Thames Bike Ride 2004

Want to know the most painful way to give yourself piles? Well, just cycle the length of the Thames from Kemble to Tower Bridge! More after the jump...

Kemble to Oxford

See this interactive map for our full itinerary.
Tuesday evening - Train to Kemble
All fairly uneventful. James gets the train from Paddington and Digby meets him after a pleasant cycle down to Reading station. Despite two guards and James telling me to load my bike at the front of the train, it turned out to have to go in the back, so I had to frantically wheel it to the far end of the station and persuade the guard not to leave without me.
9:30pm - Arrive in Kemble in the pitch dark. I have no lights, but luckily James does, so with 0.03 watts of illumination we wobble through the dark, and happily guess the way to our first stop, the Wild Duck Inn in Ewen, which is very nice with friendly staff who offer us a drink after we dump our kit in our room.
1:30am - Finally decide to leave the bar. Probably a bit late, but then hey, how hard could tomorrow be? On the way to our room, we discover an outdoor giant chess board, so have the bright idea of starting a game. Probably not a good idea since our longest game ever was 4 days! After a quick Four Knight's defense, the game settles down into a slow Ruy Lopez, and the time between moves starts to increase. Finally, after the temperature had dropped below freezing, and no sign of anyone winning, James agrees to a draw - at 3am. And then he insists on watching football until 3:30, when we finally got to sleep.
Wed 9:30am - Get up thinking that the previous night was possibly a mistake, given slight headaches, pretty bad tiredness, and rampant dehydration. But again - how hard could it be??
10:40am - Finally, off we go, after a big fried breakfast and 30 glasses of orange juice, feeling fairly good. We decide to set off up the Thames path from Ewen to above Kemble - about 3 miles, offering us our first thought that we may have bitten off more than we could chew, but little did we know... All very pretty though, and we sat and ate some dairy milk at the stone marking the source, and played about in the empty basin that presumably will fill up once in a while.
By 12:30, we had got back to where we started, but still confident that we knew what we were doing.

2pm - We arrive in Cricklade, which looking at our map, turns out to be about a quarter of the way to Oxford. The Thames has grown into a small stream by now. Never mind though, and after a quick lunch in the unfriendliest pub in Gloucestershire, we set off to Lechlade, the 50% mark, arriving at 4ish. Now we're getting a bit worried, so to avoid having to sleep in a ditch, we set off for Farringdon along some B roads to try and catch up time lost time.
5pm - I'm starting to flag a bit, but James's gazelle genes allow him to shoot up the hill into Farringdon, so wasn't witness to my chain snapping half way up the hill - exactly what we didn't need, and I had no idea what on Earth to do about it. Ready to throw in the toweel for the day, luckily we came across a strange garage where the owner lent me some pliers so I could try and force the chain back together. Whether he just wanted 30 minutes laugh or not, we're not sure, but after half an hour watching us, he came out again with a new chain and a chain repair tool, which helped somewhat, and within 10 mins we were on our way. Now 45 mins behind an already late schedule.
6pm - Abandoning the Thames Path, we thought honour would be saved by cycling on the road through towns near the river on the way to Oxford, and we headed off an a main road pointing in the right direction.
6:45pm - turn off the main road to Fyfield in search of the Rose Revived pub, which sits on the river, and came highly recommended. Was assured by some locals it was just a mile from Fyfield, we set off on a 4 mile trek and arrived at about 7pm as dusk started to settle. By this point we were so exhausted, we topped up on orange juice and Quavers, and then set off in the near-dark for Oxford.
8pm - 8:45 - Cycle through Appleton and Cumnor, and then hit the A420 (or whatever) and risked life and limb racing down the dual carriage way in pitch dark (I've bought some lights now, but like James's, don't illuminate your front wheel).
9:15 - scared to death, exhausted to death, we finally arrive in Oxford, and 15 mins later, we see the Head of the River pub, and with more relief than you can imagine collapsed into our room. One fantastic shower later, we were revived enough to walk to Browns where we reloaded our carbs and stuff, ready for the next day.
11:30 - Bed, sober, no chess and no football.

Oxford to Henley

8am - Agony. We're both in more pain than we thought was humaly possible. Every muscle, bone, and sinew is wracked with pain, and it doesn't look like we're even going to make it downstairs, let alone to London.
9am - But after another big fry-up, we get our enthusiasm back, and set off on the first leg to Abingdon, which turns out to be a piece of cake, since it's all tow-path, and not a gate or field in site. And in Abingdon I finally sort out my panier rack which has been swinging about and crashing into my back wheel for 70 miles now, wearing an enormous hole in my paniers.
1:30 - Towpaths have turned into fields and gates again and it takes another 3.5 hours to reach Wallingford, where we stop for lunch and stock up on chips and lemonade. We're slightly behind schedule (again), but hoping that we'll see more towpaths as we approach Reading.

