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Day2 Em’s Place to Winchester 25,250 days old

At Kingston Bridge
At Kingston Bridge

Phew what a scorcher as the tabloids used to say! with the temperature n the thirties,  a bit like riding in South Africa / Cuba except for the traffic and awful state of the roads.

After a bad night’s sleep, the Turkish food did not agree with me leaving me with an urgent call to nature at 2.30am 🙁 I left with Em at 8am.

First stop was The Olive Tree cafe around the corner for some brekkie then it was a ride through the hilly capital with its disgusting road surfaces 🙁 except interestingly up millionaires row around Hampstead Heath. The ride through Richmond Park was gorgeous except for the obligatory hill 🙁

In Kingston I met up with Nigel & Margie friends from my Cavendish days in the 70’s for a drink and natter then  I cycled past Pirbright and onto Farnham a town that has decided to gives its centre over to cars 🙁 After Farnham hill I entered open country for the first time where I was hoping to find a country pub to stay in. Alas it wasn’t to happen, the pubs not closed down were either full or didn’t do b&b.

Finally after 11 hours on the road I arrived in Winchester to find the hotels full 🙁 eventually I homed in on the Westgate Pub and its last available, expensive, room but at least the bike has slept in the pub overnight!

Strava made it 88.6 miles and 2415 feet of ascent, or though it seemed a lot more ascent than that! You can find it here

 

Day 1 of bike ride at 25,249 days old

First tea stop at Ware
First tea stop at Ware

I finally set off from home at 12.34, according to Moves, on my latest bike ride heading towards Weymouth to get the ferry to Jersey and then St Malo. Hopefully getting to Ibiza and Morocco.

Todays ride ended at 18.10 at my daughter’s flat in London after a pretty exhausting 52 miles at 10.9mph. Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to do the 600 yard swim first 🙁 plus the SW headwind didn’t help. The front gears on the Dawes Galaxy also aren’t shifting properly, apparently the mechanism isn’t suited to click shifts 🙁

Tomorrow it’s a ride through Central London emerging at Farnham, probably better than riding through Hertfordshire lanes with Chelsea Tractors being driven at high speed by mums collecting their little dears.

My Strava for the day is here