And so it begins…

What have we done?!

We got off to a fairly good if a little late start; the flat looked better than it ever has with us living in it and our vintage spice collection is no more. The problems started when we got onto the bikes and started pedaling off.

It has been a very wet winter. We started the year with the good intention of a ride a week; instead we enjoyed time with friends, lived our best Bristol lives and discovered saunas. We’ve done these trips before, we said; starting with very little cycling training would be fine, we said. Right now, we are questioning our life choices.

We’d decided, somewhat naively to ride 117km on our first day. If you’ve been avidly reading the rest of our blog you may have noticed that we have planned to ride on average of 100km a day. Breaking ourselves in gently then. The morning kicked off with a couple of hills that I slightly dread on an unloaded bike. Somehow, we managed to spin up to the top. So far, so good.

Anyone who uses the app komoot to plot their cycling routes will know it can have at times, some interesting navigational choices. I’ve been directed over stiles, down rickety steps and through a field with a rather fabulous, but feral, horse. Our first day was one of these komoot specials with the added bonus of every cyclist’s dream – a mechanical.

The weather forecast for the week wasn’t ideal – considerably colder than average for the time of year with chances of hail. We mercifully escaped the hail, but out of the sun it was cold. Very cold. We stopped for lunch on a park bench in Chippenham, huddling together for warmth like penguins. After we quickly wolfed down our sandwiches, komoot started to take us a little off piste. The route put our mudguards and suspension (aka our bums and knees) through its paces. We slowly progressed through mud and around potholes, enjoying the sights and scents of a municiple waste site. When we finally emerged onto tarmac, the rattling commenced. We pedaled further and the rattling continued, getting louder as it called out for attention. Ben’s gears started not to shift, and we enjoyed a slow section through Snavernake forest, stopping and starting as we googled, tinkered, tested and tried again. We finally flopped into our purple palace (aka Premier Inn) for our purple bikes at 7.30pm having cycled the last half hour along the canal in the dark, desperately hoping we wouldn’t cycle into it.

Day 2 started with a quest to find a seemingly non-existent bike shop to fix the shifter after we tried and failed once again to fix it ourselves. The mechanic had kindly agreed to squeeze us into a busy morning, told us he worked from home, and we then proceeded to spend a fair bit of time cycling around an industrial estate hoping that this wasn’t where he lived. When we finally located him (I’m pleased to report he lives in a pleasant looking residential area) I waited in the rain while Ben found out that his chain had been routed the wrong way (Ben claims it wasn’t him that did this…).

We rejoined the canal where we had incidences with two types of ducks in quick succession. The first, a mallard, jaywalked across the towpath causing an emergency stop first for Ben, and a few seconds too late, me, as I collided into the back of him. Somehow the bikes, and duck, escaped unscathed. The second duck you can see in the photograph.

We were soon reminded how nice the route skirting the waste site was on the first day. Day 2 followed a lovely little road called the M4, think broken glass and used toilet roll. This sort of intercity trudge would put anyone off cycling, and did a fine job to once again make us question our choices. The cycle path snaked along and across the road, weaving in and out of cul de sacs and stopping every hundred metres at yet another set of traffic lights. Ben named a section into Bracknell “new build hell”. I quite enjoyed it in a perverse sort of way, detached houses separated by mere millimetres and endless driveways.

Every so often we’d detour off the aptly named London Road and have a moment of respite before rejoining it again far too soon. The nicest stretch by far was through Windsor Great Park which was eerily quiet in a way which made you doubt you were allowed to be there. After this, the road became straighter and somehow more relentless. It widened into two carriages and then three. Planes swooped down on us as we cycled under Heathrow’s flight path. After many miles we gave up finding a nice spot for a snack and ate flapjack on the side of the motorway. My knee began to ache. I’d slipped in the bath the night before like the old person I’m quickly becoming and a purple bruise was blossoming on my left knee. It hurt with every stop and start and there were many of those left to come.

The Hammersmith flyover emerged above us, the rain started and not long after the road became more dignified and chaotic in a different way – Friday night in London chaotic. We found ourselves once again completing the last stretch of the ride in the dark, tired and hungry.

After a rest day saying the last of our goodbyes we began another slog out of the city, reminding us how we don’t miss cycling in London – even with Sunday traffic we found it too much. We slowly trudged back out through the layers of London – the chaos of the inner city, followed by industry and the outer layer of more new build hell. We cycled alongside motorways once more, this time passing a surprising number of families out for a weekend stroll through the collection of trees strung alongside the moving vehicles somehow functioning as a park. Despite it not being the best route or the best weather, this was the first time the trip started to feel real, and the sense of calm and freedom set in. We are so lucky to have so many friends and family who we are really going to miss over this next year, and saying goodbye to everyone over a short space of time has been overwhelming. We’re both natural introverts and need time to ourselves (and from each other) to recharge, and I always find that a run, a swim or a bike ride gives me more mental energy than the physical energy it takes away. So even though my legs are a little worse for wear, by the time we finish our third day my head feels a little clearer.

Another night, another Premier Inn, this time in Gillingham. Gusts of wind buffer us along the final kilometers along the waterfront. By morning, they have died down to be replaced by sunshine. We start off along the waterfront through a country park, enjoying a leisurely pace thanks to the number of gates we have to negotiate. These have been installed to prevent scooters and horses along the path but make our journey quite challenging – we have to contort ourselves and our bikes to squeeze through.

It takes us a lot longer than planned to reach our lunch spot in Canterbury and by the time we have set up our chairs (Ben’s favourite bike trip purchase) and worked through some very dry DIY sandwiches it’s school pick up time. As we leave we overtake a constant stream of lone, mute youths all walking out towards the countryside. It’s a slightly surreal experience like the opening scenes of a horror film. In reality, it’s the beginning of a steady ascent over many rolling hills, the anticipation of which with our ladden bikes feels just as terrifying.

Despite the incline, the late afternoon cycle is a nice one, following a national cycle path along quiet country lanes starting to show signs of spring. It’s not too long before we start a sharp descent; one minute we are glimpsing the sea in the distance, the next the white cliffs of dover are over our shoulders (a line that I sing a little too shrilly to Ben multiple times during our short stay there).

We check into – you’ve guessed it – another Premier Inn. We aren’t sponsored by them (yet) but are slightly obsessed given that they have a universal policy that allows you to bring a bike (or in our case two) into any hotel room, making our emergency hotel stops in the UK far less logistically challenging. This is our last planned hotel stop for a little while – once we hit mainland Europe our budgeting officially commences, and that means camping. We booked ourselves into hotels in the UK claiming that campsites wouldn’t be open in March – although I must admit this is a fact that neither of us thought to verify. Until now, we have been easing ourselves in gently with cooked breakfasts and dinners out, treating the UK stint like a slightly sadistic holiday. As we think ahead to the meals to come, I do a very good job of convincing myself that I am excited to leave the fried beige food behind and fully embrace our camp kitchen. Tomorrow when we reach Belgium, we will finally discover whether we can use our new camping stove…