Ealing - Hastings / Charing X - Shepherds Bush...

Ealing - Hastings

Bike: GT

Distance: 93.50 miles (inc. ride from Charing Cross to Shepherds Bush)

Time: 5 hrs 56 mins 16 seconds

Average speed: 15.74 mph

Maximum speed: 42.32mph

Odometer (at end): 8044 miles



This was only the third time I've cycled to Hastings: first time was for a wonderful August Bank Holiday weekend in 2003 with my friend Kathryn and her family, second time was for the Hastings Beer Festival last summer, which ended with me bleeding internally.

It is a hilly route, leaving London through Bromley, then heading out via Biggin Hill, Edenbridge, Royal Tunbridge Wells, Mark Cross, Heathfield, Netherfield, Battle before finally descending into the wonderful old seaside town of Hastings. The hills keep the legs and body warm, so it didn't matter that it was November instead of the summer: moreover, it was an absolutely glorious day, a veritable forest of autumnal adjectives. The most surreal part of the journey was stopping for cakes (an apple doughnut, an eccles cake and a cream bun, plus 2 mince pies) at Heathfield, which was having a Christmas Fair in blazing sunshine. This came after a worrying period of cycling between Frant and Five Ashes where gunshots echoed from nearby woodland...

I rode with Wes again, and, for the first 30 miles or so, we were joined by Leon, a King's student, who caught the train home from Edenbridge. Wes and I are much improved from the Cambridge ride we did a month ago - and we needed to be, because the route is hardly flat. Some rapid descents, some grinding drags and some short, sharp shocks. All good training, all good fun in the sunshine. About 9 miles from Hastings, in the aptly-named town of Battle, we got hailed on, but this was brief and we made it to the beach for fish and chips, a bit damp and cold, but deservedly pleased with ourselves.

My favourite parts of the ride were, first, the beautiful golden 'tunnels' of trees that enclosed large portions of the route from Westerham to Edenbridge, and, second, the B2096, from Cade Street to Netherfield. It's hard to focus on the road ahead, with beautiful views to the right.

The worst part of the ride was, after getting the train back to Charing Cross (I have only cycled back from Hastings once, but never there and back in a day), cycling home to Ealing, I was knocked off my bike by someone pulling across the road in front of me. I hit the bonnet, buckling my front wheel and crushing my right leg between my crossbar and the car. It is still sore (4 days on...), I'll write about the incident more later, but it obviously took the shine of a rather excellent day of cycling.

heftige Auseinandersetzung

Ealing - A40 - Ealing

Bike: GT

Distance: 36.06 miles

Time: 1 hrs 55 mins 18 seconds

Average speed: 18.7 mph

Maximum speed: 34.5mph

Odometer (at end): 7914.9 miles

New Continental rubber on my back wheel, pumped up to 110psi, which slashed a few minutes off my best training ride time. Unfortunately, with great speed seems to come great problems from my fellow road users. A bit of a shock, given my training rides have been marked by a noticeable lack of tension so far.

On the way out, a man in a van (quelle surprise), who, at a stop, sat behind me revving loudly until the lights changed and then straightaway honked me (causing me to slip when cleating in, causing him further delay in overtaking me). He was so aggrieved that I'd slowed him up, decided to - logically - slow down and coast beside me in order to swear at me.

On the way back in, a more surprising incident. The Uxbridge Road has so far caused me little concern - it consists of two lanes on both sides, and is not particularly busy. It does have a number of traffic lights and junctions, though, so traffic does not flow constantly. It also passes through mostly built up areas. Anyway, in one such urban area I encountered a learner driver, stopped in the left hand lane. I moved out into the right for a bit, then checked behind me, all was clear, so I pulled back into the left hand lane, maintaining a couple of metres between me and the row of parked cars to my left. In any case, about five minutes later the learner driver overtook me on the right, with the instructor shouting out of the window that 'You're not a car. You shouldn't be driving [sic] in the middle of the road.' I wasn't in the middle of the road, or even the middle of my lane, and there was plenty of room for cars to get past on the right hand side in any case. His high blood pressure was all in vain because - of course - we all slowed up for a traffic light a little further down the road. As I was coasting along between 20-25mph at this point, I was still with this guy, so I tapped on his window and asked him what was wrong. He simply shrieked again I shouldn't be in the middle of the road. In a reasonably good mood owing to relatively fast pace of the ride, I just smiled and sped off: the traffic was a bit gridlocked and, ironically, I could move quickly down the middle of the road through stationary traffic. When I got onto a clearer piece of tarmac, I accelerated up to 25mph, and the learner overtook me again, this time the instructor virtually hanging out of his window: 'Use the cycle path!!!' Hm. I only ever use cycle paths if they're part of the road - i.e. the green tarmac frequently used as parking spaces by cars. The cycle path this guy was pointing to was part of the pavement, which is not a good idea at 25mph (which is generally not possible on these frequently broken paths anyway), especially at an hour of the morning when many pushchairs and small children are about.

