Gentleman Cyclist

Posted on 1 April 2007

Our journeys from Southend to Hartington and vice versa were unexpectedly good, averaging over 50 mph in each direction. Cars were unloaded, bikes fettled, the clans gathered and we all went to the pub for our evening meal on Friday. Here is a selection of pubbish photos:-

 L to R: Clare (overexposed  ) Nicole, Papa, Marge (Mrs Alans).
 

Tom (TBenson of this parish), waitress, Gordy, Joan (Butterfly)
 

Half of Marge, Tony (Toekneep), Gill (Mrs TKP)
 

Clare, Vernon and Jackie (Mrs FB)
 

Joan, Alans, Janet (Mrs Wow)
 

Rhubarb crumble with Custard!

After a – erm – broken night’s sleep (my radiator sounded as though a small electric motor had been attached to it, and whoever was in the room above us sounded athletic, to say the least) the cycling began. This was a tour of some of the finest railway systems which have been dedicated to leisure use. To Biggin at the beginning, we climbed steeply from the hostel and joined the Tissington Trail,
 

heading south to Tissington, where the ladies running the tea shop were on their final day’s service, unwillingly apparently, having been ousted from their posts by a rival bid. Even so, the tea and flapjack were of the highest order. We headed east from Tissington, down a couple of chevrons and avoiding the ford, only to find our bikes covered in the finest sheep slurry, so several of us dunked them in the water to removed the offending substance. We went through Bradbourne and straight on to Carsington Water. This reservoir is a fairly recent addition to the delights of Derbyshire and is now one of its main visitor attractions. There were lots of wildfowl, some pretty good coffee, some barnacle geese, and
 

this kestrel.

Shortly afterwards we adjourned to the Miner’s Arms pub (do ACF rides always end up at the Miner’s Arms?) in Carsington village where everyone else’s food was served, consumed and its devourers ready to go before Jan’s and mine even appeared in front of us. Thus it was that we were even slower than usual up the next hill, which is graced with no chevrons but jolly well feels like it immediately after a large plate of lasagne and chips.

At the top, we joined another ex-railway, the High Peak Trail, and headed roughly north-west back towards Hartington. The scenery was breathtaking at times, but so was the wind, which hampered us accordingly. This whole ride, indeed the entire weekend, was spent in the “White Peak”, based on limestone rock, with its verdant pastures and whiter-than-white dry-stone walls.
 
The “Dark Peak”, to the north, is of millstone grit and peat bogs, and is an entirely different type of scenery. The boundary between the two is at Edale, with its wonderful caverns, and you can tell which side of the divide a meadow is simply by the colour of the grass. In general, the rain water from the White Peak drains south, towards the Trent, whereas the Dark Peak rivers are tributaries of the Mersey.

None of that bothered us intrepid cyclists though, as we battled through a north-easterly, finally emerging in Parsley Hay, the most northerly point of the ride. As a little light relief, Toekneep and Mrs TKP had a try on our Thorn Raven tandem, and seemed to be enjoying themselves.
 

From here, we had the most exhilarating ride down Long Dale, in which Jan & I gave the tandem its head, and southwards aye we fled. We crossed the B5054 before returning to the yout Hostel from the east, our highest speed of the day being achieved on the hill into Hartington, a little over 35 mph.

This post has gone on for long enough, so I’ll report on Sunday’s events later.

Posted on 19 March 2007

We had a particularly pleasant family gathering today involving a good walk in the morning (over 80s excused) followed by an excellent lunch. As various relatives went their separate ways and just the three of us were left to finish off the last of the sausages for our tea, it began to dawn on me that I had enjoyed a surfeit of alimentation and that something ought to be done about it. I was also aware that, despite the good weather on Saturday, I had done almost no miles on the bike and, with severe weather and Arctic blasts forecast for the early part of the week, opportunities for riding in a modicum of comfort were going to be in short supply.

The urge to go for a ride was almost quelled by the unmistakable rattling of rain on the skylights but a few minutes later a quick glance out of the front door assured me that the weather had improved and that the sky, at least in part, had cleared. I got changed into my cycling gear, took the solidlights off the tandem and fitted them to my solo machine, and off I went.

Every activity, every hobby I pursue, eventually grips me like a drug. The more I consume, the more I need to consume to keep the addiction at bay. When I was practising for my piano teaching diploma, I used to have to play for about 4 hours every night in order to improve. These days, I would have ended up with the letters ASBO after my name as well as LGSM because we lived in a small terraced house and I drove the neighbours spare. When I played chess competitively, I used to study the games of grandmasters at great length in order to improve my play, and I used to hate losing to geeky single men who had nothing in their lives except chess, and who would return to some squalid bedsit after the game whereas I would go back to a comfortable home, complete with the family I sometimes resented for stopping me from spending more time on chess.

