Every couple of years I try to do something to raise money for charities that mean something to me. 2 years ago, after getting back into cycling I rode from Lands End to John O Groats, which wasa great experience for me and helped me fulfil a long held dream and also raised over £3,000 for Help for Heroes and a local hospice that had treated my father in law.Unfortunately I had billed this ride to my wife as ‘the holiday of a lifetime’ so it has been difficult to negotiate another 2 week holiday on my own as she took me at my word!
Last year I organised a very pleasant ride from Winchester to London for a number of Cycle Chatters and I started to think an even longer ride across England could form the basis of a challenge, that was sufficient to impress my non cycling acquaintances into making some generous donations.
After a lot of time pondering maps I realised that a route from the Easternmost part of Wales just outside Symonds Yat in Herefordshire to the Easternmost point in England in Lowestoft could be ideal. This would be a relatively short ‘End to End’ ride and could be doable in 24 hours. The most direct route is just under 220 miles. However this is a really nasty ride using very busy A roads and going directly through large town centres. However with a bit of tweaking and the addition of a few intermediate checkpoints I was able to find a very nice route that was mainly on minor roads for the first half of the ride. This was less important for the second half of the ride as I knew I would be travelling across East Anglia in the early morning.
I have found Bing.com/maps to be really useful, as this is able to show OS maps and has the ability to produce routes which you can then alter by dragging the route onto a different road. But I also used bikehike.co.uk to plot the course for my Garmin 800 satnav. Having turn by turn instructions for the whole route makes such a difference because you don’t need to keep stopping to check a map or route sheet. It also means you can choose smaller roads and have the confidence you won’t get lost. The only note of caution is to take care with the routing on some websites such as bike hike that utilise Google Maps, for some reason this occasionally can send you down farm tracks that are not even rights of way. For this reason I always check with Ordance Survey maps to ensure the road is classified. I also use Google Street view to check some junctions and tracks.
As I have got into longer distance cycling I have started to do more Audaxes and this year I set myself the goal of doing a Super Randonneur Audax series (200, 300, 400 & 600km rides in a year). In May I did my first 400km around Kent and therefore knew I would be able to do the distance, so I registered the ride as another 400km ride.
My long suffering wife kindly offered to be my support crew for the ride and we travelled down to Herefordshire the night before and stayed in the Hostelrie in Goodrich. www.thehostelrieatgoodrich.com We can thoroughly recommend this for great value, delicious quality food. It probably wasn’t such a good idea to drink so much during and after the meal, but the Sloe gin was really nice as was the locally brewed beer!
One of the things I was hoping for was that I wouldn’t be riding into a headwind and that it would be dry. However in the days leading up to the ride the Met Office issued a severe weather warning for heavy rain and gales. Unfortunately on Saturday morning the weather forecast was spot on and it was raining persistently from when we first woke up . I couldn’t find anywhere to prepare my bike in the dry and I got absolutely soaked as I got ready. We even sat in the car for around an hour as it continued to pour down. Finally it slowed down a bit and we set off to find the border with Wales. This is situated about 1 mile West of Symonds Yat down a cycle track in the Forest. Regrettably, despite being ones of Wales’s cardinal points there is no sign, which is a shame.
Setting off from Wales.
Despite the poor weather forecast there was a blessing in that the high winds were coming from the West, so were on my back for most of the ride. However the roads were in an appalling state, with lots of surface water and grit on them, which slowed me down and didn’t do much for my wheel rims or bearings. When I was planning the ride I had envisaged stopping at various villages along the way to enjoy refreshments and meet my wife. Clearly I hadn’t really thought this through as driving across country is not much quicker than cycling and because I didn’t leave until 2pm we only met up once at a Tescos in Bishop’s Cleeve before she headed off to drive to the half way point in St Neots.
The scenery after Bishops Cleeve is spectacular and although I went North to avoid Cleeve Hill, the highest hill in the Cotswolds, I knew that eventually I would have to climb them. The route I had chosen to go up was Stanway Hill. 1.8 miles and 472 feet of climb according to Strava. It certainly seemed to go on for ever and my time was very low down the Strava rankings, but of course I was saving myself. Then up on the top it started raining heavily again, so I wasn’t able to really appreciate the views or the long down hill section to Chipping Campden. Finally a bit of sun came out and I was able to appreciate the real beauty of the Cotswolds, lovely villages with honey coloured buildings, rolling hills etc.
