Central London CTC blog

Sunday did not dawn promisingly.
At 0630 when I put my nose out of the door it was hissing down with rain, so I went back inside to take off my gilet and unpack my GoreTex jacket from my seatpack.
Waterproofed, I put my nose outside the door again to find the rain had stopped and it was getting brighter. So back indoors, fold jacket, put on gilet and finally go.
At Kings Cross in good time for the 0722 Stevenage Flyer, but what’s this? As it nestles in a handy puddle, my front tyre makes an interesting bubbling and hissing sound.
The p*nct*re was, however, sorted before passing The Home Of Shredded Wheat, with time to eat the first sandwich (Gentleman’s Relish on pain de campagne) before St Evenage, but leaving me with just one spare tube, giving rise to a degree of p*nct*re paranoia for a few km.
The ride started, with a disappointly small possé from CLCTC – namely me and David Kurtz. Mike Oliver had signed up but, bearing in mind the Unpleasantness in Sunderland the day before, I assume he was still drowning his sorrows (one of the major perks of being a West Ham fan).
The mayor set us off as usual and I decided to ride at my own speed and save energy, so spent a lot of time on my own, meeting up with the same bunch of usual suspects (David, the man on the Ratcatcher, the boys on single-speed with their geared female companion and the couple on the heavy-looking tandem) at every control.
The outward journey to Lavenham was remarkably pleasant – swift , and with warm and sunny weather. It felt as though spring had finally sprung, with tweety-birds and baa-lambs much in evidence. At Cavendish, exactly 100km from home, I remembered I’d had nothing to eat since 0730, and so stopped for sandwich no. 2 (chorizo and Camembert on wholemeal) sitting on a bench in the sun on the village green. Cavendish shows what Lavenham could be like without the tourists.
I got to Lavenham eight minutes after the time I’d predicted (1323 as opposed to 1315) and was alarmed to read my average speed had been 23.32kph. So we did have a tailwind. Since my speedo has an annoying habit of zero-ing whenever it reaches 9:59:59, I noted my data and reset it for the trip home.
The wizard organising this magical event had told us the clockwise route was chosen to shelter us from the prevailing wind. However, he omitted to tell us that the things providing the shelter were hills. In fact, his sorcery was such that he contrived to confound the rules of geography by making the return trip almost entirely uphill. Well, that’s what it felt like. In the words of that other wizard, G. Thomas, “There’s not a lot of hills in Suffolk, but there’s plenty of valleys”.
So it was a long grind back. And we still had a headwind.
I stopped on the way for sandwich no 3 (Cheshire and anchovy on sourdough) and began to think I’d never get to Thaxted, scanning the horizon for the familiar steeple. And when I got there, they’d run out of cake. (BTW, do you know there’s no steeple at Steeple Bumpstead, just a tower?)
By now bits of me were taking turns to hurt and it was good to arrive at Great Hormead, with the usual welcoming committee of volunteers and CAKE, after the seeming interminable search for Furneaux Pelham (a village that itself seems interminable. Time Flies. Mind Your Business).
The tea and cake (plus an abusive call to our esteemed secretary) seemed to make the bum and feet start to forget to take their turns in the hurting rota (but not the hands or shoulders), so the last bit to Stevenage was more pleasant.
I managed to get to the last hill but one, just before Aston, before turning on the lights or succumbing to the granny gear and, despite the best efforts of whoever designed Stevenage’s cycle lane network (notwork?), got to the finish at 2000 – just 10 minutes later than I’d predicted on the entry form.
After hot chocolate, I ended up on the 2039 from Stevenage (running 10mins late) and was in the bath by 10pm after 236km in 11 hours of riding.
And the average speed for the return leg was 19.72kph. There was definitely a headwind.