This is from yesterday as I had no time to write it then, it turned into a much longer day that I expected. I did a recent thread asking for routes to around Aylesham, and got some top route advice from
@ianrauk,
@Bluehills and [USER=23023]@Dogtrousers. Ian’s route looked great for the way out, and @bluehills route for the return along the estuary. According to the BBC if I was going to cycle there it was going to be 80 miles into a 17mph headwind. I didn’t fancy that much. If I was only going one way I preferred going through the North Downs as its greener and all new territory for me, but Ian’s route in reverse had a mahoosive long climb that made it less appealing.
I decided to get the train to Canterbury and cycle from there, so I cobbled together an alternative the night before, with about 100 miles back to London. I don’t own a sat nav, so I had my low-tech hand written directions on pocket sized bits of cardboard. The weather forecast had a real last day of summer feel to it, and Thursday is my day off, so off to Kent I went. To get the bike on the train I had to leave off-peak so didn’t actually arrive in Canterbury until nearly midday, which on reflection was too late for such a long ride in October!
The reason for this particular ride was to see a tree, yes just a single tree. Not just any old tree, this tree has a name, Majesty. It definitely sounds impressive, If it was called Colin I doubt it would get as many visitors. Majesty is an ancient Pendunculate Oak (Quercus Robur).
Different species or trees are described as ancient at different times. Yews are the real oldies and are not considered ancient until they get to 1000 years old. A birch tree would be considered ancient at 150 years, and an oak is considered ancient at 400 yeas old. Oaks tend to hollow out around 500 years old, and as such dating the trees by drilling a section and counting rings is impossible so estimates on this ones age vary.
If Majesty is as expected the tree referred to in 1554 as the ‘King Fredville Oak’, already an impressive tree at the time, then its a least 500-600 years old. Local folklore says the tree is 1000 years old, so somewhere between the two is a safe bet. It may not have been as big as it once, having lost some big branches over the years, one alone weighed 3 tons, but it is undeniably old.
We are blessed with an abundance of ancient oaks in this country compared to Europe. Oak is held in high regard by many cultures in Europe, for centuries in the England its been a symbol of strength and survival, and looked upon with reverence. This has surely contributed to why we have so many survivors to this day.
This following link gives more details:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...england-uk-tree-register-survey-a7610246.html
To summarise, and the numbers are startling, continental Europe has an estimated 2000 ancient (over 400 years old) oaks, of which 1260 are in Sweden, 300 in Romania, Germany has only 120, but does have biggest oak in Europe, in Ivenack, again thought locally to be about 1000 years old, see here:
https://www.hideawayreport.com/articles/view/1000-year-old-oaks-ivenack-germany/
I don’t know the figures for Wales and Scotland but England alone has more ancient oaks than the rest of Europe put together! And not narrowly more, comprehensively more, an estimated 3400.
Back to the trip and despite my train hatred the journey was fine, and I had a nice chat with some other cyclists heading to Kent to cycle about in the sunshine. I got out of the station and misread my directions immediately, and headed off the roundabout at the wrong exit, luckily not getting too far before realising my error, not the best start. At the 4 mile mark I made another wrong turn and headed for 2 miles in the wrong direction before doubling back, this would be a long day at this rate.
Majesty is located in Fredville Park, about 15 miles south east of Canterbury. I had an approx location from the ‘monumental trees’ website. When I got there I had to walk through a field with a big scary bull, keeping close to the fence and prepared to run and jump over it at a moments notice. Luckily the bull was too busy eating to be bothered by me. After dodging cow pats for a few hundred metres I couldn’t see the tree, I realised the bit of wood it was in was fenced off with the big country house, and had signs saying no public access. This tree looked like it was trying to escape the horrors within the enclosure, who knows what perils lurk there, so I decided against trespassing.
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Hmmm, arse. I didn't come all this way on this last minute, badly planned adventure to be thwarted so soon. I’m a cheeky but charming sod, so I decided to go up the main house and ask if they would kindly let me into their private garden, with my bike so I can take some photos of a tree. I mean what’s the worst that could happen….I had an idea, I crossed the cattle grid on foot fearing the unleashing of an army of hounds, following by gunshots being fired overhead and being run out of 'town'. Instead I got an excitable elderly old terrier, followed shortly by the lady of the house, who despite initial puzzlement kindly agreed to my request, and walked me and bike through to the exact location and left me to take photos, what a complete star! Lots of Americans visit apparently.
While this oak tree is not the tallest, what this has more than any other oak I’ve ever seen is girth, in fact it is the UK champion oak for girth, even trumping the great German oak. A trees girth is normally measured 1.5 metres about the ground, and on the last official measuring in the Tree Register records in 2007, the recorded girth was 1216cm, that just under 40 feet in circumference!
I found it pretty awe inspiring, it looked especially magical in the autumn sun. Here it is with a bicycle to give you some idea of scale.
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These two huge branches have fallen off, but are tree size in their own right.
