Gentleman Cyclist

Posted on 13 August 2010

We had an early start with wet tents and didn’t hang around. We passed through Tregaron and anyone who knows anything about Tregaron knows that there’s quite a bit of climbing to be done, whichever way you leave. We took the B4342, heading west, but there was precious little in the way of anything except remote sheep farms along that road. Several times I had to get off and push and after a while Charlotte suggested tea. She got her stove out and was Mother. We had some fig rolls as well.

We cracked on and it wasn’t all that long before we reached the A487 again and we kept up a remarkable speed for such heavily laden cyclists. We happened upon a “greasy spoon” style café and went in for a lunch of the “all day breakfast” variety and Charlotte managed to check her emails. It turned out that there was a quite significant one which required her early return to London, which was a great disappointment to me. I felt that, although we had been through some lovely countryside, the Pembrokeshire coast was going to be the icing on the cake. We headed off to the campsite at Mwnt which, although it is in Cardiganshire, I regard as being the most northerly of the lovely beaches for which the Pembroke coast is renowned.

We pitched our tents in the lee of a hedge and I went for a stroll along the footpath towards the sea. It was very spectacular but there was nowhere safe for a swim.

We decided that if the weather was pleasant, the following morning we would have a look at Mwnt beach proper, about a mile north of the camp site, right by the conical hill in the above photo.

I woke quite early and lay in my tent for a while. There was a tapping noise and my initial reaction was to wonder what Charlotte was up to in her tent. However, as my mind became more focussed I realised that the sound was coming from higher up.

I unzipped my inner tent and then the door zip in the fly sheet. I watched the oak trees near our tents and then ascertained the source of the sound: it was a greater spotted woodpecker, behaving like a tree creeper. It was patrolling the tree’s boughs looking for insects, tapping every so often to remove a flake of bark so that it could reach the creature underneath. It occurred to me that it was the first time in my life that I had seen a greater spotted woodpecker before it had seen me. They are quite easily alarmed and are most frequently seen at the top of tall trees emitting their alarm call.

During our packing up process I caught Charlotte out.

I remarked on how skilled she was with her she-wee. However, she was merely emptying her water carrier.

We made for Aberystwyth along the A487, which was fast, fairly busy and not pleasant. There was rain in the air and we had no great desire to rush on into bad weather, so we took a look around the town and then locked our bicycles by the Constitution Hill funicular railway and took it to the top of the hill where we visited the Camera Obscura and the café. Charlotte took advantage of a power point and charged her various devices.

We left Aberystwyth on the old railway path, which takes you out of the town to the south without the hindrance of traffic but we stayed on it perhaps a bit too long and Charlotte, who is more accustomed to bashing out the miles, was unhappy with the surface, even though the trip along the Ystwyth was very pretty.

It was unclear where we would camp tonight: I had a plan that perhaps some wild camping up by the Teifi Pools might be in order, but the weather was closing in and somehow being in the clouds some 1500′ above sea level whilst trying to cook our dinner didn’t have a great deal of romantic appeal about it. We headed for Bont (the local name for Pontrhydfendigaid), found a pub and had a confabulation.

We asked the landlord of the Black Lion about camp sites. There were two marked on the map, but one had become a designated site for static caravans and the other had closed down. He said we could camp in the pub garden. Not only that, he would look after our luggage if we wanted a pre-dinner unladen trip up to the Teifi pools. All this seemed like too good an opportunity to miss, so we locked our panniers away in an outer bar and off we set.

It was lovely being able to cycle unladen again and it did help a great deal, but we still seemed to take an age to ride from Bont to the pools. It’s probably not a lot more than 5 miles, but involves almost 1000′ of climbing so it took us at least an hour and when we got there our decision not to camp there seemed vindicated. It was very overcast, quite breezy and we didn’t see anywhere that was flat enough for us to pitch a couple of tents.