I don’t want my cycling to end up like that. At the moment, I have an objective, and it’s a laudable one: to lose weight. I’m succeeding, but I don’t actually have a target weight in mind. I suppose that if I got down to 13 stone, I should be satisfied, because not all that long ago I was over 19 stone. I’m nearly half way there, but if I get there, will the addiction take over again? At least with cycling there are lots of spin-off benefits.

Even though for much of the time my riding is along the same roads, no two rides are ever the same. Car drivers control their environments so much, with heaters, stereos, simply the fact that they are separated from the real world by boxes of metal and glass, that, by and large, going from A to B is pretty much the same every time. For the cyclist, there is a great deal of variety depending to a large extent upon what the weather is doing, but also upon one’s own state of mind. One evening last week, for example, the weather was relatively mild and there was almost no wind, and my legs achieved a rhythm which I had forgotten that they could achieve and when I arrived home to my great delight and surprise I had covered just over 24 miles in 1 hour 56 minutes during which time I had noticed almost nothing of my surroundings.

Tonight was not going to be like that. For one thing winter had returned – “welcome March with Wintry Wind: wouldst thou wert not so unkind” – so overshoes and an extra layer on the top were required. For another, I just felt like observing what was going on around me.

It was about half-tide as I rode along the sea front, having to do relatively little work as the wind was behind me. I had the lights in flash mode, and they must have been angled a bit too high because a couple of drivers coming the other way flashed their own headlights at me vigorously as I must have been dazzling them. It’s such a great feeling, when, having made do for so many years with feeble old Ever Ready front lights which gave out a puny beam, we cyclists can now force motorists to acknowledge our existence with a decent set of dynamo lights.

On entering Wakering I admired the very distinctive church, squat and broad-shouldered, whose clock now told passers by the correct time when for so many months it said ten to seven. However, what would the Bishop have to say about the flood-lighting, now that Rowan Williams has declared climate change to be a moral problem and it is the duty of everyone to cut back on their use of energy? Barling church seemed to have a much more public-spirited vicar, or perhaps just a lot less money, as it was lurking in a Dickensian darkness, just a stone’s throw from the sea wall and marshes beyond. Bolts Farm, on the most remote part of the ride, was highly illuminated again. This is a listed building which has new occupants and they were obliged to seek planning permission to erect a new fence which is not really in keeping with the timber-framed weatherboarded farmhouse, and the house seems to have lost a rough-edged rusticity as a result of recent renovations. It’s the sort of place which modern builders try to imitate, at least, in the veneer they glue onto the breeze-blocks, and at times Bolts Farm no longer looks quite like the real thing.

I was going to explore all the roads I could this evening, and when I returned to Little Wakering via Barrow Hall Road, I noticed flashes of lightning from a bank of cloud far out over the North Sea. I have heard it referred to as “summer lightning” – pyrotechnics so remote that there is no chance of hearing the thunder – but tonight was as far away from high summer as it is possible to be. Past Little Wakering and Barling churches again, and on this lap it occurred to me that rural dwellers seem to rely far less on curtains than do their urban counterparts. I rode fairly slowly, having a good old nose into people’s front rooms, and very homely they looked. I imagined fresh bread and beef stews with dumplings.

On my second lap I went along the Barling Road towards Silchester Corner (who named it that and why?) and on a whim turned along Rebel’s Lane. I had only been along here once before, having joined it from the other end where it is a public footpath leading from the northern side of Southend Borough. I rode as far as I could before the tarmac gave way to gravel, and just as I was approaching the point at which I would have to turn round and go back, I saw a fox trotting towards me, completely unaware of my existence as the wind was blowing from him to me. We were only about 15 feet away from each other when suddenly he became aware of me. Foxes are supposed to melt away into the darkness when they don’t want to be observed, but this one displayed considerable alarm as it dashed away inelegantly.

