Unfortunately Andrew had to work last minute so our planned joint ride didn’t happen. So I looked up some routes in South Oxfordshire and went off on my own. I came across the Wantage Section of the Cycling Touring Club (CTC) and they did a 36 mile route around the Vale of White Horse a few weeks ago so I shamelessly stole that route to see what it was like.

It was a beautiful morning for cycling, sunny, warmish and calm. The Vale of White Horse is stunningly beautiful when you’re doing around 15mph on a bike. I drove to Grove and parked at the recreation ground and set off from there. Down to Wantage and a short stretch along the A417 to East Challow. There is a good surfaced track that runs parallel to the B4507 to Childrey which was a useful find. Then along deserted lanes through Sparsholt and Westcot. At this point I had to join the B4507 for a short stretch to turn towards Uffington, but it was very quiet. Probably the best part of the ride was through Uffington to Shrivenham. Deserted lanes with views to my left up to the White Horse …

Read More

I’m fortunate (in a cycling training sense) to live about 10 miles from work. This gives me a good opportunity to get some rides in during the week. The distance is about right for a decent ride and it’s very flat so I can push myself a little harder than I would on a longer ride.

There is a good network of minor roads as well so I can vary the route and make it longer or take in a hill or two if I want. I usually cycle home a different way to the morning. Yesterday I was a bit pushed for time so I went for the quickest routes, unfortunately my GPSr and PDA got disconnected about halfway in so I’m missing part of the log, I did however have to go home after the first couple of miles as I’d forgotten something so the total distance isn’t far off! I was cycling with two reasonably full panniers as well with a change of clothes, shoes etc.

On the way in there is one short sharp climb up to Sire’s Hill and then a long descent. I sometimes vary this by following the NCN route which goes through …

Read More

First ride on the Ridgeback. I’ve decided only to blog rides from this ride forward, I’ve been doing some training rides on my old hybrid bike over the past few weeks but let’s call yesterday Day One of LEJOG training.

So I’m doing LEJOG with my Brother-in-Law Andrew and his friend Tom at the moment. Andrew and I are both 40 next birthday so maybe this is a classic mid-life crisis thing and you might be right in thinking so! I think my brother, who did the LEJOG with his wife in 2001, maybe tempted to join us. At least for part of the journey, if not the whole thing!

Anyway, back to training ride numero uno. Andrew and I took a fairly easy run through the Vale of White Horse (very flat) from my house through Drayton, Steventon and onto the Hanneys. Turning south through Grove and Wantage we joined the National Cycle Network (NCN) local route 44 towards Didcot. I sometimes wonder if anyone from Sustrans has actually cycled some of these routes, because they are occasionally crazy, making you drop down kerbs and cycle along potholed and dangerous tracks.

Through the beautifully managed villages of Lockinge and …

Read More

After much umming and arring over make, model and framesize I eventually plumped for a Ridgeback Panorama. Should I play safe and get a Claud Butler or a Dawes, or play the wildcard? This guys blog convinced me the Ridgeback could do it and would be the bike for me. NickTheTrick cycled from Scotland, across the low countries to Denmark and up through Norway on one! It’s early days for my Ridgeback but so far so good as you will see in the training entries to come.

Patrick Taylor has written a nice review of the bike.

You may have spied a new category on the left. LEJOG, the classic British cycling tour from the bottom left of Great Britain to the top right. And I’m doing it (hopefully) next spring/summer. Over 1000 miles of cycling in around 18 days. I’ve got the touring bike and I’m now officially in training. Follow my training progress here and when the time comes I will hopefully be able to do daily blogs of progress.