It took us hardly any time to get back to the pub – certainly not more than 20 minutes – and we pitched the tents in the garden and then settled down to a nice pub meal in the warm. We both ate well and I went, feeling completely knackered, to pay the bill. I was charged £50 which seemed a bit steep but I didn’t really question it until Charlotte pointed out that it was probably about £20 overpriced. When I challenged the landlord he said, feebly, that the breakdown was in the bin. I told him that I knew exactly what we’d had to which his retort was “You’re not accusing me of swindling you, are you?” I interpreted this as saying that I could challenge him if I liked but we might be turfed out of the garden at about 10.30 at night with nowhere to find a bed. He offered me coffees and large quantities of Penderyn whisky in lieu. It was not a position I enjoyed being in, so I accepted this offer but, given the quantity of whisky he allegedly gave us and my lack of hangover the following day, I’m pretty sure it was the homeopathic variety.

We packed away wet tents quite early the following morning.

I awoke at 6.30 and trespassed on the camp site’s land in order to use their facilities. For breakfast I had more porridge and a honey sandwich.

Once we’d packed up the tents we made for Barmouth and its famous old bridge of the Mawddach estuary. Although the sun was shining, the weather was not especially warm for August. This didn’t matter to Charlotte, who was showing a fair bit of leg and arm. 

We timed our arrival at the north end of the bridge perfectly, as a steam train was approaching. 

This ancient bridge is of a wooden construction and trains are limited to 10mph when they are crossing. I had been here before once or twice, but Charlotte’s acquaintance with it is due to her having ridden the arduous Bryan Chapman audax, a 600 kilometer ride from Chepstow to the Menai Bridge and back, which uses the bridge.

After Tywyn we took the Happy Valley road to Cwrt and on to Machynlleth. It was almost traffic free and very picturesque. 

We had a bit of climbing to do and earned this lovely view of the bridge near Dovey Junction station. We had lunch in Machynlleth and visited the Co-op for supplies and it was there that I spied the evocative T-shirt bearing the slogan “Save a mouse – eat a pussy”. After that we bimbled gently towards the village of Furnace, so called because there’s an ancient blast furnace there.

There was also a camp site and we decided it was for us. It was run by an elderly couple, was well tended, the loos and shower were clean and it cost only £4 per night. After I cooked my meal I was washing up under the hot tap and I’m afraid I earned our landlady’s displeasure: washing up was to be done outside under the cold tap. She looked very hurt and I felt extremely guilty.

Posted on 9 August 2010

Unusually, I was ready a good hour before I needed to leave the house, was in plenty of time for the train, I arrived at Euston only about half-an-hour after getting out at Lpoo St, Charlotte arrived quite soon after I did, and we had time for a cup of coffee whilst the public address system repeatedly issued a high-decibel announcement asking for Mr. Sands to do something-or-other before getting onto a horribly crowded train. We put the bikes where they belonged and then found some people sitting in our reserved seats and then read Charlotte’s kindling source (a copy of the Grauniad that she’d bought) in which I completed the sudoku, but the quick crossword was just too ambiguous. We ate the butties we had brought with us and not long after arrived in Chester where we had to change trains and where enormous crowds seemed to want to get onto our train. We engaged with a staff member who kindly informed us that, depending on which class of locomotive we were to be provided with, as cyclists we would naturally be expected to be left behind if the train were too crowded.

As it happened, it was a 4-coach 158 and the staff members on the train were very helpful in clearing people and luggage out of the cycle spaces. We then nattered with two old ladies form Wrexham. At Rhyl, two other cyclists joined the train, one of whom was a real tourist, as he had a Dawes Galaxy and was wearing a Clarion CC cap.

We alighted at Bangor, loaded our luggage onto the bikes and set off towards the Menai Bridge where Charlotte persuaded a passer-by to photograph us. We had just negotiated a quiet side road past Treborth Hall and near some botanical gardens and just as we were emerging onto the main road I heard a squeal and turned to see Charlotte lying in the road, still partially attached to her bike. The poor gal had had a “clipless moment” and, worse still, had a deep gash at the back of her left calf.