I had forgotten how vulgar, ostentatious and opulent the houses are along the Barling Road, the owners seeming to want to outdo one another in the army of ground-level lighting pointing upwards outside every mansion to demonstrate one unmemorable feature after another, so in the end nothing stood out except for the extreme ugliness of the best that money could buy. Off I went into Wakering for the third time, and this time after Barling church I turned my front light off. There was no moon, but enough reflection of distant neon from the clouds, and the residue of the earlier shower, that I could easily see where I was going. Suddenly I was aware of something above me and I looked and caught the silhouette of an owl, probably a tawny, following me along the road about 10 feet above my head, each of us trying to work out the precise identity of the other. Trying to cycle in a straight line while looking up at the sky is not to be recommended and when I looked down at the road again I could not see it so clearly as I had been able to. On came the light once more until I rounded the bend by Bolt’s farm (again) and turned the light out once more. I noticed an orange light flashing in the farmyard at Mucking Hall. It was a tractor manoeuvring. What were they messing about at at 11 o’clock on a Sunday night?

This was the final lap and suddenly, having been aware only of my surroundings, I realised that my feet were now cold. This was in spite of overshoes, but it seemed that I could actually feel the warmth draining away through the cleats. The rest of me was pretty warm – well, almost all the rest of me – I was beginning to wonder whether there was a hole in the crutch of my Lusso longs, but no, it was just the sensitive bits being sensitive and telling me it was time to get back in the warm and go to bed.

So after another couple of miles that’s pretty much what I did.

Posted on 13 March 2007

I saw very little of the rugby at the weekend because we were out on the tandem for most of it.

However, I can think of numerous occasions on which England, going to Cardiff for the last game of the season and with a chance of a championship, have come badly unstuck. Keith Jarrett’s game of 1966 was the first of these. I remember well a player called Novak scoring a try for England in 1970 and the score being 13-0 to England at half time, but Wales won 17-13 (Gareth Edwards was injured and replaced by Chico Hopkins at half time). Robert Norster and Robert Jones between them gave the English a salutory lesson in in line-out play in (I think ) 1988 which was the occasion that England were supposed to end a run of 26 years without a win in Cardiff and the BBC had assembled in the studio the entire 1962 team, all kitted out, to celebrate the fact; and of course there was the lovely occasion that an effigy of Will Carling’s head was impaled on a spike on the ramparts of Cardiff Castle. And didn’t Wales do it again when Scott Gibbs’ try and Neil Jenkins’ conversion did for them with the last kick of the match, this time at Wembley before the millennium stadium was opened?

So although Wales have been very disappointing this season, and particularly dire against Scotland, the other three matches have been reasonably close. Saturday’s game will be a close affair and the bookies, and, most importantly, the media, will make England favourites. That’s just how I like it…

PS. Wales won 27 – 18.

Posted on 10 March 2007

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a middle-aged couple in possession of a good tandem must be in want of a ride.

So it was that Jan and I set forth on a bright, cold morning for just that. Having had no positive responses to our belated invitation for company on this jaunt, we decided to miss out Wickford all together and head straight to West Hanningfield, along well-travelled roads. Initially I had cast a clout in the form of my windproof jacket, but before we had reached Southend Hospital it emerged from the pannier and was taking pride of place once again, keeping out the wind in precisely the manner it was designed to do.

We kept up a respectable speed to Rayleigh, whizzed down the hill past the station and took a right turn towards Battlesbridge. Here we took a photograph of a rare sight: an Essex oast house. 

Carrying on through Rettendon, we noted that someone had been sweeping the cycle track. It was actually quite reasonable to ride on. Then, into Hoe Lane and South Hanningfield where we took some photographs of pleasing scenery

and the reservoir where a few boats were out as their occupants tried to catch trout.

 It wasn’t long before we reached Baddow and The Bringey, and we were met with the sight of a well-honed Dawes Galaxy as another cyclist had beaten us to it. It turned out to be Delthebike, of this very parish, who had responded to our invitation and had been racing around south-east Essex all morning trying to find us.

After some coffee and beans on toast, our augmented party set off along the Baddow Road where we negotiated the fairly unpleasant Army & Navy Roundabout and a few hundred yards of Parkway before taking our left turn into London Road. The traffic lights steadfastly refused to acknowledge our existance, so after they had passed up two opportunities to allow us through we took the law into our own hands and turned right anyway. A brief exploration of some of the residential roads behind the Essex County Cricket Ground took us to a footbridge over the River Can and into Admiral’s Park, the scene of many an afternoon stroll in games kit when I was in my teens and the PE staff quite unreasonably expected me to run round a two or three mile course and get all hot and sweaty in the effort. There are more ways than one to spoil a good walk. It was here that we revisited one of the more interesting traffic signs of the day.
 

