mgarl10024
Über Member
- Location
- Bristol
Hi all,
Last Monday, my girlfriend and I did our longest ever trip and I thought I'd share the experiences for anyone that's interested.
Last October, we did what we've called the Around Bristol Cycle and covered 34 miles. We'd only had the bikes around 6mths, so were pretty proud of ourselves. Since then, we've done a few trips to Bath (about 25-30 miles), and recently due to that awful cold that went around we hadn't done a lot of cycling (aside from me commuting). My girlfriend especially hadn't done a lot of cycling at all.
With this in mind, we set off to do a slowish cycle to Bitton Railway Station (under 10 miles away). I do enjoy going to Bitton Railway Station, as they often have Steam Trains running up and down the 3-4 miles of track they have. The kids love it, and they've got a lovely café which is great for cold ice creams on a hot day or a warm cup of hot chocolate on a chilly day. As a kid, I used to go on the "Santa Express" where 'he' was handing out presents to the children, amazingly in every carriage simultaneously - although my parents reassured me that he could be in many places at once due to 'magic'. It's funny how things come about, as shortly after graduating, the company I worked for were supplying a software solution to manage bookings on the Santa Express and I helped design the software alongside the Station Manager.
Bitton is also currently in a disagreement with cyclists. The railway wants to expand, taking up half of the width of the cycle path, and this is opposed by the cyclists. There's signs everywhere saying that people should boycott the station if they love the path - it'll be interesting to see how this one plays out as it really is the cyclists who have made Bitton as successful as it is.
Whilst at Bitton, my Girlfriend said "I'm feeling good - lets go on for Bath" (another 15ish miles total). "Sure", so off we went. We finished the Bristol-Bath path, and headed along the canal path into Bath. My Girlfriend isn't too keen on the canal path bit - she feels that it is quite narrow and close to the water, and keeps thinking she's going to fall in! It was a lovely day and there were a couple of narrow boats chugging along slowly. Motivated by the thought of a pasty (we tend to go to the Cornish Bakehouse where they serve them in small, medium, large and GIANT size, and I'm not telling you which I went for
) we walked into Bath centre and along by Pulteney Bridge (Great Pic (not mine)).
I looked at my Girlfriend and remembering that she hadn't done a lot of cycling recently said "now, I don't want to go along it," (I'm keen not to push her to cycle further than she's comfortable because she wont enjoy it and will be less likely to go again) "but I wouldn't mind just finding the start of the Kennet and Avon canal path so that we know where to get on it when we are ready", so off we went. I knew it was at the north side of Sidney Gardens and had Google Earth'd / Streetview'd it previously. We found it quite easily, although some of the roads around Sidney Gardens felt too fast for my Girlfriend so we walked round.
"Well, we could do just a mile" she said, surprising me. So, forgoing the pasty, we started. A bit further in, we spotted the Batheaston Swainstick Bypass which looked massive. A mile or so in, we discussed how the Dundas Aqueduct (a real marvel of engineering of the early 1800s) was just a few miles away so we agreed to go 'just to there'. Once we arrived, it really was a sight and something I really enjoyed seeing.
My Girlfriend then spots a sign reading "Bradford on Avon, 4 miles". "Well," she said, surprising me again, "it would be silly to come all this way and not reach Bradford on Avon". "Are you sure?" - I checked, making sure not to pressure her. "Yep." - 30 mins later we arrived, and being unprepared as the trip was unplanned, didn't really know where to go. We stopped at The Barge Inn where we bought two astronomically priced pints of soft drink (I did spot the Stowford Press but thought it unwise in case of dehydration). We did look at the food, but it all seemed really expensive and we didn't really want full meals to bloat us for the way back. If anyone has any recommendations for pubs in Bradford on Avon, do let me know.
We decided that we'd head back to Bath and on the way scoop up the long-promised pasty. On returning to Bath, it was nearing 4pm, and there was concern over whether the pasty shop would still be open - although we were relieved when we got nearer and noticed a man walking along with a pasty bag.
We took our well-earned pasties to 'the square' in Bath, next to the Bath Abbey and the Roman Baths. It's a real pleasure to sit there, watching all the tourists milling about and to hear all of the street performers. Refuelled, we set off home.
Overall, I'd say that the Kennet and Avon path between Bath and Bradford on Avon was 'ok'. I'm not sure I'd do it again. It certainly was really picturesque - the canal with hundreds of different narrow boats on it, the green of the trees, the River Avon and the hills carved by it surrounding you - if you were into photography then this is hard to beat. However, the path itself wasn't all that wide (1.5m or so compared with 3ish meters of the Bristol-Bath path) and so not a favourite of my Girlfriend (I did ask that if she didn't like the canal path by Bath, why she suggested that we go down another 20 miles of it, and what exactly she was expecting!
) In fairness, there are a number of bridges where you must go under them, along a path next to the canal that is no more than about 1m wide and that someone coming the other way presents a big challenge.