As luck would have it, the lady form the B & B across the road was well versed in first aid. She patched Charlotte up, stored our bikes in her garage and gave us a lift to the hospital just up the hill where Charlotte was tended by a doctor with a trolley full of sharp needly things. Eventually Charlotte emerged with five stitches covered by a piece of heavy-duty clingfilm glued firmly in place. We got a taxi back to the Treborth estate because we had seen that there was a camp site there. Charlotte chooses very well-appointed places in which to have her mishaps.

The camp site was fairly rudimentary: the loos almost worked but the cisterns filled extremely slowly. There was hardly any hot water in the taps but we were encamped by a small area of woodland and, after a sullen start because the wood was wet, I managed to prepare a very nice meal of basmati rice with fried salmon (I had cycled the mile or so to Waitrose, on Anglesey, to buy these). We slept pretty well.

I awoke around 6, lit the bush buddy and prepared porridge followed by sausage for breakfast.

The camp site cost us £5, which wasn’t too bad and we packed up and made for Llanberis, which was where we intended to camp but for Charlotte’s mishap. Thankfully she could still cycle without problem, but it seemed that her swimming would be sadly curtailed. The weather was fairly sunny, but none too warm. We stopped at Craig-y-Llyn, my sister’s former abode, for a photograph.

In Llanberis we stopped at a camping shop and I bought a small fold-up padded mat.

It was a fairly long grind up Llanberis in which Charlotte, naturally, left me well behind, but I made it to the top without dismounting. We stopped at the café for lunch – I had chilli with rice and we both had cake. The descent to Beddgelert was lovely – I topped 36mph. I could have gone faster, but with full camping gear one wonders what the bike might do. We rode through to Penrhyndeudraeth and on to Harlech for some supplies.

When we arrived at the campsite at Dyffryn Ardudwy the campsite owners wanted £17 per pitch – the same for a cycle tourist as they would charge for a Range Rover with caravan and awning. We weren’t going to support this disgraceful profiteering so we wild-camped on a flat area of grass between the camp site fence and the dunes. It was a beautiful evening, sunny and with a breeze. I found plenty of fuel for the Bush Buddy by the simple means of picking dead twigs out of the stunted trees which provided cover for our tents.

Posted on 5 May 2008

This ride is the first anniversary of my longest ride ever, when I tackled the High Easter 200k. Then, the weather was dreadful and if the countryside was pleasant, it was lost on me. I covered 145 gruelling miles and I can’t honestly say I enjoyed it.

How different today was! The week leading up to the ride was not promising, as I had a cold, Jan had a cold, and the arthritis in my knees was so bad that on Tuesday I could only climb the stairs by going up on all fours. Gradually my cold improved, I had a steroid injection on Friday and this morning I awoke to a bit of pain in my hands but nowhere near enough for me to seriously consider staying at home, so I made for the 7.52 from Southend Vic and started riding from Chelmsford station at about 8.40. It surprised me that the train takes a mere 8 minutes to get from Shenfield to Chelmsford. In my imagination, they are much further apart than that.

The sun was quite warm when I set off along the Roxwell Road. I paid tribute to my first ever drinking establishment, the Black Bull, where most of my under-age drinking took place when I was in the Lower VI, from about 1970 onwards, and then took the right turn towards the Chignalls. I was on the Mercian, now boasting two wheels that I had built myself, and I seemed to be making pretty good progress. The roads were very quiet, there was plenty of wildlife about, and perhaps the most striking sighting I had was of a red-legged partridge which sat, totally docile, by the side of the road.

I reached High Easter Village Hall about five minutes before the start, so bought a bacon roll and a cup of tea. No-one I knew was riding today and the weather was good, so I had no particular desire for company. I resolved to start a few minutes after everyone else, so that I wasn’t constantly being overtaken, so it was 9.38 when I finally got on the bike and started pedalling.

There were one or two stragglers who rode past, with whom I exchanged “Good Morning”s, but for most of the time it was just Essex and me. And what a show the county put on for my benefit! Everything was green and fresh and bright, unless it was in flower, when it was mostly yellow, although there were a few whites and blues thrown into the mix. There were plenty of insects in the air and every so often I had to persuade something or other that my beard did not need pollinating, or had to duck my head quickly so that a fat bumblebee should thwack onto my Tilley had rather than hit me full in the face.