This is NCN Route 1, and it’s quite a good way of getting out of Chelmsford. We found the Chignal Road and not long afterwards were on the old A130, Great Waltham High Street. Off we trundled towards Howe Street (not, I fear, named in honour of the man gave such a frank account of what it was really like working for Mrs Thatcher) and on towards Littley Green. There were some quite attractive residences along the way.

I wouldn’t like to have to pay the heating bill for the second one!

Shortly before arriving at the pub, I heard the agitato tones of a J. S. Bach orchestral suite somewhere in the region of my left buttock, which is the signal that I had a phone call. One of the great things about riding on the front of a tandem is that one has a butler on hand ready to do everything for one. Jan delved into my pocket, fondly caressing my gluteus maximus as she did so and answered the phone. It was our son & heir who had locked himself out of the house while taking the dog for a walk. Now neither son nor dog had access to food while we were away and they had at least a 4 hour wait for our return. Denis spent the afternoon at Camp Bling helping them to erect a shed for Irene to live in while the dog spent the time displaying some quite uncharacteristic aggression as he growled at any other dog that came near.

It was not long before we were in the pub, enjoying some soon-to-be-extinct ale (Hardy & Hanson’s Old Trip) which has been run down by the Greene King juggernaut. The Compasses, Littley Green, has a  well-deserved reputation for everything being gravity drawn.

We gave the soup a miss but did enjoy their “huffers”, large triangular baps with a filling of your choice. I went for the OTT, which is pretty much a full English breakfast shovelled between the two pieced of bread and cemented in place with molten cheddar cheese.

Knowing that our poor little waif (all 6’1″and 16 stone of him) would need access to his anti-rejection tablets caused us to get up a fair bit of speed after lunch. I have always been impressed that, in spite of having already covered more than 30 miles, it is the post-lunch session in which one cycles the quickest, and the miles whizzed by. It wasn’t long before we were at the foot of North Hill, Little Baddow. When we reached the top Delthebike handed round some very welcome rock cake.

Coming down the other side of Danbury Hill is always a delight, and although our speeds are relatively sedate compared to such boy racers as Jaded, there is an awful lot of momentum gained as about 31 stone of us (pilot, stoker, luggage & bike) achieve speeds in excess of 30 mph. The Thorn tandem gives one a tremendous sense of stability and I am much happier cornering at speed that I was on the Claud. We can lean it over quite significantly, and the gorgeous winding descent of Creephedge Lane had me looking over my shoulder to see where Del was – he is normally a much faster cyclist than I am – and he was some way behind.

We stopped at the “Tropical Wings” rooms for a very welcome pot of tea and then from Battlesbridge we were very much wind-assisted. We stopped for a photo at Doggetts Lake.

 We were within a mile of home when suddenly the dreaded bonk set in. Not too surprising I suppose, as we had covered 34 post-lunch miles with only half a rock cake and a cup or two of tea to keep us going. We stopped for a gratuitous chocolate & raisin cereal bar, but reached our abode before the sugar kicked in.

Total distance: a little over 66 miles in a few seconds over 6 hours’ riding time. Very pleased with that.

Posted on 4 March 2007

We noticed that Jan’s saddle was a little lower than it ought to have been, and could well have been a cause of the back pain she experienced last weekend on Brazier’s Run, so out came the Allen keys this morning before we set off on our pootle. Then off we went along familiar roads – past Southend Hospital, across at the Kent Elms Lights, Eastwood Road into Rayleigh and then a stretch of the A129 which is rapidly becoming one of my favourite bits of road. There is a lovely sweeping downhill from the centre of Rayleigh past the station, but then the gradient seems to continue, almost imperceptibly, for another three-quarters of a mile. We get into a high gear and can keep up a speed of about 25 mph for quite some time, and even when we meet the Carpenter’s Arms roundabout we are still doing well over 15mph.

Conditions were ideal this morning as well: cloudy but not raining, little wind and fairly mild. We headed towards Shotgate on the old London Road and there it was that we met a pair of equestrians (or perhaps the horses were humanists?). We approached fairly gently because we did not want to give the poor old gee-gees the heebie-jeebies by having to apply our none-too-quiet brakes and it was just as well we did. We had just said “Good Morning” to the people on the horses when the nearer horse decided it was time to shy away and attempt to bolt. The other followed suit so for a few seconds we had somewhere in excess of a ton of prancing, frightened horse-flesh to contend with, until the riders brought them under control again.

“He didn’t expect there to be two people on one bike!” explained the man. So there we are, it’s official: horses can count to 2. We had a similar reaction from a Yorkshire horse when we were riding around Kirklees a couple of weeks ago so perhaps that confirms it. Horses, it would appear, are likely to be frightened of tandemists.

