The Story Of The Ride

Here we are, ten days after our marathon, gruelling, triumphant 100 mile ride, and I'm sure all you people out there in blogland want to know how the day went.

It was a very early morning when our alarms went off around 5am - especially since we were out late the night before!  We had a light breakfast (thanks to the Ibis Hotel, Bristol Temple Meads for providing this FOC) before setting off around 6:15.  The weather was fine, better than the forecasts had been saying, though it was a bit chilly and into a headwind.  Cycle Route 4 was signposted from outside the hotel, so we knew where to go from the start.

We had to press on at the beginning to reach Bath by 7:30, our only fixed appointment of the day.  The Bristol to Bath section is on an old railway path.  PWR regaled us with the tale that his grandfather used to drive steam trains on this section, and once PWR was taken for a ride on the footplate despite not being able to walk!  The path has a deceptive gradient, and Alan's knees took some punishment trying to maintain the speed we required.  He would be on Nurofen and paracetamol for the rest of the day.

Despite one puncture, we reached the Abbey Hotel in Bath just fifteen minutes late, to find bacon sandwiches waiting for us!  Thanks to the Abbey Hotel for providing these for free, they certainly sustained us for the next stretch.  The photographer from the Bath Chronicle turned up, and we were soon on our way.

When we came to join the towpath in Bath Neil found that his suspension was broken!  Rachel's suspension had already broken a few weeks earlier when she'd fallen at Caen Hill, but this did not bode well for the towpath stretch.  A cycle shop at Bradford-on-Avon (no Northerners in sight) confirmed the diagnosis that a rebuild of the suspension would be necessary.

We reached the top of Caen Hill just about fifteen minutes behind our tentative schedule.  The very kind people at the Caen Hill Café provided us with tea and KitKats while Adrian went off in search of a nearby geocache!  Suze and Sarah, our wonderful support crew, turned up with supplies, and we were able to offload some of our thermals as it had warmed up quite a bit by now.

After Devizes the towpath gets nasty and slow.  By the time we got to the Barge Inn at Honeystreet we were quite fatigued, and welcomed the tasty baguettes on offer.  The little village was swarming with police investigating an arson incident on a barge the night before.  (Quote from Suze to the man being led off in handcuffs: "Hello?!")

Progress was steady to Wootton Rivers, where we took a pit stop at the Royal Oak (Neil had misdirected the support crew as he couldn't remember the pub's name - locals were bemused to be asked where "Wootton Bottom" is!)  We reached the summit of the canal, the Bruce Tunnel, at around 2:45, and although the terrain wasn't much improved, it was a relief to know the major climbs were behind us.

We got to Hungerford about 4:15, and our 20-minute planned break turned into a 45-minute rest with no complaints from anyone.  Neil was glum to know that he was five minutes from home and four hours from the end of the ride!  We reached Newbury around 6:15 and expected to get to Woolhampton around 45 minutes later.  However, we followed the cycle paths through Thatcham and the very good quality towpath from there, and got there before Sarah and Suze could unveil the banner!  Thanks to the customers of the Row Barge who were generous to these sweaty cyclists boasting about the 82.5 miles they'd cycled so far.

By 7:15 we were on our way again, hoping to finish the ride by 8:30.  Two punctures to Gibbo's front wheel saw to that!  Sarah and Suze were stranded at the end of the canal - not the nicest area of Reading - holding a banner and wondering where we'd got to.  Fortunately the locals took pity and filled the collection box!  We arrived to cheers, flags and bunting at 9pm - but we hadn't yet completed 100 miles!

So after catching our breath it was on for the last push, up the hill to Caversham Park.  Alan's knees were ready to fall off by now, as were Rachel's, but we got to BBC Monitoring reception around 9:30.  Neil's odometer read 99.5 miles by now, so he and Adrian took two final laps around the car park to reach the magical target of 100 miles.

Then it was off to Gibbo's for champagne, a barbecue and the award ceremony!