Windsor is quite far away...

At the beginning of March we cycled to Windsor. Having looked online on the AA page I believed this to be about 25 miles. The Husband mentioned that the AA site followed main roads, which might be a little more direct than the pretty river-route that I was determined to follow. I did not listen. This was mistake number one. Following the Thames, Windsor is a good 34 miles from London.

The additional distance might not have been so tricky if we/I had not made mistake number two...fuel. We had a light breakfast (two slices of toast and a cup of tea) at about 8.30 am. We also bought bananas at Waterloo station (we got the train to Putney and started from there). We were rather slow leaving the house and took our time at Waterloo and did not eat again until about 3pm, some 6 and a half (and thirty something miles) later. This was due in part to mistake number three - which was believing that there were loads of riverside pubs on the way to Windsor and that we would be able to stop at anytime to have a bite to eat. It turns out that all the old inns that served the barges going up and down the Thames have recently (you know, in the last hundred years or so) been converted into houses. Because, guess what - there aren't so many barges using the Thames on a daily basis anymore (who knew?!) because of the invention of the CAR and direct roads (as demonstrated by the AA route planner referenced in mistake number 1...). Pity.

As such, it was a tired and weary couple that landed in a lovely little pub just outside Windsor. Where they were promptly told that the lunch service had finished for the day...Back on the bikes and off to a less lovely, but far more accommodating pub where we refuelled!

Aside from mistakes 1, 2 and 3, a lovely day was had by both of us. The Thames path is just SO pretty, and even in the absence of barges, the locks and canal boats were super cute. The path follows the river more or less the whole way to Windsor and, being riverside, has the benefit of being very flat. Even so, 34 miles on two slices of bread is a bit of an ask!

x

To Battersea and Back

13 February 2010

We’ve been circling the square for over a week now. I can stay pretty close to the white line and am now able to cycle clockwise and anticlockwise. Which puts me up one on the teacher I once had who had to go the long way everywhere when she drove as she didn’t like turning right in the car.

Vanessa and I have outgrown the little square some how, and the Husband is bored of walking behind. So we’ve decided to go to Battersea. I have picked this route as I sometimes run this way, so if Vanessa does run off with me (yes I know she’s a bicycle but I cant help feeling she has some rather equine traits somehow) then at least I know my way home, even if it is three London boroughs away.

We leave the square. I have to cross a main road…main-ish anyway. I stop for the lights to change. I had been coasting along pretty speedily up until that point and was in fifth gear (it took me about four years in a car to get up to fifth, so I think this is quite good progress). Anyway, so I’d been in fifth and had come to a halt. And when I went to pull away when the lights changed it was literally like cycling in cement. Ok, not literally, but it was incredibly hard, like the worst bits of spinning. And on a bike, when you push down very hard with your right foot, the bike seems to veer off to the left. Which means as you are coming to a halt or slowing down, you should change down gears, just like in a car. Who knew? The husband did apparently. He mentioned this gear-changing gem as he rescued me in a withered heap as I’d crashed into the traffic lights.

Second try goes much more smoothly – thanking the bicycle gods that it is some unreasonable time on Sunday morning and so at least there’s not much traffic – only an old guy in a fiat who’s looking at me with some amusement, and another bloke on a bike who passed me in the midst of the collapsed against a traffic light extravaganza and muttered something that sounded like “bloody tourists”. Tourist? Excuse me?

The rest of the journey is less eventful, although in retrospect I regret that I insisted on actually riding along Southbank – on a sunny Sunday morning around the London Eye it really is full of bloody tourists.

Round and Round and Round We Go

30 January 2010.

Vanessa is led out onto the square. The day before the Husband rode her from her temporary abode in Hertfordshire all the way to South London. She is therefore rather over excited. She has got the feel of the open rode, stretched her legs. She has tasted freedom. I fear the little square may be too limiting for her and that she will run away with me. I explain this to the husband, who looks truly baffled. I continue that I am concerned that she is too excited about her new surroundings and that she may even buck. Maybe we should put this off for another day.

The husband points out that (1) we have been putting this off for weeks already, (2) I am the only 26 year-old in the world who cant ride and (3) that on the basically that Vanessa is a bicycle rather than a horse she is unlikely to be particularly excited about anything very much and that she will only “buck” if I use the front brake by itself.

After a little more coxing, I mount. Saddle’s too high I think – cannot keep both feet on the ground at the same time, just tip-toes. Saddle is as low as it can, or indeed should, go, says the husband. And apparently, once I’ve got the hang of it, I wont need both feet on the ground very much. After a brief debate that I am very much a “both feet on the ground” kind of a girl, the husband, exasperated now asks “are we going to do this or not”… tempted to say “not, actually” but at the exact moment the toddler from next door passes us by on his tricycle. That’s only one more wheel than me and he’s managing fine. I will not be defeated by a three year-old.

Then we are off. Wobbling precariously around the square, playing a complicated cycling game of “stay as close to the white line as possible” – advanced stuff I feel. We must make an odd sight – a grown woman wobbling about on a bike, shrieking slightly, whilst a 30-something man jogs behind holding onto the back of the seat- promising when prompted that no, he will not let go.

So round and round and round we go. Me, Vanessa and the husband running behind. I learn to ride clockwise. We attempt anticlockwise but it’s harder to turn that way somehow. Maybe another day.