Nothing of any note occurred for the next four miles or so, apart from a brief shower, so we arrived at my brother’s house in Ramsden Heath, ready for coffee, around noon.

Forty minutes later, well fortified and after a pleasant chinwag, we were on our way again. It was raining steadily now and off we went, still heading north, along Dowsetts Lane. We took a left towards Leatherbottle Hill, a hamlet named, apparently, after a pub which used to be there, but that was certainly before my time. We were following a solitary cyclist along this section, and we tended to catch up on the downhills only to be left behind on the uphills. Eventually we caught up with her and conversed for a few minutes about cycling in general, her trip from Bordeaux to Barcelona and the fact that we were going to do LEJOG next month, until we reached the Three Compasses in West Hanningfield, which was where she was stopping for lunch. The temptation to join her was quite strong but we resisted and after we rounded the bend into West Hanningfield we were forced to resist a wind which was even stronger.

This came as quite a shock and also no small disappointment. West Hanningfield is one of the high points of the ride, and we have come to expect the best part of six miles of wind-assisted downhill. The gradients were all still in the correct places, but the wind most definitely was not. It was pretty strong and it was a south-easterly, smacking our faces vigorously as we pedalled along the dam wall. This is normally a nice easy straight flat bit, but today it was anything but easy. We changed down a gear or two, put our heads down and trudged along as though the tarmac had been coated in treacle. 9mph was about our limit, and even when we reached the junction in South Hanningfield and took the left turn we found our progress hampered by the headwind.

Chalk Street and Hoe Lane came and went, far more slowly than usual, and viewed over rain-bespangled spectacles. We kept to the road through Rettendon, avoiding the cycle track with its gravel, twig debris and horse muck, and did our poor best to swoop down towards the roundabout below, but still hampered by a stiff breeze.

The last 12 miles were all the same. Heads into the wind, rain in our faces and, to be honest, I enjoyed it. There was quite a bit of traffic as usual, but nothing especially annoying and as we reached Doggetts Farm I could really feel that my knees had done some work. To my great delight, Jan was not complaining at all about the conditions, and she barely tolerates rain. How she survived as a child in the Pennines east of Manchester I can’t guess, but we are bound to have some wet days on our Land’s End – John O’Groats jaunt next month, so surviving a wet day and a headwind now would be good preparation.

We returned home for a very late lunch after 37 miles at just over 10 mph. Within minutes Jan had had her shower, the soup was ready and the mugs filled with steaming tea. A lovely ride in tough conditions.

Posted on 24 February 2007

Well, that was a day to remember.

Everything was meticulously planned. Sarnies made the night before, bags packed, trial run with the tandem on the bike rack – fitted perfectly, so we set off, admittedly a little later than I intended – only to realise, 5 minutes down the road, that we had left the computer at home. Rushed home, picked it up and got to the start  about 10 minutes late. That was what we didn’t need: I reckon that I can possibly afford a 10 minute delay over 100k these days, which shows some improvement from last October when I did the Golden Tints with a lot of help from my friends, but Jan was on her first Audax, it was only our second decent ride on the new tandem, and I knew we would need every minute.

Off we went, eventually, through the Rickling and Wicken Bonhunt stretch of the ride (did they really have a good hunt for witches before they named that village?) and into Newport, where I had a ridiculous rush of blood to the head and turned left instead of right. Fortunately, I realised before we had gone very far and, after a wait for the gap in the traffic, we were on course again.

The stretch around Debden is hilly. OK, I can hear the odd snigger from the north-of-Watford brigade, but in my book a hill is something which starts at one level and finishes at another and these do exactly that. In addition, since the Essex hills all start lower than the North of England ones, gravity is a lot stronger so they are harder to climb. We churned away and used our gears (all 14 of them) and I pointed out to Jan all the places where I had had my lunch in the years during which I spent my Thursdays teaching chess to the denizens of Saffron Walden and in between times watching herds of fallow deer make mincemeat of farmers’ fields.

