Start of a week off work, but nowhere (specific) to go, so thought I might as well add to my Lunacy total. With any luck the weather will stay good and I'll get to do another towards the end of the week. Wary though that I'm starting to use up my bank of pre-planned routes - going to have to think about creating some more before that happens!
Fancied doing another trip down to the Thames and chose to cross it at Cookham and then again at Marlow on the return leg. To get there, I had to do two early short steep climbs up past Chequers, but after that I tried to keep the climbing to a minimum, which isn't always easy when you're going through High Wycombe. The main drag through there is the very busy A40, but it's set in a valley, so if you try and avoid it you immediately find yourself going uphill, and usually very steeply so! However with some practice I have now found a route of back streets and cyclepaths that stays away from the worst excesses of both traffic and climbing and follow the contour lines round past Loudwater, Wooburn Green and Bourne End back to the flatter parts of Buckinghamshire.
After passing through the never-ending traffic jam that is Marlow's High Street, I took myself on to some country lanes I hadn't done before, all of them quite undulate-y, but trending in an upwards direction. Thankfully traffic was virtually non-existant, possibly because it was Monday lunchtime, but mainly I think because these roads were closed further up and there were diversion signs all over the place (I was turning off long before reaching that closure). Eventually hit a lovely long downhill that went under the M40 and that took me back to familiar terrain, whereupon it was quite a simple route back home. The only decision I had to make then was whether I should add on an extra mile around town or so to take this ride past the 65 mile stretch goal or not (answer - I did).
