming a line of middle aged adventure scouts we trailed off into the unknown. First part of the journey was to get out of Bristol, which is never as easy as you would think. But we were soon passed the motorway, and into the country. Amazingly it had not actually rained yet, and it was if anything quite sunny.
We planned to eat at Calne, but as we rounded the corner by the canal we were met by a number of motorbikers and their steeds. Not just a couple, but 100’s all up the river bank. And lots and lots of leather. We meandered through the throng, seeing more and more bikes – it just happened we were there for the South West Motorcycle Meet. We had some funny looks as we pushed our bikes through the iron horses, but soon we were in the town itself. Everywhere you looked were bikes – it was amazing. Live music playing, thousands of peoples and lots of beards, bandanas, bike helmets and oil. We decided we didn’t really fit in, and all the pubs were packed, so on we rolled right through to Avebury. Coming out of Calne we took some tracks which really started to get a little cross country – luckily the weather held, and the route through to Avebury was gravelly, bumpy and bouncy but was really quite pleasant.
We cycled through the throngs in Avebury – very popular place, and very nice. We found a pub and thankfully got of those bikes and got some beer and food and a little relax in the sun. Lager was welcome, but had to have a glass of pop as well, and the burger was excellent. Plenty of noshing all round, although GD seemed to have just a small potato, the rest of us had platefuls.. So after the refuelling, we had a little look around the standing stones, and the weird freaks who live there (they may not actually live there). A beard, a staff and a stupid cloak and hey presto you are a druid – idiots. The stones were neat, maybe even better than Glastonbury – and its free. Little walk and a few photo’s and we were on our way.
Through Marlborough and then the worse part of the route, large A road with tons of traffic (and many Aston Martins and Ferraris) zooming past. The run was long, slightly windy and uphill – it was relentless. We split up a little at this point due to the continual traffic and peddling – Marrsy told us it was only 8 miles to Swindon, at the end of this 4 mile stretch of road we found the cycle route into Swindon – ah, only another 8 miles to go. I was knackered at this point and it was getting a little late and cold. But after only one minor up and down diversion we sped up and over the motorway on that bridge which has a windy path on either side (which I always thought was for cows, but it seems bikes can go on it too. We descended into Coate Water which was completely full of Indians (or there about), as we cycled though us five were the only white faces in the entire place – which seemed a little odd. Getting into Swindon was easy, getting to the hotel was a ball ache. I had google mapped it, and knew we wanted a turning called something like Kember, Marrsy was not convinced and we agreed after quite away up a road that we should turn – we turned one junction too early damn it!. We then spend 20 mins cycling around until technology was unleashed and Span guided us to the hotel.
Long day, and was glad of a shower – it was shite. Dribbling out – swine. So slightly washed we headed over the pub for a well deserved beverage. Using the latest technology we decided to just mooch down to the local Nepalese restaurant rather than get a bus or taxi into Swindon itself. So after a couple of pints we walked down through the rough neighbourhood and into the (empty) restaurant. Nepalese basically equals Indian but with more goat. Everyone went for something “different” except me who ordered a Vindaloo. Span decided that he would order a mild curry and add some chillies on the side – after seeing the picture of him in York on the last cycle trip he makes good faces when the going gets hot. Brend ordered a chick chilli affair, which had two chillies next to it on the menu – as the Vindaloo didn’t have any chillies (as everyone knows the temperature of normal curry) he jumped to the obvious conclusion that his was hotter… It wasn’t. (Although it might have been close). We were given a bronze tray each with the food and Marrsy immediately poured his rice into it – we all told him that this was just a plate warmer, and looking very sheepish he tried to spoon his rice back from the tray into his bowl. It loses something in translation but it was a little amusing seeing him look like a guilty child…