The surface was also quite bad. A lot of it was 'smoke dust' - like a small white gravel - and this was fine. It did coat up your bike (my panniers now give off a cloud of dust when slapped) but this can be washed off easily, and my chain did look very furry when done. However, where there was no dust, you were through to the next layer of cycle path which was made up of loads of sharp stones (between 5cm-10cm) which meant that you bounced along. After 20 miles of bouncing, our wrists and bums were shot and my Girlfriend's bike has developed a new squeak that it didn't have before. Given how much I've heard about the Kennet and Avon canal path, and that it is a National Cycle route, I was just expecting something surfaced a little better. Until this trip I was considering going further up the path, perhaps over a few days and staying in a few B&Bs - however if the whole path is like that I don't think my joints, bum, or hybrid without suspension would take it very well. I did see a couple of racing/road bikes on it though, so maybe it's just as my work colleagues not-so-politely tell me, that I have a pounds-per-square-inch problem.
We're also not sure if we chose a stupid day (a bank hol), but there were literally thousands of people on the path. At some points, we were down to 2-3mph behind a queue of walkers. Very occasionally you might hit 8mph before being slowed down by other people blocking you. There were a load of cyclists though. There was one group of walkers and this fat chap aged about 60 said in a loud voice (louder than he needed to for his group to hear cause he wanted the world to know his golden words) "the thing you have to watch out for are all these idiots on bikes". I nearly slammed on the brakes (which on the smoke dust would have looked spectacular), but he wasn't really directing it at me and I didn't see what it could achieve.
We did however find this Mum and her little girl (about 5 years old). This girl had a really loud squeaky horn (think dog toy) and every time someone was in front of her she'd go mental on this horn - everyone would look round, smile, and move out of her way. We stayed behind her for many miles - it was like chasing an ambulance through traffic.
We later saw her again in Bitton, so for such little legs she'd covered some distance - fair play.
We covered an impressive (for us) 48.5 miles. I was tempted to do another couple to get a 50 in, but thought that would be unfair on my Girlfriend who just wanted to get off of her saddle. The biggest casualty of the day was her rear, and she's currently looking for padded shorts that she can hide underneath some baggy outer shorts as she doesn't want to be seen in lycra (recommendations welcome!). For the next few days, she kept mentioning that she was a little sore and that this (knowing full well that she was pushing to go further) was "because I made her do that long cycle". *sigh*
Thanks for reading,
MG
Last Monday, my girlfriend and I did our longest ever trip and I thought I'd share the experiences for anyone that's interested.
Last October, we did what we've called the Around Bristol Cycle and covered 34 miles. We'd only had the bikes around 6mths, so were pretty proud of ourselves. Since then, we've done a few trips to Bath (about 25-30 miles), and recently due to that awful cold that went around we hadn't done a lot of cycling (aside from me commuting). My girlfriend especially hadn't done a lot of cycling at all.
With this in mind, we set off to do a slowish cycle to Bitton Railway Station (under 10 miles away). I do enjoy going to Bitton Railway Station, as they often have Steam Trains running up and down the 3-4 miles of track they have. The kids love it, and they've got a lovely café which is great for cold ice creams on a hot day or a warm cup of hot chocolate on a chilly day. As a kid, I used to go on the "Santa Express" where 'he' was handing out presents to the children, amazingly in every carriage simultaneously - although my parents reassured me that he could be in many places at once due to 'magic'. It's funny how things come about, as shortly after graduating, the company I worked for were supplying a software solution to manage bookings on the Santa Express and I helped design the software alongside the Station Manager.
Bitton is also currently in a disagreement with cyclists. The railway wants to expand, taking up half of the width of the cycle path, and this is opposed by the cyclists. There's signs everywhere saying that people should boycott the station if they love the path - it'll be interesting to see how this one plays out as it really is the cyclists who have made Bitton as successful as it is.
Whilst at Bitton, my Girlfriend said "I'm feeling good - lets go on for Bath" (another 15ish miles total). "Sure", so off we went. We finished the Bristol-Bath path, and headed along the canal path into Bath. My Girlfriend isn't too keen on the canal path bit - she feels that it is quite narrow and close to the water, and keeps thinking she's going to fall in! It was a lovely day and there were a couple of narrow boats chugging along slowly. Motivated by the thought of a pasty (we tend to go to the Cornish Bakehouse where they serve them in small, medium, large and GIANT size, and I'm not telling you which I went for
) we walked into Bath centre and along by Pulteney Bridge (Great Pic (not mine)).I looked at my Girlfriend and remembering that she hadn't done a lot of cycling recently said "now, I don't want to go along it," (I'm keen not to push her to cycle further than she's comfortable because she wont enjoy it and will be less likely to go again) "but I wouldn't mind just finding the start of the Kennet and Avon canal path so that we know where to get on it when we are ready", so off we went. I knew it was at the north side of Sidney Gardens and had Google Earth'd / Streetview'd it previously. We found it quite easily, although some of the roads around Sidney Gardens felt too fast for my Girlfriend so we walked round.
