CYCLE RIDE TO SHARED PLANET
MANCHESTER - LONDON (230+ MILES)
Oct 31st - Nov 3rd
Thanks to everyone who has sponsored me: if you haven’t then don’t worry you still can! I’m trying to raise £500 to support People and Planet’s campaigns on poverty, AIDS and the environment.
Well I did it! 230+ miles over 4 days including punctures, sunburn, freezing cold, rain, dodgy knees (and stiff muscles everywhere), running out of money and getting lost in Milton Keynes. But I made it in the end, especially thanks to Sarah (Derby), Brian and Julie (Market Harborough) , Margaret (Luton) and Helen (London) who let me stay with them, the three nice people in Sutton-on-the-Hill, Osgathorpe and Gumley who lent me pumps and the woman in George Halls bike shop Market Harborough who opened up early for me on Thursday morning.
Tuesday 31 Oct – 65 miles Manchester to Derby
I set off from my house in Longsight at 7:00am. The sky was overcast and before I left Greater Manchester I encountered the first of many showers throughout the morning. In fact by 8:30 it was raining heavily and consistently and I was glad of my waterproof (although everything in my bag was getting wet). That morning was also the hilliest part and I did well to get to Buxton by 11:00am and Ashbourne (via the wonderfully named but extremely exposed and windy Tissington Trail) by 2:00pm. By then it had stopped raining and the race was on to reach Derby through the more shallow hills of south Derbyshire by nightfall (around 4:40pm these days). I would have made it if it wasn’t for a flat tyre which suddenly developed, and having left my pump at the bottom of the stairs at home I had to get to a house in a village and borrow a pump. I then arrived at Derby City Hospital by 5:00pm and cycled around it a couple of times before discovering that I was actually supposed to be staying at the Royal Infirmary the other side of town (not of course in a hospital bed in A&E but with my friend Sarah who as a pre-reg pharmacist lives in hospital accommodation). Reached there by 6:00pm though and was able to have a nice bath and dry all my clothes!
Wednesday 1 Nov – 60 miles Derby to Market Harborough
Left Derby at 6:50am and immediately noticed the change in weather – it was freezing cold heading south through the suburbs, then along the Trent-Mersey Canal for a bit. My back tyre was still fully inflated from last night and I thought it might last, until at about 9:00am it suddenly went down again and I had to walk a few miles to the next village to borrow another pump! I cycled on through Belton (nice village shop, very reasonably priced cobs), Loughborough (which I left at about 11:00am) and Quorn wondering what to do next time the tyre went down. The route into Leicester was nice, through a park by a river avoiding the traffic, and in Leicester city centre I attempted to buy a new pump (they’re only £4 and it was looking likely that I’d need it) only to discover that my bank account was frozen due to being overdrawn. Never mind I thought, people seem quite happy to lend me their pumps when I knock on their doors so I carried on out of Leicester along the former route of the Great Central Railway (nice and straight and flat). I was on schedule at this point, but after leaving the disused railway the country roads of south Leicestershire got a bit hilly, and the tyre suddenly went flat again at about 3:00pm a few miles (maybe 10) away from Market Harborough. After pushing for a bit I reached the village of Gumley where a helpful man lent me an electric pump (it didn’t work) and offered me a lift to Harborough (which I politely refused!) when I tried to repair the inner tube to no avail. Instead I discovered that the previous owner of the bike had put in the wrong size inner tube – it was far too big, doubled over inside the tyre and had a big rip in it. So I pushed into Market Harborough (arriving about 5:45pm) hoping that there was a bike shop there that I could visit in the morning to buy a new inner tube. At least it hadn’t rained at all this day.
Thursday 2 Nov – 68 miles Market Harborough to Luton
The flat tyre meant I got a lie in on Thursday as the bike shop didn’t open until 9:00am. At 8:45am somebody turned up to open up though, and I was away with brand new inner tube and spare pump just after 9:30am. The disused railway to Northampton was quite flat and fast (and again it didn’t rain all day) and I made up a bit of time but there were a few more hills the other side of Northampton and then I got lost in Milton Keynes! I tried to follow the path along the Grand Union Canal, but there were so many cycle paths around that I didn’t know when to turn off it to get over to Bletchley. In the end I used the rapidly descending sun to navigate across the south end of the town and found my cycle path again, which joined the Grand Union Canal again into Leighton Buzzard, by which time it was dark (5:30pm) and I still had about 15 miles to go. Cycling up the huge hill to Dunstable (another disused railway in the middle of the countryside) in pitch black and freezing cold wasn’t fun, the suburbs of Dunstable and Luton went on forever and then there was another hill to climb up to Stopley (a suburb on the far side of Luton) where my next overnight stop was. I arrived at 7:30pm – delayed 3 hours by the bike repair and the getting lost but at least I hadn’t had another puncture!
Friday 3 Nov – 40 miles Luton to London
I knew the last day would be easier because it was much shorter and I was told there weren’t any more hills. So I set off a bit later at 8:40am, travelling along the road to Harpenden and joining a cycle path into Welwyn Garden City, one of the few towns I actually went through the centre of. After stopping off there for a well-needed sausage and egg cob (sorry, bap) it wasn’t far down through Hatfield and past South Mimms and I was under the M25 by 12:15pm. I consulted my London maps and went through Barnet to join a path by a little river which went through the Finchley area, and followed this and residential roads to Brent Cross. From there it was more on-road through Crickewood and down Kilburn High St until I found a back-street cycle path that took me down to Lisson Grove (by Marylebone) in central London, arriving by 2:30pm. This gave me time to pop over to Ladbroke Grove where I was staying to have a bath and a little nap before cycling back into Central London (near Euston station) to register for the conference and show my bike as proof that I had cycled all the way from Manchester to London.
It was quite hard work physically – after the first day my back and legs were quite stiff most of the time but having a bath every night helped that, and I’d basically fully recovered of stiffness by 24 hours after reaching London. My knees I think took a bit more damage, and still hurt a bit now when I cycle (and sometimes on stairs), but are fine for everything else like standing and walking. And due to the beautiful crisp weather I actually managed to get a bit sunburnt on my face, which you don’t really expect in November. But apart from that it was fine! I’m not a proper cyclist or an athlete of any type, and I had to have frequent rests and get off and push up a couple of hills, but I think I’ve proved that it’s possible to cycle long distances, just basically by keeping on going!
Matt
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