Progress was pleasingly rapid and my average speed gradually crept up. At one point I coughed just before passing a large oak tree, and I disturbed a little owl, which flew a quick loop over the rape flowers before returning to his slumber in the tree, although to be fair little owls tend to be more active during the day than most owl species. There was plenty of bird-song: chiff-chaffs, lots of whitethroats and a few yellow hammers, but no cuckoo, at least, not in the early part of the ride.

I rode through Ridley’s villages: past the defunct brewery, to which I doffed my hat, through Littley Green, where the Compasses still serves excellent gravity-drawn beer, although not at that time in the morning, White Notley, Cressing, Ranks Green, where the redundant pub-sign post still stands outside Pretty Lady House, and fairly rapidly Coggeshall came into view across a sea of yellow. It was just as well Jan was indisposed as all that rape would have finished her off.

Coffee and chocolate cake was on offer at the Dutch Nursery tea rooms, where I arrived some 25 minutes before the control closed, but was amongst the last to leave. After this I was on even more familiar territory as we approached Marks Tey, normally one of the most useful of stations for Pleasant Day Rides with Pubs, but not today: a replacement bus service was operating between Witham and Colchester. Now I had the sun at my back as the road took me due north for much of the time, heading for Wormingford and the first info control.

I had never crossed the Stour at this point before, and a very pretty little bridge it was. It was also around here that something unusual began to happen: I started to overtake other riders! Firstly it was a young couple who were looking at a map. I had been especially careful plotting my GPX this time, trying to anticipate where the computer might decide to do something I didn’t want it to, and say it myself as shouldn’t, I started to reap the rewards of a job well done.

Then there was a nice fast bit towards Bures, again familar territory, and I recalled the lumpy bits towards Lamarsh. There was the second info control and then the lovely little lane towards Twinstead. This was decidedly technical in places, as there was a goodly ridge of skog in the middle of the road and plenty of pot-holes as well. Then, just after the start of a fast descent, a sapling was leaning across the road and it was impossible to avoid riding through its twigs. Yet another moment to be thankful for a Tilley had as I put my head down and thwacked my way through.

There were more familiar roads through the Maplesteads and soon I arrived at the youth hostel in Castle Hedingham. One bowl of pasta, a cup of tea and a piece of fruit cake later and I was on my way once more, not the last to leave this time, although I was soon caught by one or two riders.

I have noticed that the post-lunch session is often the fastest and so it proved today, and for minutes on end I was maintaining speeds in excess of 25kph. Some time during the day, not far from Wormingford if I remember correctly, I heard some shouting behind and it was a peloton from the Shaftsbury club who went thundering past. However, they had clearly had a good lunch because some of them were still around at Castle Hedingham when I arrived and not long afterwards the whole troupe of them were stopped (I suppose, like geese, cyclists require a different collective noun when they are stopped?) as one of their number had punctured and everyone was milling around watching the fettlers. I thought it would have been a bit presumptuous to have offered help when there were so many hands to lighten the load, so I carried on.

On the climb towards Shalford, I caught up with a couple of blokes a fair bit older than me, and they were clearly struggling on the hill. I breezed past. Soon to the Felsted School water tower, into North End and across the A130 and I passed a few more stragglers. From that point back to the arrivée I was in a group of 6 or so, and we all arrived back exactly 6 hours after we left. I think my riding time was a little over 5 hours, and I had more than an hour to spare. Some minutes later the Shaftesbury arrived.

After a refreshing cup of tea and a few calories, I set off towards Chelmsford again, toying with the idea of cycling all the way back to Southend. I decided against: it is a testament to prednisolone acetate that I managed the ride at all so an extra 25 miles or so would definitely be tempting fate.

As I approached Chelmsford I was just congratulating myself on getting round a ride on the Mercian without suffering a mechanical when suddenly, just as I changed gear, there was an ominous crunch. I looked down to find that the front changer was caught at a rakish angle and a close inspection revealed that a vital component had sheared. That’s Campag for you: I reckon that gear changer was only 48 years old.

