So, with reference to this post, we fucking went. Despite my misgivings, it actually turned out to be fairly painless, even with a severe weather warning over two of our days of cycling. It would seem that we’re part of a growing trend; this article in the Guardian says that “Britons spent £120 million on dedicated cycling holidays in 2006.” I’ll definitely not argue with the comment about it being an expensive game; the trip turned into a tour of the B&Bs and hotels (and of course their cooked breakfasts) of Southern England.

We took the train to Reading on the Friday night, and stayed in the Beech House Hotel (enormous tables at breakfast! Kyla and I were fully one third of a mile apart, separated by an acre of fried food.) On the Saturday we followed the National Cycle Network Route 23 down to Basingstoke, then headed onwards into the Test Valley, finishing in Stockbridge.  Stockbridge is as picture-postcard-pretty as most of the Cotswold villages I’ve visited, though don’t be fooled by the pubs claiming to have “riverside gardens” - there are many small tributaries of the Test running through the town, so “ditchside” might be more accurate. We stayed in the Three Cups, which was very nice, though the breakfast room was built for people no taller than 5′.

The following morning we cycled to Salisbury, partially along a National Byway.  The National Byways say that they are open to all traffic, however I think it’s fair to say that the section we travelled was more aimed at mountain bikes than the tourers we were riding.  Potentially we could have found this out if we’d bought the information packs available from their website, but after buying a load of OS maps we didn’t feel like spending any more, so risked it.

From Salisbury we cycled to Shaftesbury, which turns out to be at the top of a large hill, and stayed the night at La Fleur de Lys.  This was definitely the winner out of all the places we stayed at: free internet access in the room, which also came with a cafetiere to make proper coffee, home-made biscuits and a sofa to slob out on.

It was in Shaftesbury that we found out about the severe weather warning that the met office had issued for the South West of England.  We decided not to risk it, and the next day cycled to Crewkerne, where we took a train to Exeter; if the holiday was going to be rained off, we may as well be stuck in a big town where there might be something to do.  We stayed in the Hotel Barcelona, which is in a Grade II listed building that was once a hospital, and uses this as a theme for some of its decoration.  They were even having a “green” promotion, so we got 10% off the price of our room for arriving by bike.

The weather had calmed down by lunchtime, so we headed a short distance out onto Dartmoor, to South Zeal, where we stayed at the Oxenham Arms.  The next day we headed up to Okehampton so that we could join the Granite Way, which is part of the National Cycle Network’s route 27.  From there we headed South along the edge of Dartmoor to Lydford, then onwards to Tavistock.  Contrary to what people will tell you about Tavistock, it isn’t worth visiting.  Don’t even slow down.  Certainly don’t stay the night.

Leaving Tavistock, we headed a short distance West, over the county border and into Cornwall; destination achieved!  It took us six days to cycle two hundred miles, though we did 130 of that in the first three days.  All told, it was quite enjoyable, despite the iffy weather, and I now have thighs of steel.  Of course all this exercise now entitles me to spend the next month on the sofa watching my muscles atophise, so don’t think that there’ll be any long-term health benefit.

Kyla and I clocked up 90 miles of cycling over the weekend after a round trip to Bradfield St. George in Suffolk. Went went out via Six Mile Bottom, Clare, and Lavenham, which is actually where we’d intended to stay (check out the Angel Hotel; very posh). In the end there was no room at the inn, and scouting around for B&Bs we somehow ended up at the Fox and Hounds out at Bradfield St. George, an extra twelve miles or so further than my legs really wanted to travel in one day.

The only real thing of note was the puncture I got whilst passing through Long Melford.  As I looked down and saw the rear tyre flat on the road I suddenly remembered that whilst I had brought a puncture repair kit, I hadn’t actually brought a pump or tyre levers.  Kyla popped into the shop we’d stopped by to ask if there was bike shop nearby, and was told to head down the alley next to the shop and knock on a white wooden door, because a chap who fixes bikes lives there.  The shop people weren’t joking; the guy had inner tube extracted, patched and refitted the in less than thirty minutes.  We tried to give him some money (particularly necessary, I felt, given that we’d woken him up from an afternoon nap), but he had none of it and sent us on our way.  Obviously he’s some sort of cycling good Samaritan!  And he definitely saved our little trip from a disaster caused by my lack of preparation.