My overall problem with all of this is that I hadn't held up any traffic whereas he was the guy who'd told his pupil to presumably stop in the middle of the Uxbridge Road when I first encountered them... double standards! In any case, I don't think a guy that highly strung should be teaching people to drive (he works for a company called 1st Time, if I remember correctly), especially if he's going to teach them to be so intolerant of other road users, especially one with nearly 20,000 cycling miles under his belt in the past 3 and a half years, with just the one accident, caused by ... bad driving.

A rather nice morning, though, with a bit of sun. This contrasted sharply with the general gloom of the rest of the day.

Have planned to cycle to Hastings with Wes and a ... shock! ... mountain biker on Saturday. We're going to get fish and chips on the beach and then get the train back. If anyone else is up for it, and can maintain (probably) 16-18mph over (around) 80 miles over some (fairly) tiring hills, we're meeting Houghton Street (off the Aldwych), outside LSE, at 8:00 in the morning... This will *not* take place in heavy rain.

Lebensgenuss

Ealing - A40 - Ealing

Bike: GT

Distance: 35.95 miles

Time: 1 hrs 59 mins 11 seconds

Average speed: 18.0 mph

Maximum speed: 37.5mph

Odometer (at end): 7812.9 miles

Felt mentally and physically drained for most of the week, so not much cycling. Legs and head felt clearer this morning though, and ended up having one of the most enjoyable rides yet on this stretch of road (in spite of some horrific driving and some even more horrific roadkill). It was also - by three whole seconds - the quickest training ride on this route so far this winter... The drag on the outbound stretch is really irritating, given that my Trek would eat it up ... Still, another spectacular winter's day, bright, with stunning clouds and all manner of life-affirming colours. I also saw a black labrador with a grey beard: I don't want Sally to get old, but when she does she'd better have a grey beard. My recently purchased neoprene overshoes have removed my previous major complaint about cycling at this time of year: cold feet. Now, instead, I get home with sweaty feet...

chapeau

'Solo travel obliges you to commune with people you otherwise wouldn't have. With companions, you're always travelling in a little bubble of home; without them you're down and dirty with the locals.'

Damn straight. Moreover, Tim Moore is a genius. Apparently my supervisor's wife knows his wife. London is a small world when you marry Icelandic women. Apparently my friend's brother trod on Bjork's foot in a bar in Camden. But that's another story.

The point being, you should read 'French Revolutions' - my parents got me it on audiobook for my 21st birthday a few years back, which meant that, coincidentally, I listened to it while on a TGV on the way to Lyon, trying not to snigger. Travelling blissfully alone. Subsequently (and after becoming a 'cyclist') I purchased the paperback. It remains one of the greatest and funniest books I have ever read about cycling, travel and the French.

der Kaltblüter

Ealing - A40 - Ealing

Bike: GT

Distance: 36.02 miles

Time: 2 hrs 00 mins 31 seconds

Average speed: 17.9 mph

Maximum speed: 38.0mph

Odometer (at end): 7694.9 miles

I seem to have got a fairly standard pace down for this ride: it is hard to do something 'exceptional' because of the variable quantity that is the volume of traffic on the roads. A couple of minutes weaving through traffic at 14-15mph, or a few ill-timed traffic lights, and the average goes right down. I won't find out how fast I am til I take my bike home and do a few rides on country roads. Erk! I'd like to do an 'all-out' assault on this route but this will have to wait until the summer, when I can do it at 5am, at the weekend, and on my race bike.

Today was nice though: a perfect winter's morning, much, much colder than any of the previous rides (there was frost! steamy breath! chapped lips!) but bright and sunny. Familiarity and increased pace also means the route is getting 'shorter' and thus a little less boring, because I'm now always thinking about the next corner, hill etc. etc.