Total miles: 88

Time: 6h 58m 7s

Ave: 12.63 mph

Max: 31.7 mph

Posted on 7 April 2008

“Little Acorns” is set in a wooded valley and there is an interesting variety of wildlife on show. This morning we saw coal tits and nuthatches on the feeder as well as the more usual tits and greenfinches.

The frost had mostly cleared by the time we set off at around 10 a.m. We turned left up the hill and back towards Hale by what is probably a marginally longer route, but almost certainly involves less climbing. We joined the B road towards Longcross and then headed south past Fritham towards the Bolderwood Ornamental Drive. My arthritis was giving me some trouble so progress was slow and we had a few rest stops for photographs. I had just seen a buzzard and I was trying to point it out to the others when suddenly it wasn’t a buzzard at all. Instead, it behaved very like the male hen harrier we had seen three years ago in the hills south of Burnley. The plumage was very different, though, and this bird came close enough for s to see the white patch at the base of the tail. Our guess that it was a female hen harrier was confirmed when we checked the bird book on returning to the B & B.

The ornamental drives were very fine, and we soon found ourselves in Brockenhurst. The Forester’s Arms provided a good pint of Ringwood 49er and a very acceptable baked potato with chilli, but I’m afraid I earned some Old Git points when I asked the barmaid to turn the excessively loud music down.

We then set off for Burley and Ringwood, and after passing through the outskirts of the latter, we came across a welcoming pub in the form of the Alice Lisle, a Fullers’ tied house. They had one hand pump serving Gales HSB and it was this pint which made me think that this was the beer provided by the landlord of the Newport Inn in Braishfield.

We had a fair old hill to climb after Stuckton and came across a load of cyclists who had wimped out and were walking up. I cannot stand being congratulated in a patronising manner by a person who is not even on a bike. However, it was not long before we had reached the B & B, showered and were ready for the Hopping Hare at the Horse & Groom. Mike and I had the mixed grill, and it was more than we could manage.

Posted on 6 April 2008

We left home in heavy snow, arrived at Southend Victoria where we managed to get the tandem into the train in once piece, and took some photographs of South Essex looking very white indeed.

On arriving at Liverpool Street we left via the Enormous Iron Monolith and made our way through more heavy snow via the Holborn Viaduct and Blackfriars Bridge into Stamford Street. From there, we used Upper Ground and Belvedere Road, which gave easy access to Waterloo Station. We had just missed the 11.05 but were in plenty of time to drink coffee, eat a pastie and catch the 11.35.

The South-western trains were relatively luxurious. We had to dismantle the tandem but had no difficulty storing it in the area provided for 3 bikes, and we found that the seats were comfortable and the lavatory worked satisfactorily. By the time we arrived at Winchester the sun was shining and most of the snow had gone.

After some fiddling around with the one-way system near the station we eventually found ourselves on the Sarum Road and begun the long haul out of the town towards very pleasant countryside. There was not a great deal of traffic about and we made steady progress towards Braishfield, where we found the Newport Inn, but were informed by the landlord, who had emerged in blue overalls in order to work on his car, that the pub had just closed. We asked if it was OK to use the loos, which is was, and while we were part-way through a sardine sandwich the landlord reappeared bearing two half-pint glasses full of what looked very much like beer. “These are on the house!” said he, and we consumed what I believe to have been George Gale’s HSB.

On the way to Kimbridge I lost track of the route on the map but for onceI had correctly programmed the GPS and it knew the way. We traversed the Test and took some photographs of a very fine river. You can always tell that you have left south-east England when the rivers look as though they mean it. We then headed south towards Furzley and entered the New Forest at Blackhill. At one point we saw a treecreeper alight on a telegraph pole, and we also witnessed a pair of greater spotted woodpeckers involved in some kind of aerial ritual.

