Three star from Wantage
Posted on Monday 21 May 2007 by Jo Wright
A lovely sunny day greeted the 3 riders on my ride: Paul F, Tom and Stuart. This was the third attempt at riding the planned 100 km route to the Vale of the White Horse. After some negotiation with the guard all the riders managed to squeeze their bikes in to guards van which was only supposed to take 6 bikes for ‘health and safety’ reasons. There was another party of 4 cyclists who had managed to get their bikes on first which meant that the van had 8 bikes. By getting on to this fast intercity train the ride started from Reading at 10.30 am a bit later than advertised, but this was due to the rescheduling of the train times.
I used my ’standard’ route out of Reading to go due west heading first to Tilehurst. The aim was to get to Wantage for lunch. Previous attempts had ended up at East Isley which is approx 15 miles from Reading, reflecting the difficulties that had been encountered. However, the small group of 4 riders were not too varied in ability and so were able to make good progress along the rolling route to Wantage and by 12.15 lunch was being ordered in the Lamb Inn. Wantage marked the half way point at 30 miles.
What goes down nearly always goes up and the lovely descent in to Wantage required a very nice country lane climb back up the down. The route back had slightly more climbs and the hoped for tail wind didn’t materialise. Despite this the afternoon was warm and sunny and the roads very quiet. After the leisurely lunch Tom had set off forgetting to top up with water at the pub and together with a small navigational error resulted in a kind gardener providing both water and guidance on to the correct route. The group returned to Reading station after going round several roundabouts the long way round in time to catch the 17.18 train back to Paddington having had a lovely day out.