Home2Home Audax
468km / 290 miles from Chelmsford to Marton (Middlesbrough) in one ride, 22h40m of riding time over a total duration of 28h46m
As a backup plan for half term, I pulled together a 400km DIY audax based on the LEL route for 2017, modifying the early section to start from Chelmsford and follow some familiar audax routes out to intercept the LEL. It’s just a ‘short ride’ from Thirsk so I noticed I could kill two birds with one stone and realise another ambition to cycle from home in Chelmsford to home near Middlesbrough – so Home2home was born.
After watching the weather for a couple of days prior, the weather gods appeared to be pleased enough to dish up mild weather and what should have been a SW tailwind. After getting all the kit together, I was still undecided as to should I be wearing winter longs or shorts and leg warmers, opting for the latter to give me more options.
The appointed departure time was 18:30, planned to give me time to grab food at Saffron Walden (50km) and also to facilitate crossing the Humber Bridge in the daylight. Departure was fairly smooth, familiar roads out of Chelmsford, a chat with a Geordie on a Brompton at the lights on Parkway about the ride and then up Broomfield Road and in to country lanes to Great Dunmow. From there I had opted for the direct route through Thaxted and on to Saffron Waldon. About 5km from SW it started to rain, getting hard enough for me to stop to put on the rain top. In true fashion, it stopped once I had left SW! I decided not to bother with a stop in SW and continued on in to the night and on to more familiar roads in to Cambridgeshire. I experimented with listening to MP3s from my phone to keep me company but inside the bar bag it was only just audible…
My next stop was planned for A14 Services, which as I was getting closer to, my mind was trying to answer the question, what to eat… McD’s won out and I checked the garage out as I passed it to see how busy it was as being 23:00 I was thinking the McD’s might be overrun with post pub goers. As it turned out, the queue was moderately sized but the food didn’t seem to be arriving and the orders seemed to be taken at a slow pace, so after 2 mins of witnessing this, I decided to head to the garage instead. A poor coffee from the machine, a toasted cheese and ham panini, bag of sliced apple and a bag of 5 bits of ‘rocky road’ came to around £9 and was the most expensive meal of the trip! On the plus side, the chap happily filled my water bottles for me.
From here it was out towards the fens. I had bought a small DAB radio to keep me company and set off to the tunes of brass bands on Radio 2. Happily Janice Long came on entertaining me through till she was replaced by Sarah Cox Sounds of the 80’s and all the way through another DJ (Penny?) to Chris
Evans… by which time I was struggling to keep the single ear piece in place, so gave up…
Back to after leaving A14 Services, I took the fab cycle path up to Swavesey and after a brief bit of road, turned left on to the cycle path along the Cambridge Guided Busway to reach St Ives. Along the path I came across a group of youths riding around the area on bikes with bright lights, one with a cone attached to the rear of his bike… later upon reaching St Ives, the cone theme continued with a few cars now sporting new roof enhancements and also Cromwell getting a new hat!
From here, after a few roads, I eventually hit the Fens proper and made good progress up to Whittlesey where I called in to the 24hr Esso for some food (water, milkshake, crisps, ham and cheese sandwich, bounty). More flat riding came next with eventually Spalding for the 24hr BP there for a quick coffee and to stock up on some more food (water, milkshake, pickle + ham and cheese sandwich) to see me through the next 4 hours out of the fens and in to the Lincolnshire Wolds up to Louth. The run through the fens was cold at times but not cold enough to have warranted the winter longs, so I chose well in the clothing department – if anything I was a bit too warm. I was surprised at how busy the roads were with freight and on the most it was well behaved with the exception on one HGV which barely pulled out as it came past me. At an allotted time, which I had decided in my head whilst along the road, I spotted a Audax hotel and pulled over to sit down and quaff my milkshake and eat the sandwich. I contemplated if I could have a snooze, but decided not to bother. At this point I was able to enjoy the milky way and the rest of the stars, but there was no sign of any aurora which there had been a possibility of. The Fens should be very dark, and in some places they are, but they are also very flat, so there is a lot of light pollution on the horizon which doesn’t help in seeing.
The Lincs Wolds came as a little bit of a shock to the system as expected, with the rolling of the road signalling the approach of what should be the biggest climb of the ride up to Stenigot. Passing a 10% sign I looked in to the vanishing point of the road as it went up and curved round and thought, that’s more than 10%... 14% actually according to the Garmin as I went up it… All went well from there onwards, the sun made an appearance, there was pretty mist in the fields and after some more “scenic” roads I was in Louth for breakfast at Weatherspoons. I had pre-called the day before and managed to sweet talk the manager in to letting me bring my bike through to their enclosed garden. I settled down to coffee and a large breakfast but couldn’t manage it, I was suffering from similar issues to Hereward of The Wake and had lost my appetite, despite lots of hydration on the way there. Half eaten I set an alarm on my phone for 20 mins and shut my eyes for the type of rest where you can hear everything going on but thinking you are still getting some benefit from the resting the eyes! Another coffee and I was on the road again after I had changed from my long sleeved windproof jersey in to my ACME short sleeved jersey.