From near Bramshaw I texted Jeff to say that we were about 8 miles out, although it was probably nearer 10, but we had a sharp climb to the Roger Penny Way and we continued upwards to an exposed plateau where the NW wind was impeding our progress to the extent that, when the road did flatten out, we were unable to exceed 8 mph.

After Hale, we had a chilly, swooping descent into Woodgreen, during which the snow started again. Then came a final climb to the B & B which we found easily, even though it was situated in an unmade road. We arrived around 5.30 and after unpacking and showering, went to the Horse and Groom for well-earned food and beer.

Posted on 30 March 2008

I had intended to stay at home, being under the weather and all, but when the sun threatened to break through, and I was fed up with my knees seizing up every time I stood up because I’d been sitting still for too long, the Mercian kept on telling me it wanted to go to the sea front. We armed ourselves with a small batch of yesterday’s Welsh cakes to drop off at Aunty Phyllis’s and off we went.

Phyllis appreciated the Welsh cakes, but I declined the offered cup of tea, not wishing to give her my cold, and then it was down Lifstan Way, not quite reaching 30 mph, and on to the cycle path. The promenade was fairly crowded with both pedestrians and cyclists, and I adopted a leisurely Sunday afternoon speed, but even so I found myself catching up with other cyclists who, when they realised I was there, invited me to overtake. I wound my way round Gunners Park, hoping to catch a glimpse of the swallow which was allegedly there a couple of days ago, but it had gone and taken summer with it.

The wind turbines were clearly visible from East Beach, white fingers against a leaden sky, but this time I avoided Wakering Stairs, making straight for the Co-op where a bottle of white was selected to accompany this evening’s lamb. Not the ideal combination, but my younger daughter won’t drink red.

I had scarcely left the Co-op when a cyclist, looking very serious on his Scott road bike and sporting his Discovery Channel top, went past far too close for comfort and, having established a gap of about 30 yards, seemed to slow down. I’ve read many a report about “I wound up a roadie last night” or some such, and I had the feeling that his burst of speed to get past me was for mere bravado, so I pushed the pedals a little harder.

My friend did not get away. Indeed, I gained the impression that his physique was such that the lycra was bulging in the wrong places for a true athlete, and for the next two or three miles I kept comfortably a few seconds behind him, despite being weighed down by my saddle bag of purchases in the form of wine, grapes, bananas and a toothbrush, and each time he looked over his shoulder, there I was.

As we reached Mucking Hall Road and the headwind, so he gradually dropped me, but I had another trick which I thought amusing: I would take the bridleway, which, although inevitably slower than the road, was about a mile shorter. My plan was to come out ahead of him, let him overtake me again, and then follow him back to Southend.

The plan was about half-way towards its execution when two dog-walkers came in view. I slowed down and then spotted that one of the pooches was a red setter.

“Snap!”, said I, and then it dawned on me that the dog was none other than Freddie, whom I had met only the previous morning whilst walking Morphy in the park. Freddie’s owner and I chatted for a while and then we parted company. When I reached the road, my Discovery Channel man was long gone but I timed my homecoming to perfection, just as Jan was pouring the boiling water on the teabags.

Posted on 15 March 2008

Well, that was a lovely little ride, marginally shorter than our normal “Barling Loop” in Southend, this “Barming Loop” from Maidstone involved some serious hills either side of the Medway. Just after we had climbed out of East Farleigh the weather was so lovely that I got me legs out and stayed at just one layer for the rest of the ride. We exceeded 37 mph descending Hunton Hill.

We heard a chiff-chaff on the Lughorse Lane and from Yalding we took the B road to Wateringbury, where, last year, we watched the Tour de France. The A26 was closed west of Wateringbury, but we headed north along Red Hill Road. We found the North Pole but sadly there was no food on offer. There was Timothy Taylor’s Landlord, though, so we had some of that and were about to leave when another pair of tandemistas appeared and we nattered our way through a second drink. This pair were unusual in that he was the stoker, being partially sighted, and their steed was specially built for a six-footer on the back and a five-footer on the front.

It was only another 4 miles back to Maidstone and we kept up 25+ mph along the last mile or so of the A26.