The sunshine was a bit short-lived as it started to get dark and there wasn’t even a sunset due to low cloud on the horizon. I was now at a bit of a low point and I really wanted to get something hot to eat as I had been surviving on food bars and water. I have also discovered that I lose my appetite when I do long rides, so choosing the right thing can be hard. I started to think a MacDonalds would be perfect and as I came near to Towcester I figured I would ride to the town centre and see if there was one. However as I rounded a corner I can’t describe my joy at seeing those Golden Arches. I wheeled my bike in with me and ordered something to eat. I was expecting someone to tell me to leave my bike outside, but they didn’t and I was made very welcome, although I did get some weird looks from all the motorcyclists who had been at Silverstone earlier in the day. My black leather look rainlegs probably didn’t help.
Warmed and fuelled I then set off on my last leg of the day. By now it was about 10.30pm and the roads were nice and quiet and generally dry. I made good progress to Olney, then decided that because it was so quiet I would take a fast route through Bedford. However I made the mistake of using my Garmin 800 to find a route. I think I might have had it set on cycle routing and it wouldn’t send me on the fast main road I wanted to go on. I probably lost about 20 minutes of faffing around, before finally I got on the main road A421 and A1 to St Neots. By now it was about 1pm and the roads were empty, so it was great fun going fast on a nice wide dual carriageway. Finally I had made it to the Premier Inn where my support crew was fast asleep. I grabbed a quick shower and about 90 minutes sleep, then left for the second leg at just before 4am.
It was already getting light when I left and the roads were empty. I was heading North East and the wind was directly behind me, so I was able to keep a really fast pace going. After a short while I was treated to a spectacular sunrise and this certainly helped to raise my spirits.
East Anglian Sunrise
By about 6 am I was approaching Ely and my lack of sleep was now starting to catch up with me, so I was able to stop for a coffee and a hot egg and bacon roll. I still haven’t got my head round, why I lose my appetite and why I had to force myself to eat every mouthful of something that I would normally wolf down in seconds. Anyway, this short stop was enough to get me over my sleepiness and looking back it didn’t feel that long before I was riding into Thetford in glorious early morning sunlight, although according to the GPS log, it took me nearly two hours. So maybe I was still partly asleep! Until this point I had been riding on main roads and this was fine for an early Sunday morning, but it was a relief to finally get onto the small lanes as the roads were starting to get busier. My route took me very close to the finish of the Audax UK National 400 at Hempnall and the organiser Keith Harrison had very kindly invited me to pop in for some refreshment. I met Alberto and Lucy, who I know from Friday Night Rides and it was nice to hear their experience of their first 400km, which had been very tough because of the winds.
The end was now in sight and I only had just over 50 kms to go. I had also arranged to meet my wife again at Rosie Lee’s café in Loddon. I can thoroughly recommend this, just as it was recommended to me, and in the short time we were there a number of other cyclists also turned up. Until this point I had been very impressed with Norfolk, with quiet roads and seemingly sensible drivers. However I had plotted a short section of the ride to cross the Broads on the A143 near Saint Olaves. What a nightmare! The road goes over a very steep bridge which has a blind summit and overtaking a cyclist is clearly a stupid thing to do. But it didn’t stop a succession of cars from trying and the last car to overtake, a Toyota Previa missed me by inches. All of these cars were then stopped at the traffic lights on the other side of the bridge, proving the futility of their manoeuvre. My GPS track shows this as being the point where had my maximum heart rate for the ride. Although I am not sure if it was the near death experience, chasing after the Previa, or the ensuing argument that raised it so much. I wasn’t surprised to find out later that this is one of the worst accident blackspots in the whole of Norfolk. My advice would be to avoid this section of road or ride in primary position and put up with the inevitable annoyed motorists.
After this drama I was back on some nice quiet roads as I finished the last few miles of the ride in Lowestoft. The hardest thing was turning South when I reached the sea and facing the full on headwind. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I reached my final destination at Ness Point. Having been to John O Groats I wasn’t hoping for much though and I wasn’t disappointed! So there I was, standing next to the Gas Works in a run down industrial estate, feeling elated to have finished my ride with half an hour to spare from the 24 hour goal I had set myself.
Finished at Last
Looking back at the ride I would thoroughly recommend it for the great variety of scenery, from the woods of the Forest of Dean, the beauty of the Cotswolds to the flatness of Norfolk. In addition, the chance of favourable winds and the fact that it is an End to End (of sorts) will hopefully appeal to others. The only thing I would change would be to choose some quieter roads across East Anglia If I was doing the ride at a different time of day.
You can take a look at my routes here.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/189970779 Part One
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/189970692 Part Two
In summary I had cycled 266miles in 23.5 hours with 9,700 feet of climbing.
