In Marlborough: Berkshire County OAB

August 26, 2022

All systems are go:

The sky is clear this morning, the wind is minimal, the temperature is ideal;
I’m not sick (physically at least);
Rachael’s made it through an entire day without slipping on the stairs again.

Ideal conditions for a bike ride, so we’re going! Unfortunately it means we won’t be making it out to Avebury for a longer, slower visit on this tour because we leave for Salisbury tomorrow. We probably should have taken more time when we were out there Wednesday, but it’s too late now. Too bad, but it’s not like it’s our last chance. We’d like to return to Britain some year, and those stones aren’t likely to move anytime soon. They’ve stayed put for over 5,000 years now, after all.

I’ll bet every other pub we pass has a sign out like this pleading for staff, no experience required. A predictable consequence of Brexit.

Marlborough Town Hall, described on its website as “This beautiful Victorian building is the focal point of the charming High Street in Marlborough, a quintessentially English market town nestling in the Kennet Valley and undulating Marlborough Downs.” Huh? Have they looked out the window at the traffic scene on charming High Street?

To celebrate Rachael’s unsprained ankle we’re taking a ‘pure’ out and back, her favorite type of ride. We’ve taken other OAB’s recently - the ride to Iron Bridge, for example - but they haven’t really qualified because they have an attraction at the end we’re both going to make it to. The best ones are like today - a ride to nowhere in particular where she can quickly shed her camera-toting boat anchor and fly like the wind, ride as far as she wants, and meet up with old slow poke on the way home.

As happens today, when we come to the first of the three outbound climbs of the day as she dashes up the slope immersed in a sea of gold.

Yippee, it’s an out and back! See ya later, partner!

I could keep up of course, but then we wouldn’t have this memory to look back on. Priorities!

We’re off to the northeast today, riding in a new direction and into a new county: Berkshire. I like this, because I’ve been keeping a county tally for the tour and it’s nice to snare another one for the list and snap into my slowly developing mental map of the island. There’s a sign at the border welcoming us in, but otherwise there’s not much evidence that we’be entered a new land. It’s not as contoured as Wiltshire with those precipitous escarpments of its chalky downs but it has a similar if gentler feel.

Berkshire County - at least the western edge of it that we’re seeing - doesn’t have the vertical drama of Wiltshire but it’s still plenty colorful.

One thing it does appear to have in abundance though is racehorses. Almost as soon as we cross the county line we’re greeted with a sign welcoming us to The Valley of the Racehorse. We’re cautioned to watch out for racehorses, as though a string of them might dart from the trees and sprint across the road in front of me any minute now. I’m alert, but all I see are a few bunnies scurrying off until I spot some lazily grazing off in a meadow.

Nearing Lambourn, we pass through ‘The Valley of the Racehorse’. There are over 30 establishments here and in the surrounding villages dedicated to the training and breeding of racehorses. Why the caution though? Doesn’t seem likely that they’ll be running across the highway.

Some racehorses, nicely behaved just roaming around in their large pen.

Definitely not racehorses in the pen next door - just some radiant cows.

Lambourn, in the heart of the Valley of the Racehorse.

If you’re going to paint over the brick and flint it’s nice to choose such cheerful colors.

So, no racehorses in the road to spice up the day. It’s a terrific ride though. A series of three moderate climbs, each climbing four or five hundred feet in a mile and a half, never so steep as to be painful. Without a great many reasons to stop with the camera I keep a good pace myself and am only a mile behind Rachael when she finally turns back at 25 miles - a bit longer than the ride I’d mapped out, but she’s feeling great and wanted to bike 50 miles, the first time she’s done so since we left France.

Some houses in Eastbury. The one on the right is strange. The expression ‘all hat, no cattle’ comes to mind somehow.

We’re seeing more rooks now that we’re further inland. A large crow, they’re easy to identify if you know the key indicators. The white bill is a big one. Also, the rook can move forward, backward or sideways, but cannot move diagonally.

It’s still before noon when I catch up to her and turn back for home, with two of those climbs still ahead of us to recross. We stop for lunch in Libourn, sitting on the stone steps of a concrete cross in the center of its market square, the square lively with the ongoing Saturday market. The whole time we’re sitting there I watch an itinerant butcher breaking down his van as the market closes down for the day, contemplating the lives of market vendors. Then it’s back on the bikes and over those two hills again, making it back to the Green Dragon just in time for Beer Hour. A wonderful ride, good for the spirits.

Back in beautiful Wiltshire again, on the final long descent of the day. I led at first so that Rachael could capture me in her video on this stretch but her battery’s dead. So we’re left with just this.

Just another BRS, as Ms. Grumby likes to call scenes like this.

Oh, one last thing. Back at the room Rachael unloads her video capture from the day and is surprised when footage from our ride to Avebury spills out along with it. An unexpected gift, because she’d been chagrined then when she realized the video from that ride was missing. She assumed she’d somehow fat finger deleted it from her iPad but it appears that she never unloaded it in the first place.

She didn’t find much to be excited about from today’s ride (good thing you dragged a still photographer along with you then, Rocky!), but she’s definitely enthusiastic about what she finds from Wednesday’s ride. Let’s look now.

Video sound track: Ain’t No Sunshine, by Grover Washington, Jr.

Heart

Comment

Link

Ride stats today: 50 miles, 2,900’; for the tour: 2,211 miles, 133,500’

Today's ride: 50 miles (80 km)
Total: 2,210 miles (3,557 km)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	7
Comment on this entry	Comment	0