The main event

August 23, 2024

Travels to the far horizon

5:30 a.m. theoretically exists, but I usually try to avoid confirming it at first hand.

Sadly, this trip has rendered my position unsustainable. With a predicted ten and a half hours in the saddle, I needed to leave room for stops, contingencies, and a reasonable time of arrival. That meant an early start. I'd planned on departing at six, just before the sun rose. It felt slightly mad that if the greatest energy source known to man couldn't be arsed to be up at this hour, I would be. The bike lights were fully charged, for the first time since I'd had them.

In an effort to avoid wasted time, I'd programmed in my stops in advance: cafés in Langport (at 50 miles) and Hungerford (125m), and an intervening lunch from a supermarket in Frome, at 80 miles. Hopefully, there'd be pizza awaiting at the 158 mile mark too. Otherwise, I might just be turning round and coming back, in a sulk.

Sometimes, it's nicer to find cafe stops en route, but because I was on a schedule I felt like it made sense to research and plan them in advance. It meant that I wouldn't be wasting time looking around or settling for something dodgy, but there was still nothing to stop me being seduced by a promising farm shop en route. The joy of solo touring is that you can change your mind at short notice, without annoying anyone else.

When I woke up, I could hear the wind blowing outside. There was a storm passing over the midlands and it was making itself felt down here in the south too, with predicted gusts of up to about 40mph. Not really cycling weather. But then it wasn't really cycling o'clock either - and as we all know, two negatives make a positive.

So there was no way I was not going.

Fortunately, the gusty wind was mostly from the west, and my journey was to the north east, so that would be helpful. Also, there wasn't too much likelihood of rain, if the weather gurus were to be believed. A fair bit had already fallen overnight, and the roads were wet, but the skies should be clearing fairly soon. So after a bowl of granola and a bit of last minute packing and pumping, I opened the garage door at 0615 and started my marathon trek.

Cycling the familar route north into Exeter, I spotted a train from the overbridge at Pinhoe station. From here, you can head direct to London, via Castle Cary and then Pewsey, about 135 miles away. I'd be cycling past both of those stations later. For a fleeting moment, and in abstract terms, it felt quite tempting... but then I reminded myself that I do actually enjoy riding, and it's not often enough that I get the chance to do a properly full day of it. So Raven and I took the moral high ground, ignored the station, and headed east.

The route for the day was comparatively flat for me, as indeed most routes are, when you live in Devon and are cycling outside of it. So I was able to make pretty good time on the country roads, and by half nine had arrived at coffee stop one, in Langport. Langport badges itself as being "the heart of the Somerset levels", which strikes me as odd, because although the levels are certainly spread around those parts, Langport itself seems surrounded by hills. I guess it's like calling the Tristan da Cunha the centre of the Atlantic. There's definitely some truth in the claim, but had you been sent to the middle of the ocean, you might have been expecting to find yourself somewhere that wasn't a rock.

Anyway, Langport is a lovely little town. In it, I'd found a slightly hidden café which adjoined a bike shop, sat on a river, and had a bakery with an array of ridiculous-sized pastries. Ticked all my boxes. On arrival, I wasn't the only lycra-clad figure to be seen. Raven got parked next to a very sleek and expensive-looking carbon bike, but I reassured her that I had eyes only for her.

I ordered the eggs on toast, which caused momentary confusion because the chef then came out to find me and explain that it was normally egg (singular) on toast, and to manage my expectations. I didn't really mind too much and then she helpfully offered to put a second egg on, so I wasn't going to argue. When it arrived, it was lovely.

I actually resisted their enormous almond croissants because they were the size of a small county and I thought that, on balance, not feeling like Jabba the Hutt might be more conducive to cycling another hundred miles. So I just had a vanilla milkshake and a sneaky flapjack from the supply in my saddlepack.

A multiplicity of egginess. The hens had to work overtime.

The cafe. I wasn't the only one who'd discovered it. And there are definitely worse things to do than sit by the river eating cake.

Leaving Langport, I continued on a variety of mostly quiet country roads. I find that I'm fairly happy now to trust my GPS router to sort routes for me, and for the most part it was doing a good job. There wasn't too much to report as I progressed through Somerset and then Wiltshire, flitting in and out of small villages. The roads were gently rolling, there was a tailwind, and after some early rain the skies were becoming bluer.

This one kind of summarises the day. Beats doing emails.

That thing about trusting the routes? Yup, not always a good idea. Half a mile on this track was certainly a memorable experience. Thank goodness for thick tyres.

Lunch was at the 80 mile mark, in the small town of Frome, where I bought a supermarket sandwich and sat in the local park. I'd planned to stop for 20 minutes but was approached by an Aussie guy who wanted to talk cycling, politics and heart conditions, and in the end I was there for more like an hour. (A fair part of this was spent in convincing him that yes, I had genuinely travelled from Exeter, and yes, I was really heading out past Reading. And no, I hadn't forgotten to take my medication, and no, there weren't people in white coats hotly pursuing me). I think this is one of the nicer aspects of touring: strangers are always willing to chat, and the bike gives them a good opening for conversation.

A short while later I came across a 25 metre horse in the field, as you do in Wiltshire. A hill carving. I'd never realised that actually there are quite a few of these, and subsequent research tells me that there are eight of them around the county, carved into the hillsides to expose the underlying white chalk. Only one is prehistoric, with the others being far more recent. Not knowing this at the time, it was more than a little disturbing to take a picture of it, cycle on for thirty miles, and find myself back at a (different, but identical) white horse carved into a very similar looking hillside.

Given its size, I wouldn't be wanting to muck it out.

But I was definitely making progress. At 105 miles I paused for a second flapjack, and by just about 4pm I'd got to the final stop of the day, Tray's café in Hungerford. The sugar and the tailwind were continuing to propel me in the right direction and I texted my friend to let him know that I was now just a couple of hours away. If my legs gave out at this point, I could probably reasonably call him for a lift.

Tray's café. The pleasure of chocolate ganache sponge was only surpassed by the temporary delight of a seat more than six inches wide.

I continued through the conurbations of Newbury and Reading. The latter was quite slow progress as I attempted to find the various cycle paths which kept me away from the traffic. But we got there in the end, with a ride along the Kennet cycleway, triumphantly and finally heading into Twyford at 1835, just over twelve hours after we'd started.

All in all, I was feeling ok: my legs cramped if I moved them in certain directions, but otherwise (!) were fine. Unsurprisingly, we stayed in for the evening, with a bit of tv, a lot of pizza, and a celebratory beer.

The plan for the following day would be to get breakfast, wander some shops, and avoid the rain which would be drenching 90,000 other folk who'd headed for Reading this weekend, for an outdoor music festival. I've two days to recuperate before returning westwards. And then Raven will be coming out of the garage again, and we've a far more relaxed 90 mile trip planned back the way we came, headwinds permitting. Not worrying about that for a minute though. For now, I think we can pause and be happy with a good day's work.

The numbers for the day. Full ride details at https://ridewithgps.com/trips/214444391.

Today's ride: 159 miles (256 km)
Total: 159 miles (256 km)

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Rich FrasierKudos! You're a stud!!
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3 months ago

Mark Bingham"We've a far more relaxed 90 mile trip planned back the way we came." I read the words, but my brain doesn't register them. The 159 miles wasn't relaxing enough? Or, maybe your definition of "relaxed" and my definition vary somewhat. :-)

Regardless.... cake.

Enjoying the journal!
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3 months ago

Mark M.Thanks Mark. I think you may just have provided the title for my next journal, if not my headstone. "Regardless... cake." Glad you're vicariously enjoying the ride with us! 🙂
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3 months ago