We saw a few ACFers going out as we were coming in, as it were, and Juliet and pals suffering from the faeries. We waved, checked that they were OK (I would have been most miffed if anyone had actually asked for help!) and carried on through steady gentle rain and not much wind, accompanied briefly by Manotea on his fixie. However, after Radwinter, we turned the corner and realised exactly how much help the wind had been lending us. It exacted a swingeing rate of interest as we headed south-west, pushing the pedals hard as we sought Thaxted and its magnificent church (not the largest in Essex though – that belongs to Saffron Walden) and eventually we saw it. Down the high street we fled, looking for the right turn which I almost missed in our haste, saw it at the last minute, and then we enjoyed a cycled re-run of a lovely walk we took on Jan’s sometieth birthday a few years ago, along the Chelmer valley where the river is still small enough to jump over, a mere babe compared to the mighty torrent it becomes as it heads towards the idle marshy bits around Maldon.

We arrived back at the ‘Ut about a minute after we ought to have done, but were really feeling the effects of the morning’s efforts. Soup, wonderful fruit cake and a cup of tea later and we were on our way again, somewhat behind the clock but with 56k to do in 3 hours 15 minutes. This was going to be a challenge, but when the first hour of the second leg yielded 18 valuable kilometres, I felt we were in with a fighting chance. The worst point of the ride occurred around the airport, as the noise from the planes coupled with a strong smell of aviation fuel made us realise exactly what the locals have to put up with. However, after Takeley we were out in the country again and this was decidedly flatter than was the morning’s work. We kept up a respectable speed, found the name of the Councillor who opened High Easter post office, made mental notes of two house names after Aythorpe Roding, and then whittled away at the remaining kms. Jan was hampered for the last 20 kilometres or so by back pain, so we freewheeled as often as we could, but I was aware that we still had a good deal of work to do.

We arrived in Takeley again with about 15 minutes left, and kept up as high a speed as Jan could put up with, and I did my best to avoid the pot-holes (to be fair, most of the roads were in good condition) and finally we rounded the bend under the bridge and trudged along the quagmire back to the hut. 4.04 p.m. – right on time!

It was a great ride.

One final point puzzles me: what is the most refreshing reward after a long ride?

Is it a) Tea and cake; b) A pint of beer; c) Watching England get absolutely smashed by the Irish at rugby?

It puzzled me so much I had to enjoy all three. 

Posted on 22 February 2007

Rather belatedly, here are some pictures of our ride near Huddersfield last week.
 

Lepton from Highburton
 

Emley Moor Mast
 

Jan at Emley Moor

Towards Wakefield
 

Evocative road names.
 
Is this where I took a photo in 1984?
 

One for Hummers.

Cracking cheese, Gromit!

The White House, near Meltham. A good lunch with Timothy Taylor’s “Landlord”.
 

Cousin Lynn’s horse.

Posted on 4 February 2007

That’s what it says on the flier – Cyclo Sportive – two words.

I talked Jan into doing this ride – actually, she didn’t need a lot of persuading – as part of our preparation for LEJoG. East Hanningfield is a pleasant village with a pub which sells Britain’s best-ever beer (official) and with a lot of pleasant countryside around it. We drove off there this morning with the tandem perched on the back of the car.

It was a very daunting experience for both of us. There were some seriously athletic looking people there, with very serious bikes and very serious cycling apparel, and we had somehow got mixed up in this. However, we did our best not to be daunted and queued to pay our £4 each to take part, and added our name to a list marked “Tourists”. All the other groups were age-related and we didn’t want anyone to know how old we were. If there had been a list entitled “Grockles” then that would have been us.

The official starting time was 9 a.m. and, not unreasonably, the fastest (i.e. youngest) groups set off first. At about 9.25 it was our turn, so off we trundled. The route sheet was pretty clear, but no distances were given. That didn’t matter, because someone had been round the course previously and posted attractive blue and red arrows at all the junctions, red for the 40k ride, blue for the 100k. We were doing the latter.

I’ll put up a gmap of the ride later, but suffice it to say that I had ridden every road previously, with the exception of Marsh Lane, which goes so far to the east that you almost expect to meet camels. It was a pleasant ride, mostly pretty flat but with one or two hills which had to be ground out or, if we were going the other way, elicited squeaks of excitement from Piglet sitting behind me as we reached dizzy speeds in excess of 35 mph. We went into Burnham where we partook of Cake of an exceptionally chocolatey variety, and when we arrived in Tillingham, the Cap and Feathers, run by an Australian couple, seemed to be offering a good lunch, so we had some of that. I went for the Spag Bol, my dear wife for a chicken penne with pesto. Mine was washed down with a couple of pints of Adnams, and then I helped Janet eat the rest of hers.

