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| 6.03am |
With winter drawing closer and the prospect of cycling indoors rearing its ugly head, my friend Alin and I decided to cycle to Cambridge, and back, to make Sunday a Funday.
Alin messaged me at 9.30 on Saturday morning, we decided between going to Brighton (120 miles with 10,000 feet of climbing) and Cambridge (135 miles with 4,500 feet of climbing). The total weight of me, my bike and all the gear come to ~100kg. If I can avoid climbing I will! Unsurprisingly, I opted for the longer, substantially flatter ride through Essex.
As flat as Essex may be, and believe me it was strangely flat, after a year of cycling in East Sussex and Kent, around the North Downs, it was also incredibly windy. Even after Brian had buggered off, taking his storm up north with him, the wind still almost reduced me to tears. A headwind there and a tailwind home would have been ideal, but crosswinds the whole way made for a ride that demanded concentration, and a strong grip, at all times.
Every century ride comes with a list of aches and pains that cannot be avoided, but I've never felt pain in my shoulders like it before. The last dozen or so miles I had to alternate riding one-handed to give the other arm a momentary rest. Completely worth it though!
So, after waking up at 5.30am (on a Sunday!) I faffed around for 25 minutes then left. A few minutes later I reached our meeting point, Greenhithe station, to wait for Alin, who was running late.
10 minutes later we were off to the Dartford crossing, only a couple of miles along Crossways. We reached the crossing, rang the number and waited for a guy to drive us through the tunnel to Essex. We only had to wait for a few minutes before a man appeared out of nowhere, we tied our bikes up in the back of the van, got in and drove through the tunnel. I asked our driver to drop us off at Bishop's Stortford, he laughed and we came to the compromise of the RVP Crossing in Thurrock (exactly where he drops everybody else).
We were dropped off just after 6.30am, I decided to quickly change my clothing so that my underlayer was under my jersey rather than over it (I still don't know why I never did that before) and subsequently lost a glove - if I were writing this as a fictional story, that would have been an ominous piece of foreshadowing! but I wasn't writing it and it did happen. It blew through a metal fence and into the trees below. In hindsight I should've worn just the one glove and rolled into Cambridge looking like Curly from
Of Mice and Men.
Alin and I decided to use my Garmin to navigate our way there (Alin created a GPX file the night before) and his on the way back. That way we should, hopefully, get there and back with at least one of our devices surviving. The route took us through South Ockenden, North Ockendon, Brentwood, Kelveden Hatch, Chipping Ongar, Moreton, Matching Green, Hatfield Heath, Little Hallingbury, Bishop's Stortford, Manuden, Clavering, Langley Upper Green, Elmdon, Ickleton and finally, Cambridge.
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| Elmdon Church |
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| Alin in Elmdon, plus one of hundreds of lovely thatched cottages we saw. |
We arrived in Cambridge around 11.15 (the aim was midday), spent around an hour and half exploring, some of it slowly rolling around and about an hour in a coffee shop having some lunch. Both of us were keen not to spend too long hanging around, though, ideally hoping to get home before it got too dark.
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| Punting |
We first stopped at the River Cam for a few pictures. Alin didn't realise cycling was so popular in Cambridge - a pleasant surprise when we got there!
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| Can just about make out a dam in the background. |
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| 10k charity race had just finished - we would've run it otherwise... |
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| Lunch - should've eaten more. Cycling blunts my hunger, strangely. |
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| Note the declining photographic ability - eating lunch and watching unlocked bikes in the street! |
We left Cambridge around half 12. Having left Thurrock at 6.30am and arrived at Cambridge around 11am, it had taken us 4.5 hours including stops to get there. We were, therefore, hopeful of reaching the Crossing at 5pm and being home by 5.30pm and 6pm, respectively (Alin had an extra 5 miles to cover).
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| Bus lane |
Our first stop came shortly after we left. A bus lane that ran parallel with the railway line and Sustrans route 11 cycle path. Incidentally, we followed a different route on the first half of our return journey until we rejoined the roads we had cycled earlier and then just followed them all the way back. We went through Sawston, Great Chesterford, Newport, Rickling Green, Stansted and Birchanger before reaching Bishop's Stortford.
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| Cockpit. Tri bars lined up with straight road - symbolism? |
My Garmin left Cambridge with 35% battery - would it make it all the way home? Read on to find out! (I'm excited, too.)
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| Audley End House and Gardens - stunning. |
With our Garmin's batteries fading fast and us fading faster, we had to race home or at least until we reached a point where we could get our bearings and find our way home. To put it into perspective: Thurrock to Cambridge took 4 hours 15 minutes (moving time), ~64 miles at 15mph. Cambridge back to Thurrock took 3 hours 30 minutes (again, moving time), ~60 miles at 17mph.
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| A familiar view on the way home! |
I sat up for literally ten seconds to get a picture and he was gone - machine!
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| 18.23 - 12.5 hours later I'm home. Photography skills severely depleted. |
What a day! The Garmin packed up at Davey Down (1.5 miles from the Crossing!) where, unfortunately, Alin's chain broke. We had to walk/roll the rest of the way back. The
GPS Data also doesn't show the first ~7 miles as I forgot to press start once we'd crossed the Thames. Good ride!
Once we got back to the RVP Crossing, ran for the van (it had to come from the Kent side so the wait was a little longer) and crossed the bridge, the driver kindly dropped us both off at Greenhithe station, leaving Alin to get the train and me to cycle the kilometre or so home.
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