Lastly I would like to say thank you to my wife Angela for supporting me on the ride and everyone who sponsored me. At the time of writing I have raised over £2,000 for the Macmillan Cancer Care and the Army Benevolent Fund.
www.virginmoneygiving.com/timdecker
Last year I organised a very pleasant ride from Winchester to London for a number of Cycle Chatters and I started to think an even longer ride across England could form the basis of a challenge, that was sufficient to impress my non cycling acquaintances into making some generous donations.
After a lot of time pondering maps I realised that a route from the Easternmost part of Wales just outside Symonds Yat in Herefordshire to the Easternmost point in England in Lowestoft could be ideal. This would be a relatively short ‘End to End’ ride and could be doable in 24 hours. The most direct route is just under 220 miles. However this is a really nasty ride using very busy A roads and going directly through large town centres. However with a bit of tweaking and the addition of a few intermediate checkpoints I was able to find a very nice route that was mainly on minor roads for the first half of the ride. This was less important for the second half of the ride as I knew I would be travelling across East Anglia in the early morning.
I have found Bing.com/maps to be really useful, as this is able to show OS maps and has the ability to produce routes which you can then alter by dragging the route onto a different road. But I also used bikehike.co.uk to plot the course for my Garmin 800 satnav. Having turn by turn instructions for the whole route makes such a difference because you don’t need to keep stopping to check a map or route sheet. It also means you can choose smaller roads and have the confidence you won’t get lost. The only note of caution is to take care with the routing on some websites such as bike hike that utilise Google Maps, for some reason this occasionally can send you down farm tracks that are not even rights of way. For this reason I always check with Ordance Survey maps to ensure the road is classified. I also use Google Street view to check some junctions and tracks.
As I have got into longer distance cycling I have started to do more Audaxes and this year I set myself the goal of doing a Super Randonneur Audax series (200, 300, 400 & 600km rides in a year). In May I did my first 400km around Kent and therefore knew I would be able to do the distance, so I registered the ride as another 400km ride.
My long suffering wife kindly offered to be my support crew for the ride and we travelled down to Herefordshire the night before and stayed in the Hostelrie in Goodrich. www.thehostelrieatgoodrich.com We can thoroughly recommend this for great value, delicious quality food. It probably wasn’t such a good idea to drink so much during and after the meal, but the Sloe gin was really nice as was the locally brewed beer!
One of the things I was hoping for was that I wouldn’t be riding into a headwind and that it would be dry. However in the days leading up to the ride the Met Office issued a severe weather warning for heavy rain and gales. Unfortunately on Saturday morning the weather forecast was spot on and it was raining persistently from when we first woke up . I couldn’t find anywhere to prepare my bike in the dry and I got absolutely soaked as I got ready. We even sat in the car for around an hour as it continued to pour down. Finally it slowed down a bit and we set off to find the border with Wales. This is situated about 1 mile West of Symonds Yat down a cycle track in the Forest. Regrettably, despite being ones of Wales’s cardinal points there is no sign, which is a shame.
Setting off from Wales.
Despite the poor weather forecast there was a blessing in that the high winds were coming from the West, so were on my back for most of the ride. However the roads were in an appalling state, with lots of surface water and grit on them, which slowed me down and didn’t do much for my wheel rims or bearings. When I was planning the ride I had envisaged stopping at various villages along the way to enjoy refreshments and meet my wife. Clearly I hadn’t really thought this through as driving across country is not much quicker than cycling and because I didn’t leave until 2pm we only met up once at a Tescos in Bishop’s Cleeve before she headed off to drive to the half way point in St Neots.
The scenery after Bishops Cleeve is spectacular and although I went North to avoid Cleeve Hill, the highest hill in the Cotswolds, I knew that eventually I would have to climb them. The route I had chosen to go up was Stanway Hill. 1.8 miles and 472 feet of climb according to Strava. It certainly seemed to go on for ever and my time was very low down the Strava rankings, but of course I was saving myself. Then up on the top it started raining heavily again, so I wasn’t able to really appreciate the views or the long down hill section to Chipping Campden. Finally a bit of sun came out and I was able to appreciate the real beauty of the Cotswolds, lovely villages with honey coloured buildings, rolling hills etc.
The sunshine was a bit short-lived as it started to get dark and there wasn’t even a sunset due to low cloud on the horizon. I was now at a bit of a low point and I really wanted to get something hot to eat as I had been surviving on food bars and water. I have also discovered that I lose my appetite when I do long rides, so choosing the right thing can be hard. I started to think a MacDonalds would be perfect and as I came near to Towcester I figured I would ride to the town centre and see if there was one. However as I rounded a corner I can’t describe my joy at seeing those Golden Arches. I wheeled my bike in with me and ordered something to eat. I was expecting someone to tell me to leave my bike outside, but they didn’t and I was made very welcome, although I did get some weird looks from all the motorcyclists who had been at Silverstone earlier in the day. My black leather look rainlegs probably didn’t help.
