Hyde Park Corner to Bingham – 118 miles. Midnight Friday to 14.40 Saturday
I didn’t think this was going to work. Susie had not ridden more than 86 miles before, and that with the wind behind us. This was over thirty miles in excess and the meteorologists were unshakeable in their conviction that we would have a stiff breeze from the northeast or northnortheast. I’d booked our return tickets reluctantly just a couple of days before, and reserved a room at Yeung Sing on the morning of the Friday, and, only then because she was adamant – she was going to give it a go, however tough it was.
So...Hyde Park Corner didn’t seem as much fun as it usually is. The two of us hung around, and then slipped, unnoticed in to the traffic, heading up Park Lane, passed by National Express coaches heading north to, perhaps, the very towns we were intent on reaching. We negotiated our way round Marble Arch without much in the way of conviction, and turned left at the magnificent Odeon building. And then.......all of a sudden, we were in a different, marvellous place, filled with conversation, neon and the scent of apple smoke. That put a happier gloss on the night, and, despite making very slow progress through the traffic, I’d cheered up by the time we went under the Westway. If nothing else, we’d already had a good night out.
On then, to Kilburn and Maida Vale, huge boozers spilling people in to mini-cabs. On across the viaduct that takes you over the North Circ, and then in to Edgware, closed for the night. It might have been tedious, and it might have been all uphill, but we were moving, albeit slowly. And then...there’s a small roundabout at which the traffic is directed to the right, and, for the first time, we were on our own, on a wooded hill, in green belt land. Having blanked the monstrous Asda at Colindale, we took advantage of the hedgerow, and glided ever so gently from 250 feet above sea level to close on 500 feet, before plunging down the other side and, for the first time in the night, crossing the M1.
Through Elstree and Radlett, both shut tight, and on past the M10, until Watling Street takes a bit of a wander through St. Albans. We left the roman road, and skirted the city west and north, swooping down to the A5 where it becomes the Redbourne Road.
The A5 to Dunstable is a broad, flat road, curving gently with the valley, and, with the wind only slightly against us we were shifting along nicely. I’ve seen ten mile traffic jams on this road, but I doubt we saw ten cars in the same distance so we were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves until I picked up a puncture just short of Dunstable. Not finding the sharp I put on some sticky relic of a tube that had been given me, only for that to go down in short order in Dunstable town centre. Another tube change, accompanied by the sound of Dunstable’s young people being kicked out of a nightclub, Susie pointing out, not without justice, that some wives get taken to Venice for their holidays and don’t spend nights on street corners in one of Bedfordshire’s less attractive towns. Another mile, another flat, and now, at last, I found the guilty party - a tiny metal filing, almost too thin to see, but sharp enough to have cost us half an hour and some good temper.
We reached Hockliffe at a quarter to four, with light in the sky to our east, had coffee at MaccyD’s (toilet use forbidden due to insurance) , and turned north on to the Woburn Road. The wind had dropped, and this was the best part of the night – a silent road, the beginnings of a dawn chorus, a muntjac bursting through a hedge and a badger pounding across the road just ahead of us.
Milton Keynes, and its preposterous roundabouts took a bit of shine off the ride, and the M1 crossing was as evil looking as ever. We were beginning to feel the want of breakfast. The wind was now pretty much against us, the road a little bumpier, and miles were being chiselled out. We reached Tescos at a quarter to seven, far too early for the cafe, but grabbed bread rolls, cheese and salami and made ourselves a meal sitting in the cafe. By the time we’d gone in to town, got ourselves a second cup of MaccyDs coffee, and set off for Kettering, it was eight o’clock, with fifty two miles to go.
The first half of those fifty two miles were really tough. The road goes up and down, up and down, and, although the hills are not huge, Susie probably used her bottom gear a dozen times. The temperature was in the seventies, and the traffic was far heavier than I’d anticipated (and far heavier than on a weekday), and, by the time we reached Uppingham she’d had enough. So...it’s back to the drawing board, with a new twenty mile section of route to be checked out – it won’t save us any climbing, and it will add two thirds of a mile to the distance, but it will be far quieter.
The turn to Oakham came as a great relief, and it’s fair to say that from that point on we enjoyed ourselves. We stopped for lunch at the Windmill at Wymondham, 100 miles from Hyde Park Corner, which is a kind of cyclists’ Mecca, and popped in to the bike shop to chat to the owner, who will do emergency repairs for us. The wind didn’t let up all the way to Bingham, but Susie stuck at it, counting the miles off one by one, until we reached the hotel almost fifteen hours after our departure from Hyde Park Corner.
So...she’d cycled thirty two miles further than she’d ever cycled before, with five pounds of luggage on the bike, and with a gusting wind coming at us from the right hand quarter, making flat roads miserable and downhills perilous. If I sound impressed it’s because I am.
I had a blowout fifty yards from the hotel, and, when we stopped, we discovered Susie had a slow puncture, so that made five for the day. I’d ridden the entire route in the rain with not one puncture, and she and I have gone entire months without a flat, but...that’s the way it went. We fixed mine, went for an Italian just down from the hotel and were in bed by seven – and asleep by five past. I dreamt the strangest dream, in which I was a quiz contestant, continually surprising myself by getting the answers right, but only after giving myself clues. Perhaps that’s a metaphor for working out the route.
We slept for twelve solid hours, waking surprisingly fresh, and almost looking forward to the next day’s ride to York. But that’s another day...
we didn't let the idiot 4x4 driver get us down!
