Beautiful Disaster

Hi Guys,

A bit of an epic post this one, but it was an epic ride. Enjoy!

Anyone following me on twitter, or anyone who sees my facebook updates would have seen me mention my mate Norman's cycle ride along the Kennet and Avon Canal between Reading and Newbury.
Well this took place on Saturday 25th June and it was my intention to take some, if not all of my cycling team as a training/bonding exercise.

Things, however, didn't quite go to plan!

Carlos had to work in the morning, and then abseil off a 500ft building in the afternoon . . . . . . . . . . . .

Ade, who had just done some "drunk ebaying" and bought himself a carbon time trial bike, was selling his original awesome road bike, and so didn't have anything to ride. 

Chris was entertaining for the weekend, meaning he had people over, not that he is boring the rest of the time! (sorry Chris I couldn't help that one!)

Richard on the other hand, was totally up for it. He also had the brilliant idea that we should meet up early in the morning and cycle all the way to Norman's start point in Reading. We decided to meet outside Putney Station at 6:30am on Saturday, that would give us 4 hours to cycle the 50 miles (near enough) to get there before the end of the registration time.

I arrived in the light drizzle of a dank morning at 6:30 and waited for Rich. Now I've know Richard for a long time and it didn't surprise me when 6:45 came along and he still wasn't there. I did however start to get a little concerned at 7 o'clock when he still wasn't there so I decided to cycle the 30 second journey down to the tube station, just in case we had our wires crossed and were in 2 different places waiting for each other . . . . we weren't, but by the time I cycled back, there he was.

Yes he had left late, but he had then been caught up in major roadworks and been on a massive diversion, and really only made it to Putney by pure luck. He had also been pulled over by the police after running a red light at a completely empty junction. He knows he was in the wrong, but was then annoyed to see the police car do exactly the same thing at the next set of lights, after they had finished with him.   

We set off with the intention of following the route of day 1 of the ride to Cornwall. This follows National Cycle Route 4 out of London and all the way to Reading. I had printed out a route map and although it didn't cover much else apart from the route line, I didn't think we would have any problems. A few weeks earlier, I was reading a blog by some people who had cycled to Cornwall following the route that we were taking. They had described the terrain and the signage as good, so I was pretty confident that this was going to be a simple exercise in navigation by following a little number 4.
We encountered our first problem after exiting Richmond Park at the wrong gate. This was completely my fault and I take full responsibility, although there are 2 hospitals at 2 different gates, and it was early in the morning. Anyway, after doubling back after a few miles along the wrong road we were back on track.

Our next problem was rather more major.
After hitting the River Thames at Hampton Court, the cycle path quickly became a gravelly track. This would have been no problem at all on a mountain bike with huge fat tyres. We were of course on our road bikes. It didn't look good, so we decided to try and make our way using roads running alongside the cycle path. This sounds like a great idea, only the roads don't quite work like that! My map had now become useless, as anything 500 metres either side of the cycle path didn't exist on it.
I then got a puncture, my 5th of the year, but the 3rd in the same amount of weeks. No worries in changing it, I am becoming quite the expert, but it cost us even more time. Time was something we were running out of.

We followed the road signs as best we could. Richard asked another cyclist if we were on the right road to get to Windsor as we were overtaking her. She replied "sort of" which was good enough for us.
We were destined to get lost, and we did. Having to keep doubling back on ourselves, costing us more time and racking up more miles in the process.

Norman phoned me as we were going through Egham to see where we were. He was going to delay the start of the ride for us, but quickly changed his mind when he found out where we were!

We continued to snake our way across towards Windsor and entered the Great Park. I really enjoyed cycling through the park, as we used to go for walks with my Aunty Lyn up to the polo field when I was a kid. Richard on the other hand was getting hungry. We left the park at 11:15. 4 hours after we set off from Putney, and 45 minutes later than Norman's ride had started. It was decision time.

We didn't have a good enough map, we were late, we had no idea of how long it would take us to get to Reading, let alone Newbury and then there was the whole journey in reverse to think about.  The decision was a tough one, because we didn't want to let Norman down, but at the same time we were still a long way from getting to him. I phoned to tell him we weren't going to make it, and eventually I spoke to him. He was at the first rest point on the ride eating cake and muffins. I was gutted not to have been able to make it to see him and his lovely wife Hilary, who was very keen for me to know that she was on her bike, but I promise I will next year. I will also make sure I eat lots of cakes and muffins along the way too, as by the sounds of it they were delicious. I was also gutted that we didn't get to arrive in a blaze of glory after cycling all the way from London to get to the start point, but that can wait until next year too.

Our journey home was relatively simple. We stopped for some food at a little cafe on the River, where Richard ordered pretty much everything on the menu, and proceeded to devour it all. I haven't been around Richard for this amount of time for a while, and it amazes me the amount of food he packs away. He is going to need a support car all to himself, filled to the top with food to keep him going, on the ride to Cornwall! It made a huge difference though, and the pace we then kept up the rest of the way back was pretty quick. I got another puncture going through Kingston, just to give me even more practice after hitting a pot hole.
Richmond Park was gorgeous in the sunshine that had now decided to join us, and the deer had come out to see us too. It was like the scene in Jurassic Park where they see all the dinosaurs for the first time.
If only there had been a Stegosaurus on the horizon, I would have been in heaven!

After going our separate ways through Clapham, I got home and decided to try and work out how far we had been. It was obviously quite hard because of all the times we had to track back, but it worked out at just over 100 miles. It was a massive number for us, and made it all worth it. We didn't achieve what we wanted to in terms of getting to Reading and then Newbury. We found out that our proposed route isn't going to work, leaving us having to do alot more prep work to find the right roads to cycle on. I need to buy yet more inner tubes, and also need to start carrying latex gloves to stop my hands looking like those of a chimney sweep every time I get a puncture. Richard needs to stay the right side of the law, and carry even more food than he already does. But we did hit the magic distance of 100 miles, in a decent time too. We had a brilliant time cycling with each other, and learned so much from the mistakes we made.
It might have been a disaster, but there were so many things about it that will help us on our ride to Cornwall . . . . . . it was a beautiful disaster.

Thanks for all the support, keep the sponsorship coming.

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