"Well, we could do just a mile" she said, surprising me. So, forgoing the pasty, we started. A bit further in, we spotted the Batheaston Swainstick Bypass which looked massive. A mile or so in, we discussed how the Dundas Aqueduct (a real marvel of engineering of the early 1800s) was just a few miles away so we agreed to go 'just to there'. Once we arrived, it really was a sight and something I really enjoyed seeing.
My Girlfriend then spots a sign reading "Bradford on Avon, 4 miles". "Well," she said, surprising me again, "it would be silly to come all this way and not reach Bradford on Avon". "Are you sure?" - I checked, making sure not to pressure her. "Yep." - 30 mins later we arrived, and being unprepared as the trip was unplanned, didn't really know where to go. We stopped at The Barge Inn where we bought two astronomically priced pints of soft drink (I did spot the Stowford Press but thought it unwise in case of dehydration). We did look at the food, but it all seemed really expensive and we didn't really want full meals to bloat us for the way back. If anyone has any recommendations for pubs in Bradford on Avon, do let me know.
We decided that we'd head back to Bath and on the way scoop up the long-promised pasty. On returning to Bath, it was nearing 4pm, and there was concern over whether the pasty shop would still be open - although we were relieved when we got nearer and noticed a man walking along with a pasty bag.
We took our well-earned pasties to 'the square' in Bath, next to the Bath Abbey and the Roman Baths. It's a real pleasure to sit there, watching all the tourists milling about and to hear all of the street performers. Refuelled, we set off home.
Overall, I'd say that the Kennet and Avon path between Bath and Bradford on Avon was 'ok'. I'm not sure I'd do it again. It certainly was really picturesque - the canal with hundreds of different narrow boats on it, the green of the trees, the River Avon and the hills carved by it surrounding you - if you were into photography then this is hard to beat. However, the path itself wasn't all that wide (1.5m or so compared with 3ish meters of the Bristol-Bath path) and so not a favourite of my Girlfriend (I did ask that if she didn't like the canal path by Bath, why she suggested that we go down another 20 miles of it, and what exactly she was expecting!
) In fairness, there are a number of bridges where you must go under them, along a path next to the canal that is no more than about 1m wide and that someone coming the other way presents a big challenge.The surface was also quite bad. A lot of it was 'smoke dust' - like a small white gravel - and this was fine. It did coat up your bike (my panniers now give off a cloud of dust when slapped) but this can be washed off easily, and my chain did look very furry when done. However, where there was no dust, you were through to the next layer of cycle path which was made up of loads of sharp stones (between 5cm-10cm) which meant that you bounced along. After 20 miles of bouncing, our wrists and bums were shot and my Girlfriend's bike has developed a new squeak that it didn't have before. Given how much I've heard about the Kennet and Avon canal path, and that it is a National Cycle route, I was just expecting something surfaced a little better. Until this trip I was considering going further up the path, perhaps over a few days and staying in a few B&Bs - however if the whole path is like that I don't think my joints, bum, or hybrid without suspension would take it very well. I did see a couple of racing/road bikes on it though, so maybe it's just as my work colleagues not-so-politely tell me, that I have a pounds-per-square-inch problem.
We're also not sure if we chose a stupid day (a bank hol), but there were literally thousands of people on the path. At some points, we were down to 2-3mph behind a queue of walkers. Very occasionally you might hit 8mph before being slowed down by other people blocking you. There were a load of cyclists though. There was one group of walkers and this fat chap aged about 60 said in a loud voice (louder than he needed to for his group to hear cause he wanted the world to know his golden words) "the thing you have to watch out for are all these idiots on bikes". I nearly slammed on the brakes (which on the smoke dust would have looked spectacular), but he wasn't really directing it at me and I didn't see what it could achieve.
We did however find this Mum and her little girl (about 5 years old). This girl had a really loud squeaky horn (think dog toy) and every time someone was in front of her she'd go mental on this horn - everyone would look round, smile, and move out of her way. We stayed behind her for many miles - it was like chasing an ambulance through traffic.
We later saw her again in Bitton, so for such little legs she'd covered some distance - fair play. We covered an impressive (for us) 48.5 miles. I was tempted to do another couple to get a 50 in, but thought that would be unfair on my Girlfriend who just wanted to get off of her saddle. The biggest casualty of the day was her rear, and she's currently looking for padded shorts that she can hide underneath some baggy outer shorts as she doesn't want to be seen in lycra (recommendations welcome!). For the next few days, she kept mentioning that she was a little sore and that this (knowing full well that she was pushing to go further) was "because I made her do that long cycle". *sigh*
Thanks for reading,
MG
