righto here goes nothing,
i awoke at around 5 minutes past two on Saturday morning, and proceeded to stuble down the stairs, and somehow managed to put a pizza in the oven for breakfast and put the kettle on- with these tasks completed i settled down to change the PR3 on my rear wheel for a Conti GP4000 (thanks simon). Now as easy as this task may sound, it gets a whole lot more complicated when you can't find any tyre leavers, and i was eventually forced to use the battery cover of the tv remote and a coaster as improvised tyre leavers
morning fug hmm
with this done and the pizza and a second cup of tea going down nicely, it struck me that it might help if i got dressed and put some lights on my bicycle
. in a hurry to get under way i shoved everything i needed into my rear pockets and set of for the not so sunny, not so warm Colney Hall Roundabout.
Rolling past Farnborough (Kent) and down the hill towards West Wickham i was suddenly struck by how cold - well freezing it was- having opted not to wear leg warmers
. Having met andy2 and taped his camera to my bars we decided that considering we had a fairly long way still to go we had better crack on, so we did
. So as we ascended hills and descended into vales, it reached a point that i was dreading the descents, windchill is a cruel mistress and it was truely freezing at times.
Now we happened upon a residential area not far out of Felbridge, at which point the ilfaited Garmin directed us not along the tarmac road, but was far more sensible in sending us down what can only be described as a dank,muddy track - and speaking of tracktors
at was now that we had our first 'human' contact of the day, or did we? Having stopped to dismount due to the impassable nature of the muddied footpath, and then to water said footpath, two beings which appeared to be human appeared from their house and began opening their gates to tow a tractor away with them. The thing is it was like they couldn't see us, two cyclists standing not five yards from them at half past six in the morning, either this is a very common sight for them
or they were stunned into silence...
Now we continued, having recovered from a laughing fit following the above episode, and having cleared our by then mud filled cleats by stamping around on the pavement outside some poor peoples homes
, and shortly found ourselves atop Turners Hill. Moving on from here, and cruising at a reasonable pace towards Ditchling, a fellow roadie came and passed us with ease- having none of this i gave chase, sat on his rear wheel for a while, and when we reached the first hill since he had passed us both andy and i passed him, just for giggles. we had to stop not long after this so that andy2 could try to work out what was causing his bikes interesting noise for the day, to no avail we continued and climbed the beacon, some faster than others
. Arriving atop the beacon i had time to chat to a couple of other cyclists who were there to climb it ten times as preperation for the Alps in the summer, and eventually andy2 joined us
. From there we speedily rolled down into Brighton, passing
the speed camera at around 37mph
and then breakfasted at the Madeira
We then continued on towards Bognor of Butlins fame, passing through several stereo typical sea side towns along the way, eventually reaching Havant, and after a 5 mile detour to find some bushes which needed watering, we found our way to an Aldi for lunch. And from here which pushed on for the third leg of the ride, next stop Bounemouth
. We swung around Portsmouth and then down into Southampton, and somewhat strangely straight into the docks there, riding past first a cruise liner, then hundreds of containers, and then a few car grave yards, notably full of unsellable Ford Focus' and and Honda 4x4's- stopping at a level crossig for 3... cranes
. Leaving Southampton we quickly arrived on the outskirts of the New Forest, which I had eagerly anticipated, however it turned out to be some what of a let down- monotonous and heavily congested, far from what i had envisaged... eventually we arrived in Bournemouth at what was probably quite a good NSLBS (Not So) - however i was far too delirious through dehydration and more interested in the water fridge in the near by Co-OP.
It was during the next part of the journey that the heat and distance started to mess with Andy2, having told me it was a mere 13 miles to his cousins house, where we were expected, and a hearty meal of pasta awaited us. What followed was the longest 13 miles of my life, as it was more like 22 miles, take a bow arallsopp who had cycled straight past his own relatives home
leaving us less than 25 miles to go to Stone Henge. We carried on towards Salisbury, after a few apologetic phone calls, and as we arrived in Salisbury City centre it felt as though we were outlaws riding into town western stylee, the locals staring at us in dismay. Here we feasted on Burger King, and then pressed on towards the big pile of stones in the middle of Wiltshire, fully expecting to find Aperitif, MacB and Topcat1 lieing in wait- how wrong we were
.
Upon arriving at the Henge, we settled down to await there arrival, but as the sun sunk ever lower in the sky we had to wonder where they had gotten to. A phone call informed us that they were not going to make it, and it was at this point that andy2 told me they had someone called keith with them, but this proved totally unfounded, silly andy2. So we sped down the a303 in search of some cyclists less stoned than ourselves
, passing over what qualified as enormous climbs by that stage in the ride, and hurtling down the other side of them into the perfect darkness.
Eventually, after a few more phone calls, we happened across the remaining mousketeers, who must have- at least for a second- thought we hadn't noticed them as first andy2 then i hurtled past, intent on catching andy2 who i thought had missed them standing by the road side, shortly after this we all regrouped and celebratory cachew nuts were consumed yum
. The remainder of the ride is somewhat of a swirling blur, involving pizza in Andover-fist, and then the final slog through the dark and the cold towards Basingstoke and the magic van
)