After leaving Louth with some gentle climbing out of the town, in my head it was all downhill to the Humber Bridge. However in reality it was a series of 8% climbs up and down the “scenic” roads through the Wolds – after about the 5th rolling section I was starting to curse *Wolds (replace with either Lincs or Yorkshire!). On the plus side, the sun was coming out and warming up nicely – so much so the leg warmers were removed and I ditched my base layer.
Eventually arriving in Barton and a long wiggle through the town I arrived at the bridge and cycled over. The planned stop was a deli outlet at Hesllewood Business centre (built around the building of a stately home), the deli been located in the old shooting lodge. Portion sizes were massive, but again I struggled to get through the pasty and cream/custard slice. The hot sweet tea and coke went down well though!
The run to Pocklington was uneventful but I was certainly feeling worse for the lack of food. I’d written off doing any more long distance cycling (a big no to LEL, let along anymore 600km rides etc) and was only just managing to justify to myself in my head keeping my 200km monthly rides going… On top of this I seemed to be stopping for a hedge stop every 10km and not loving it at all… I remembered I had been carrying a bag of jelly bean for most of the year, so cracked them open which helped. At Pocklington I had my heart set on Jam Donuts, but there were none to be found so I made do with jaffa cakes, Mars milkshake and a couple of Snickers. Drinking the milkshake I watched the gliders being aerotowed up in to the active late afternoon sky.
The ride from here was in to the proper hills and towards Thirsk but the forecast SW was more W and causing some problems – on the plus side, the setting sun was doing great things to the autumnal colours making what I thought was going to be the worst section of the ride actually the most enjoyable!.... After Aldby Park I eventually found myself starting some nice meaty climbing up Mains Lane, I knew I couldn’t be far from Castle Howard now and as I swore again as the road climbed around each corner, I was rewarded by the sight of the Monument to 7th Earl of Carlisle, and then on the main attraction the rolling long road through the Carrmire Gate and Pyramid Gate on the Great Obelisk. I was lucky with the sun still just around in the sky on my arrival, but by the time I was getting to the end of the long road, it was starting to rain and get dark. I stopped to swap in to the rain jacket, in true fashion it wasn’t needed for more than 10 mins after but I kept it on to aid visibility.
From here it was a series of long climbs and fast dark descents to eventually see me through Coxwold and out on to a short blast along the A19. For quite some time I had been totally lost in the dark not knowing where I was, confused by some of the road signs (there are a lot of duplicated place names, so I knew the Kildale signed here wasn’t the one close to home, but the mind was worrying a bit!) I was total reliant on the GPS route to get me to Thirsk…. So I was never so glad to see the A19 and recognise a road name! Getting to Sowerby I was getting in familiar territory.
Just as I was at the back of the Arrivée (finish) pub in Thirsk, my Garmin died… it had managed 410km without an incident. I’d nursed the backlight (a current theory of mine was the backlight circuit overheating causing the shutdowns) and was just thinking – this has done well! Worryingly, it booted back up and then powered off again…. On the second attempt, it came up OK and the recording was still intact!... phew!
I had contemplated jacking at Thirsk… the Audax would be in the bag, but knowing I would have ‘unfinished business’ in relation to riding home to home kept me going..
A large burger and chips with coffee worked wonders from Thirsk Weatherspoons. I headed off in to the night but decided I couldn’t be bothered with the route I had plotted, I’d done enough battle along trunk roads so far on the ride to not let the prospect of a busy road get in the way – so with renewed energy I hammered it (relative to the last 300km) along the A168 in preference to the quieter A167 and shaved a few km off. At Northallerton I phoned ahead and advised not to bother with the planned pizza at the finish, I had eaten enough at ‘spoons and didn’t think I would be able to eat a pizza as well. The energy from ‘spoons lasted for a good hour or so before I stopped to ingest an energy gel. That worked wonders too and I hammered it all the way back via some very dodgy fast descending (tired induced brain fade to follow road direction at speed in the damp – I was lucky to stay upright at 55kph!) through Hutton Rudby.
The gel effect lasted to about 5km to go and then cruised home to a hero’s welcome on the door step Mam, Dad and Jose all trying to take pictures at 23:15 in the dark of ‘bloody cyclist’ arriving in the front garden looking “lit up like something from Star Trek” – what must the neighbors have thought!
I made an effort to keep more in touch on social media this ride mostly to manage expectations around arrival but the amount of positive encouragement really helped during the inevitable mental lows these rides give you to battle through... so a huge thanks for the encouragement!
A close call with a muntjac dear that darted across my path, rabbits and a few field mice but other than that, a low visible animal count for the ride.
)