That was at the 36 mile mark and we left the pub at 2 p.m. It was a little frustrating the way the route persistently doubled back on itself and it gave the ride an aimless quality. Had we wished to do so, we could quite easily have cheated, but we didn’t because we wanted to get the miles in. After a slowish resumption after lunch, we began to pick up speed and were fairly bowling along up to about the 50 mile mark. Then it seemed that fatigue set in rather, and as the light began to fade, so did we. We crossed the Chelmer at the famous Paper Mill Lock, and then climbed the formidable North Hill towards Little Baddow and Danbury. We prepared bottom gear in plenty of time for the gradient, and up we went, slowly, relentlessly, breathlessly, past the Rodney, past the General’s Arms until the road flattened out more near Spring Elms Lane. Here we decided to stop for a breather and a drink of water, and as we did so a gentleman on a mountain bike pulled up alongside us. We nattered briefly about hill-climbing and tandems, and then we were on our way again. Once at the top of the hill, it was plain sailing all the way back to the East Hanningfield Village Hall, where we arrived at a little after 5 p.m.

I knew that we would be amongst the last, if not the very last, to finish, so I didn’t expect to see many bicycles at the hall. However, I did at least expect to see some organisers. We walked in to be met by a large woman riding a broom. “Can I help you?” she asked. I explained that we had finished our bike ride and that we had come to report back to the organisers. There was something about her facial expression which told me that the organisers had departed long ago, and this was confirmed verbally. “Oh, they went hours ago – they handed the keys back at 3 o’clock!”

Now in my book, riding 67 miles (that’s what our computer made it) at tourist speed, with the necessary stops that tourists make, is going to take a good deal longer than 5½ hours. Indeed, since our average riding speed was just short of 12 mph, it would have taken us 6 hours without any stops. There was nothing on any of the advertising material that I saw which said that the organisers would leave us all to our own devices fom mid-afternoon onwards. However, there was a statement which said “Certificate for finishers.” What it didn’t add was that you have to design and print the bloody thing yourself!

I must finish on a positive note. Mrs Wow completed her first metric century and, between us, we got up the dreaded North Hill without having to get off and walk. And – guess what – when we got to the top we found that we had never been in bottom gear at all, but bottom gear but one. No wonder I felt so knackered!

The route. 107 kms of it. The little dog-leg in Burnham is down to us – we were searching for a coffee shop.

Posted on 2 February 2007

It being Friday, and the afternoon, Jan and I got the tandem out and off we pootled. Canewdon was our destination today, a village with an enormous stone church on top of a hill.

Canewdon is, apparently, named after Canute, the king who proved to all who didn’t believe him when he told them that he didn’t have the power to turn the tide (if only our leaders had such wisdom in the 21st century, when they might at least make the effort…). It is also, allegedly, known as a centre for ghoulies, ghosties, witchcraft and anything else that might go bump in the night and therefore a good place to avoid on Hallowe’en, when it fills up with silly people driving there in order to witness some kind of paranormal traffic incident. It makes for quite a pleasant ride, but not a long one, but the roads are generally quiet, although there is the chance of meeting some absolutely gargantuan articulated lorry laden with Scandinavian timber, as it trundles its way out of the Baltic Wharf on the river Crouch.

Today there were few events, and we had an errand: we were going to take a pot of marmalade to Fred and Corrie. Fred was an old teaching colleague of mine who retired in 1980. Corrie, his wife, had phoned us around Christmas, just to find out if we were still around, and said we would be welcome to drop in at any time. They live in a lovely cottage very close to the Cherry Tree pub.

It’s about 10 years since we have seen Fred. He is 85 now, and, having been diabetic for almost half his life, often has bad days. We didn’t give warning that we were going today, and when we arrived Corrie was really pleased to see us. Fred was having a bad day, and was asleep in his chair, and was decidedly grumpy when Corrie woke him, but it was lovely to see his face change as he recognised who had come to see him.

One thing I have learned about old people is that they like to talk about old times and old friends. Even miserable old so-and-so’s like my dad cheer up no end when there is someone around to whom they can talk about times gone by, and once we got talking about Southchurch Hall, the school we where we both taught, Fred was much more cheerful. He told me that Harold Shaw, a former Head Teacher at the school, is now in an old people’ home. “Does he wander up and down the corridors wielding a cane?” I asked, recalling Mr. Shaw’s reputation as a Hard Man. “No, but he has a wooden sign on his room door which says ‘Headmaster’!” Fred replied.