National Cycle Route 11, specifically, which runs from Harlow to Cambridge. Frankly there isn’t much decent online coverage of the routes, but here’s Sustrans’ page on the East of England. (Sustrans’ server appears to be powered by potatoes, just try using their mapping page.) On Saturday Kyla and I cycled from Bishop’s Stortford back to Cambridge, a pleasant 35 miles that I felt sure was further whilst in transit. Discussions of cycling to Cornwall are becoming distressingly regular in our house, it seems that spring madness has infected us both; if that goes on long enough stubbornness will take over, and then that’s it: we’re fucking going.

My legs shake in fear.  I’ve speculatively added a Cycling category to the blog, but hopefully this won’t result in the blog becoming dominated by tales of chaffed body parts and bike grease.

Kyla and I went for another bike ride on Saturday. We’d read in the February issue of Beer (CAMRA’s monthly paper) about a 30 mile loop that around a few Hertfordshire and Essex villages that starts from Royston, so we thought we’d go for that. Beer recommended taking the train to the start, but because we’re a big gung-ho, we thought we’d cycle there instead, adding a journey of about 20 miles onto our day.

We cycled to Great Chishill from Cambridge following this route, which was only really of note because we finally got to cycle along the stripy cycle lane that runs alongside the train tracks south of town. After lunch at the Pheasant we headed off around the suggested route; from Great Chishill we went to Arkesden, though we skipped the Axe & Compasses (too soon after lunch), passed Clavering and the Fox and Hounds. We meant to stop in Brent Pelham at the Black Horse, but cocked up and ended up heading onward to Great Hormead and the Three Tuns. Which turned out to shut at 3pm, so we moved on again but only as far as Hare Street and the Beehive, which is the location used to film the scene where Arthur and Ford grab a lunchtime pint before the destruction of Earth in the recent Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy film. The place looked like it had recently had the interior stripped and replaced; I guess the film payed well. At this point there was talk of doing more cycling, perhaps even taking a week off and cycling to my Dad’s place in Cornwall in the summer. However, the final ten miles to Royston train station proved leg-buggeringly tortuous. I’m going to request that the next iteration of Google Maps puts the contour lines on, because there’s a surprisingly large hill just east of Royston that proved our undoing.

Out of a possible seven pubs we only actually stopped at two, so I think this is a route we’re going to have to come back and do properly sometime.

I bought a new bike on Saturday (I’m starting a new job later this week for which it will be far more efficient both in time and money to cycle to the office rather than drive), so yesterday Kyla and I decided to go for a ride. Being a bit over-confident, we chose Ely as a destination, using this route from the Cambridge Cycling Campaign’s website. 40km there, and we beat the guide time of three hours by an hour. Hardcore. The downside of our outward-bound enthusiasm was that our route back via Witchford, Wilburton, Histon, which the map tells me is about 10km shorter, also took two hours and nearly resulted in me throwing my toys out of the pram somewhere on Grunty Fen Road. All this goes to show that I’m not as fit as I think as I am.

Ow.

Did you hear the one about the vegetarian tee-totallers who go into the country pub? OK, the reaction wasn’t quite the Slaughtered Lamb from American Werewolf In London, but we did get some funny looks. Yes, Kyla and I did some exercise on a weekend. Crazy. We’d been meaning to go for a fairly long bike ride since I bought Kyla a new bike for her birthday, and as the weather has been unusually good recently we thought we’d do a quick loop of the fens. The route took in Cherry Hinton, Fulbourn, Great and Little Wilbraham, Bottisham, up to the Quy road then back towards Cambridge, stopping at The White Swan in Quy for Lunch (you can see most of the places on this map here.) That’s about twenty miles, and we’d done nearly all of that by the time we reached the pub. Thus I can’t really guarantee that my opinion that it was one of the best Sunday roasts I’ve had in a long time is unbiassed, because frankly I was ravenous. It certainly tasted pretty damn good. Kyla had the standard fare for a vegetarian in a pub that can’t be arsed with vegetarians, i.e. a roast with no meat or gravy. And, as is also standard in such places, they still charged her full price for the pleasure of it.
Kyla’s always badgering me into doing the London to Cambridge cycle ride, so maybe I should make an effort and actually get some entry forms. (Kyla herself has done it a couple of times before.) Slightly more hardcore would be the Oxford to Cambridge bike ride, which I believe Neil was trying to sucker Derek into doing. As Neil has recently competed in a stage of the Tour de France, I think I’ll be giving that one a miss.