Sorry to here of your wheel explosion Dave; must have been quite
spectacular (and I bet the train far was more than a new wheel)
Left my friend in Iver at 0510 for the 19km ride up to Chalfont. Met
Dave Kahn on the way. My proposed ride mate was a DNS so I got into a
group of about 7 for the first leg to Woodstock. Dave was just leaving
as I arrived at the cafe. Most of the group I was with either did not
stop or managed to eat their egg on toast in 10 seconds flat so after
taking a bit longer I left alone desparately chasing anyone from the
group to no avail. After another 70k arrived at Tewkesbury where Dave
was still eating so must jave been making some progress. Met up with
Paul (Manotea) and we rode together to just before Yat Rock where he
decided to avoid the one in n (where n is a low number) hill up to the
top due to having 20 less gears than I. I waited at the convergence of
the two routes for a good 15 mins (using the opportunity to spin my
wheel round until the odometer matched the route sheet). From there it
was certainly not flat to Chepstow, where they had stopped serving hot
food so I made do with pasta salad and a sarnie whilst sitting outside
in the wind (a bad move). Once over the Severn bridge it was all fairly
civilised until the Somerset Monument but got back into its stride by
Malmesbury. Here the Dean route was ignored in favour of a nice flat
section back to Swindon where we paralleled the M4 (with a lot of over
and under and up and down). Not a moment too soon we arrived at Membury
services where we cowered in the petrol station trying to drink coffee
on the floor whilst keeping out of the way of the sliding doors. Paul
did a very passable corpse impression at this stage and advised me that
he was going to potter back. I had a quick look at the maps in the shop
and decided to abandon the route in favour of straight down to the A4
and back from Reading, in order to avoid repeated stops at the top of
the many hills. Repeated stops however ensued, as did many encounters
with 3" exhaust Novas and general idiots out for a Saturday night burn
up. Without a doubt the worst bit of road I've ridden on for years.
Eventually we arrived at Reading and Paul suffered a total body
failure, so I left him to rendezvous with El Supremo who was checking
all the riders through his roadside flashing diner in the middle of a
desolate lane just before Henley. Fortified with hot soup I set off
along the riverside route to Marlow (with a river that seems to go
uphill a few times) and after Bourne End was the very cruel last road
up to the A40, which I walked last time so was determined to ride.
Arrived back at Chalfont just after 0400 and promptly collapsed across
4 chairs in the sleeping room with just an Altura jacket for bedding (
I had learnt from last year's 400 to dress in 3 layers for anything
other than a high summer ride). I awoke just before the last of the
Richard Phipps clones arrived with 30 mins to spare, and also found out
that Paul (without the El Supremo diversion) had arrived 30 mins after
me and promptly gone home.