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It had some sizeable fungus, cupping one of the first fallen leaves of autumn
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Evidence of the hollowing
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Its nearly 2pm by the time I set off. I do have lights, but they are not great so I realise I’ve got to get a move on. I cross back over the A2 and into the North Downs, and pretty much straight from the kick-off its onto the climbs, with a nearly 2 mile one to start with. It dawns on me that my notes have lots of references to such and such a hill.
Somewhere on these initial climbs I somehow lost one of my current direction card, argghh. I have to use my phone to google to get to directions to the first road name on my next card. This means stopping and checking phone on nearly every junction, and that section took ages and put me even further behind. The route was hilly, more so than I expected, but despite my navigational woes my route was so quiet. I hardly saw any cars and after many months of riding around in London it was so nice to be out getting lost in the lanes.
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I knew some of the sections of the Pilgrims Way I was taking would be a gamble for a road bike, and so it turned out to be. Some bits are OK, this bit was lovely
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But others bits not so much. There were some really sharp rocky sections that I'm amazed I didn't get a puncture or fall off. I was using my old MTB skills to keep me upright, but apologising to my bike the whole time. After a particularly muddy section I had to stop to use a stick to free the mud build up around the brakes, wasting more time.
I saw a strange carving on the way.
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The whole section in the middle was so quiet, not only did I hardly see any cars, I also noted I'd not seen any shops, plenty of little villages, but no shops in any of them. It was a warm day and I’d nearly finished the 2 full bottles of water I had with me, and was getting close to just stopping and knocking on someone’s door and begging for water. It just added to the feeling of being in the wilderness, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so pleased to see a garage as I was the Shell one as I crossed the A229 at the 60 mile mark.
Soon after its starting to get dark, and I realise that an upcoming section of bridleway I had scheduled was going to too sketchy and slow, so after a quick impromptu phone check I opt for a road alternative to try and keep my speed up in my race against the dark. And it got proper dark, no moon, no stars, pitch black on the unlit lanes. Reading my directions was hard work, and the throw on my light is not very good so all descents I had to go slow for fear of crashing into a pot hole at speed. I love bombing fast down hills, I hate going down them slowly, after struggling up a hill it feels like a wasted opportunity, and the levels of total concentration on road scanning was exhausting.
I can’t see the road beyond the 6 feet or so of light beam, and all of sudden this road seems to be going up a bit, ouch….I’m sure
@Dogtrousers said it wasn’t that hilly round here
. I’ve done rides before in the dark where I think its been a blessing I’ve not been able to see the top of a climb, but one thing I don’t like about night riding is when its so dark I can’t see what gear I'm in. My smallest gear was 39-25, which was not enough, and I was crushed by the feeling of pushing the lever for another gear, only to find there are no more gears *sob*. I try a section out of saddle, will this ever end, WTF!...I make it to just short of a bridge and have to dismount before I topple over while stationary. I had to walk a 100 metres or so to the top. I didn’t know what that hill was until today when I looked it up, its Vigo Hill and it is an utter pig of a climb, and though short it has a 1.5 mile climb peaking at 9% of Addington Lane and Taylors Lane immediately before it. And the gradient just gets worse as the climb goes on, the top of Vigo is more like 20%, which is beyond me and my gearing in day or night, so a walk of shame ensued, not that anyone could see it, not even me.
And then it started raining, really quite hard. Great. I’m in shorts, short sleeves and no jacket or any others clothes, Shackleton was better equipped than me. Cardboard directions are slowly disintegrating before my eyes like a Mission Impossible self destructing message. Despite all this I don’t feel like quitting, I know if I can just get to Starhill Rd just inside the M25, I know the way from there, directions won’t be needed. And once I get to Hawley Corner on the A223 I know it has street lighting all the way home. I get there with a palpable sense of relief, and now I can properly see where I’m going I can hammer it back to town. I think I did one of my fastest runs back into town that way averaging over 19mph for the last 20 miles of the trip, not bad after a long day in the saddle, so despite the earlier water shortage I got the fuelling right.
I got back home looking properly weather beaten at 10pm. Phone battery nearly dead, lights faded after 3 hours of cycling in darkness, and knackered after what turned out to be a bit of an ordeal. But as I recall riders of the Paris Roubaix saying, when riders retire its the hard rides and races they they looked back on with the most fondness, trails against adversity seem more of an achievement, and even if the planning was a bit lacking, its character building innit. A hard but great day, 109 miles and 7000ft of climbing was more than I expected. The route, wrong turns included.
View: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/28637641
And I learnt an ancient oak tree in Kent has a much better grasp of the passing of time than me.[/USER]
grovelled over the top at 6mph 
won't be doing that again soon . Quick downhill then the second climb of priory lane just spun up this one .Woodhouse eaves ,Swithland ,Cropston . Here I decided to head to Rothley to use the wind to smash a Strava segment 
. On to millionaire row an aptly named segment a dead end road near Rothley station full of mansions . Full on effort for 1 min 8 sec for 2nd overall still 3 secs behind the Kom 
the wind does have its uses . Nice 20 miles in ridiculously warm condition Tomorrows ride looks 
off to fit mudguards