Warmed and fuelled I then set off on my last leg of the day. By now it was about 10.30pm and the roads were nice and quiet and generally dry. I made good progress to Olney, then decided that because it was so quiet I would take a fast route through Bedford. However I made the mistake of using my Garmin 800 to find a route. I think I might have had it set on cycle routing and it wouldn’t send me on the fast main road I wanted to go on. I probably lost about 20 minutes of faffing around, before finally I got on the main road A421 and A1 to St Neots. By now it was about 1pm and the roads were empty, so it was great fun going fast on a nice wide dual carriageway. Finally I had made it to the Premier Inn where my support crew was fast asleep. I grabbed a quick shower and about 90 minutes sleep, then left for the second leg at just before 4am.
It was already getting light when I left and the roads were empty. I was heading North East and the wind was directly behind me, so I was able to keep a really fast pace going. After a short while I was treated to a spectacular sunrise and this certainly helped to raise my spirits.
East Anglian Sunrise
By about 6 am I was approaching Ely and my lack of sleep was now starting to catch up with me, so I was able to stop for a coffee and a hot egg and bacon roll. I still haven’t got my head round, why I lose my appetite and why I had to force myself to eat every mouthful of something that I would normally wolf down in seconds. Anyway, this short stop was enough to get me over my sleepiness and looking back it didn’t feel that long before I was riding into Thetford in glorious early morning sunlight, although according to the GPS log, it took me nearly two hours. So maybe I was still partly asleep! Until this point I had been riding on main roads and this was fine for an early Sunday morning, but it was a relief to finally get onto the small lanes as the roads were starting to get busier. My route took me very close to the finish of the Audax UK National 400 at Hempnall and the organiser Keith Harrison had very kindly invited me to pop in for some refreshment. I met Alberto and Lucy, who I know from Friday Night Rides and it was nice to hear their experience of their first 400km, which had been very tough because of the winds.
The end was now in sight and I only had just over 50 kms to go. I had also arranged to meet my wife again at Rosie Lee’s café in Loddon. I can thoroughly recommend this, just as it was recommended to me, and in the short time we were there a number of other cyclists also turned up. Until this point I had been very impressed with Norfolk, with quiet roads and seemingly sensible drivers. However I had plotted a short section of the ride to cross the Broads on the A143 near Saint Olaves. What a nightmare! The road goes over a very steep bridge which has a blind summit and overtaking a cyclist is clearly a stupid thing to do. But it didn’t stop a succession of cars from trying and the last car to overtake, a Toyota Previa missed me by inches. All of these cars were then stopped at the traffic lights on the other side of the bridge, proving the futility of their manoeuvre. My GPS track shows this as being the point where had my maximum heart rate for the ride. Although I am not sure if it was the near death experience, chasing after the Previa, or the ensuing argument that raised it so much. I wasn’t surprised to find out later that this is one of the worst accident blackspots in the whole of Norfolk. My advice would be to avoid this section of road or ride in primary position and put up with the inevitable annoyed motorists.
After this drama I was back on some nice quiet roads as I finished the last few miles of the ride in Lowestoft. The hardest thing was turning South when I reached the sea and facing the full on headwind. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I reached my final destination at Ness Point. Having been to John O Groats I wasn’t hoping for much though and I wasn’t disappointed! So there I was, standing next to the Gas Works in a run down industrial estate, feeling elated to have finished my ride with half an hour to spare from the 24 hour goal I had set myself.
Finished at Last
Looking back at the ride I would thoroughly recommend it for the great variety of scenery, from the woods of the Forest of Dean, the beauty of the Cotswolds to the flatness of Norfolk. In addition, the chance of favourable winds and the fact that it is an End to End (of sorts) will hopefully appeal to others. The only thing I would change would be to choose some quieter roads across East Anglia If I was doing the ride at a different time of day.
You can take a look at my routes here.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/189970779 Part One
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/189970692 Part Two
In summary I had cycled 266miles in 23.5 hours with 9,700 feet of climbing.
Lastly I would like to say thank you to my wife Angela for supporting me on the ride and everyone who sponsored me. At the time of writing I have raised over £2,000 for the Macmillan Cancer Care and the Army Benevolent Fund.
www.virginmoneygiving.com/timdecker