In addition, Fred recalled that his retirement present from the staff was a bicycle. He told me this as though it was news to me. “I know”, I replied, “I was the one who rode it back to school from the bike shop!” (Bates of Westcliff, as it happens, an old cycling name associated with diadrant frames and cantiflex forks). Fred said that when he was in his 60s he rode that bike to Maldon for a pub lunch, a round trip of nearly 40 miles. Rather him than me – it was a sit-up-and-beg machine with a Sturmey Archer hub gear, if I remember correctly. Corrie, being Dutch, also has a great interest in bicycles, and told us of some of the times they had had travelling around the low countries while visiting her relatives.

We also had a good natter about cricket. When Fred retired, we organised a cricket match in his honour. In his youth, Fred had been a very good batsman, and although modest about his achievements, I am pretty sure he played minor counties’ cricket at one time or another, I think for Lincolnshire.

Shortly it was time for us to be on our way as, although we have perfectly satisfactory lights on the tandem, it is always better in daylight, especially when the traffic is heavy. We bade Fred & Corrie farewell, with a promise that we would drop in and see them again soon, and then made our way through Stambridge Mills to avoid the busier roads in Rochford, up Sutton Road and home. Total journey 14.43 miles in about 75 minutes’ cycling.

Posted on 31 January 2007

I hadn’t intended to ride this evening. I had already reached my monthly target of 600 miles earlier in the day, but I’ve been out every evening this week, and it just seemed to be a natural post-prandial activity, so at about 10 p.m. I changed into my cycling gear and off I went.

I didn’t feel like trying to go fast. I was full of what is known in our house as “sticky chicken”, an invention of Jan’s in which she roasts chicken thighs in honey, garlic and all sorts of other tasty things and serves it with rice and stir-fried veg. So I did the cycling equivalent of an evening stroll.

I headed through Westcliff and to the sea front. I am afraid that there is not a lot of variety to my evening rides. When you live in Southend, unless you are prepared to do upwards of 30 miles, there’s really only one direction to go in: if you want some peace, little traffic and countryside, then it has to be Wakering and Barling. There are several ways of getting there, and my favourite is to cycle the entire length of the sea front and the head out from Shoeburyness to Wakering via Cupid’s Corner.

Tonight the weather was perfect. There was hardly any wind, it was cool but not freezing, and the moon, just past full, was casting a strong shadow. In addition to that, the tide was high, and as I cycled past the flat we rented in Palmerston Road for £7 a week when we were first married in the Glorious Summer of ’76, I thought about those beautiful midnight swims we had when the sun was too hot to go in during the day.

By now my food had settled a little and I was gathering speed, although still not trying to go fast. I had reached the cycle lane on the promenade when suddenly a chap on a mountain bike whizzed past me on the prom. That spurred me on, but I didn’t think I would ever catch him. He shortly returned to the cycle lane and true enough, he was still pulling away. However, we both had to take evasive action as some sort of 4*4 was half blocking the cycle lane ahead, and he kept to the cycle lane and I found myself on the wrong side of the beach huts, thankful that my solidlights were illuminating an area of tarmac that the streetlights could hardly reach.

When I reached the road again, I saw my adversary in the distance, but still riding on the pavement. I kept to the road, on which there was hardly any traffic, and saw him turn down into Gunner’s Park. When I went past the vehicle exit to the park, there he was, a small white gleam approaching from the right, but now behind me. I rode through East Beach again, and now the strength of the moon really made itself apparent. Not only could I make out the bright red button of the bar bag support, but at certain angles I could actually read my computer by moonlight.

I left East Beach and rounded the bend by the military establishment, but as I was going along Peel Avenue, suddenly I detected that there was a cyclist behind me and that he was going faster than I was! I pressed harder on the pedals and glanced over my shoulder – no-one there!

Now I was going along proper unlit rural roads and I relaxed and just enjoyed the ride. The roads were damp with dew, but there was no hint of frost, so I tried riding with my front light off. It was fine – the moon, almost overhead, was providing enough light for me to cycle safely, but I did have the advantage that I had ridden this route probably twice or three times each week for the past eight months or so and I was very familiar with any bumps or holes that I had to avoid. Every time a car came, from either direction, I would turn my lights on again, but that happened less and less as I approached Barling. At one point I reckon I had gone almost two miles with my light off.

Disappointingly, I didn’t see and wildlife of note, but I did hear the piping call of lapwings, and quite pitiful they sounded and it was easy to imagine that they might have been caught by a fox. Once I thought I heard a little owl, but I wasn’t sure and whatever it was that made the noise didn’t repeat it.

I returned home after 19.67 miles, at about a quarter to midnight, and even before my key was in the lock, I could see the dog through the frosted glass of the front door, wagging his welcome, waiting for his late-night walk.