The next few hours are only eventful for the agony they induce in our thighs and backsides. Memories of individual towns and villages are merged into one, as we try and concentrate on keeping weight off our seats, blood going to our toes, and sugar to our legs. As far as I remember though, the scenery was very pleasant, and apart from one other cyclist who sneered at our attempt to reach London (imagine that!), everyone else along the river was very friendly.
Go through some pretty towns and villages, like Goring, and some not so, like Tilehurst. But thankfully for miles around Reading, bumpy fields were replaced by tarmac and gravel paths, so we managed to get a bit of pace going.
7:30 - Reach Shiplake, and have to put our lights again, but this time for only 5 minutes instead of 2 hours, and finally we make it to my house in Henley. Our limbs seem to have reached a plateau of agony at some point in the day, but the pain in our backsides just seems to be getting worse and worse.
11:00 - Bed, stuffed with giant pizzas, potato wedges and garlic bread. James smells like he's bathing in Deep Heat, which in fact he is.

Henley to Kingston

9am - I know a joke about having red-hot knitting needles thrust through parts of your anatomy, but that doesn't begin to describe the pain we are both suffering this morning. But on we go...
Expecting things to start getting easier now, we're a little disappointed to get lost in Henley, only to discover the route was 10 yards from where we stood and involved about 10 gates within a 500 yard stretch of bumpy field. A great way to start the day!
Things pretty much carry on in this vein until we reach Maidenhead, when, to our utter relief, the gates and stiles pretty much give way, and we're left with just towpath to whizz along.
Bray gets the vote for having the biggest hoiuses on the Thames, and since Rolf Harris lives there and has painted a scene across the river, James and I have cycled through one of his pictures!!
1:30pm - Stop for lunch at the Donkey House in Windsor to stock up on our cheese levels, and then set off for the second leg of the day, pretty confident that we were making good time. What's that about pride and fall??

15 minutes later, having just got through Datchet, James's bike starts to slip and slide uncontrollably under him, and a quick investigation reveals a punctured rear tyre. Luckily with our combined expertise - James has never fixed a puncture and I last fixed on 20 years ago - we quickly whip the tyre, locate the hole, mend it and reassemble it in under 40 minutes!! A quick pump shows the repair is done, but a slower one shows that it isn't at all and the tyre deflates once more. This time, armed with a little more experience, it only takes us 20 minutes to fix the ither 20 holes that a 3/4 inch thorn has peppered the tyre with. Morale has now hit an all-time low. Again.
But, not to be put off (although we were tempted), we gingerly climb on our saddles once more, and set off for Hampton Court. The towpath is getting better and better, and we make such good time from then on, that we even have time for a pint somewhere (?) before heading off the river towards Thames Ditton, where Kathryn has kindly offered to put us up, arriving in daylight for the first time!!

Kathryn does a marvellous job of looking after two weary, tender boys, and has arranged a night out in Kingston for us. We both manage a delicious Chinese and a couple of beers, but my capacity for speech and standing upright dwindles (through tiredness, not booze!), and I have to call it a day.

Kingston to Tower Bridge

9am - After a wonderful night's sleep, Kathryn fills us up with bacon sandwiches and tea, and since no-one had thought to steal our bikes overnight, we set off at a leisurely pace for London.
By now, there isn't a sign of fields or gates, so, after popping in on James's friend Dom in Kingston for a while, we're quickly shooting past Chiswick, Hammersmith and Putney and once we get into more central London, I'm pleased to find myself in Battersea Park where I learned to ride a bike 25 years ago. Then I managed to get my foot stuck between my rear wheel and fork - I remember thinking that was pretty painful, but it would have been a blessing to what I'm currently going through!!

Because progress is so good, we decide not to have lunch and head off for Tower Bridge. After a few deviations around new developments on the river (like your flat, Vic!), running the gauntlet with London's public transport vehicles, we reach Westminster Bridge, where a new obstacle faces us: tourists! Thousands upon thousand of them, forcing us to dismount and walk.
2:45pm - Tower Bridge suddenly appears in front of us, but there are so many people - either come to cheer us on or watch David Idiot Blaine (we're not sure) - that we struggle even to push our bikes as we near our goal.
3pm - Despite the crowds, we mount our bikes as we reach the bridge and triumphantly wobble through the arch - WE'VE DONE IT!!!

After resisting the temptation to hurl our bikes into the Thames, we head off to All Bar One to have lunch and champagne with Andy and Kate, while some little toe-rag helps himself to James's saddle. I'm sure they wouldn't have taken it if they'd know how close he'd become to that seat, or maybe they just thought he needed some relief from it. Either way, here's hoping it brings them as much pain as it did James.
Update - Feb '04 - James's bike has now been stolen. Mine's disintegrated to rust.
How hard can it be? Well, it's probably the most exhausting, unpleasant and painful thing I've ever done in my life. Never, ever, again!!
Update - Mar '04 - did I say never again? Well, this year, we're entering the London Triathlon - please sponsor me at www.justgiving.com/digby! Should be a blast!!