Barnet to Broadstairs - day 3 - starting back

After a lovely rest day, we were good to go for the return journey. There had been a little more consideration of the route and we thought that we would do 40/40/20 miles to get back as neither of us had anything in particular to do on Saturday morning. My co-director was coming down for the day, as we are all friends in common, so we thought we would wait to see her, have a nice cup of tea in the garden and then set off. Thus we departed by 11:30, destination Sittingbourne, our latest start.

This was a route we thought we could easily manage. Only 43 miles, pretty flat, sea views most of the way. I had a bit of trouble confirming the Holiday Inn booking in Steve's name but it turned out he had been emailed a confirmation, I don't like heading somewhere without proof I have a bed for the night, he just overlooked it at first.

We had plenty of time for photographs

The Turner Contemporary gallery is free to enter, you just need to book a slot, so get yourselves down to Margate.

It was an absolute delight to cycle along the sea wall (there are a few sections with beach huts where you have to walk but it isn't a big deal)

This is the approach from the east to Reculver Castle, if we had found this path from the other way Steve would have made it as it is all flat from here to Broadstairs.

After a cup of tea at Reculver

and the banana our friends in Broadstairs gave us along with an apple to keep us fuelled, we pedalled lazily on. Soon we were in Herne Bay.

The bench called out to be stood on rather than sat down. I'm sporting my fancy new shirt.

Onwards to Whitstable, lunch time. A quick lap of the town and I spotted the Whitstable Produce Store which looked appealing and now has a gazebo in the garden with tables and chairs in sun or shade and room for the bikes so no need to lock them up.

Sandwiches were ordered and I snook a cheesecake on the top of Steve's food order but if I had seen the size of the sandwich I might not have. He did enjoy it though and was going to get through the day easily with all that fuel on board. My sandwich was apple, stilton and walnut. Proper bread and just an absolutely lovely sandwich.

Entering Faversham via a boatyard, because we overshot the official route as a lady and her dog were coming out of it, but you can't go wrong when a river stops you doing so, I couldn't resist taking this photo of juxtaposed new and old boats. There was a lot of work to do in that boatyard.

The old parts of Faversham are a treasure.

This is a good idea. No excuse for not picking up after your dog.

We pedalled on and before long we reached the Holiday Inn Express at Sittingbourne. The main entrance is now round the back so the bikes are out of sight from the road and almost certainly within the scope of the hotel's security cameras. Even so I take no chances and the bikes were d-locked together and both sets of wheels chained through and around the metal supports of the fire escape. It isn't that my bike is intrinsically valuable but that it is valuable as my means of transport the next day.

Never got around to photographing the room but did take this snap outside the freehouse which is The George (trading since 1652) in the High Street

We were too busy chatting to the landlord, who was having a quiet day and intermittently watching the cricket, to remember to ask him what the stone represented. My Guess is that it is a record of where flood waters reached once but I could be way off track. Please do put me right. We also chatted to a man having a crafty pint whilst collecting his takeaway pizza from the shop opposite, he was going to tell his wife there had been a bit of a queue.

That just left the question of dinner. The hotel did dinner but it was standard fare and we like to spread our custom round the town. After walking up and down the High Street and not being attracted by any menu I turned to the phone and found Galata. It was a little over half full and buzzing, with customers looking really happy and well fed and watered.

Not what we had but representative. Top quality, fresh and fair prices.

Thus the day came to an end, well almost, one final beer in the hotel bar when we got back. A bottle of Bishops Finger for me, a local Shepherd Neame ale, 5.4% strong and enough to put me straight to sleep on top of the earlier couple of pints of Doom Bar and a large Rioja. In my view, you can eat and drink pretty much what you like when you are cycling 50 miles a day.

Thursday came and went without any unfortunate events and was a truly wonderful day of cycling. Feel free to repeat my journey.

Derek

Barnet to Broadstairs - day 2

 

Day 2, Tuesday, turned out to be a longer and more eventful day than planned.

It dawned fine, it was an apply the sun cream day. A lovely fresh cooked breakfast was consumed. I had the vegan full English as I don't eat meat but I really should have said to hold the 'bacon' as it is an abomination, like a strip of funny shaped and funny coloured shoe leather. We were away at exactly 9am, plenty of time to get to Broadstairs in order to have dinner, a chat and a beer before the big England match at 8pm, or so we thought.

I can see now that we went wrong straightaway and somehow managed to get up to route 1 instead of following route 177, thus doing 3 sides of a square. A great start.

Our mileage should have been 59 so we were the architects of our own misfortune.

Once through Rochester and Strood, which had been our original idea for the overnight stay but I didn't think much of the hotel and restaurant options hence the Inn on the Lake, we did crack on. We reached Sittingbourne and found a cafe with outdoor tables for lunch. Business had clearly been tough as we were very well waited on. I had a toastie, a muffin and a coffee whereas Steve said he only wanted coffee and cake. My suggestion that he needed to eat more didn't get taken on board although a second slice of carrot cake did (I like it without the sweet icing but horses for courses, a blueberry muffin for me). We cycled on. We went through lovely Faversham although on our own route not the officially posted one. We didn't stop to take any photos as we had too many miles to do.

At some point which I can't remember the official route took us through farmland. We were treated to the farmer rounding up a field of sheep and moving them, they knew the way, except for the straggler who must have got our sense of direction as a wrong turn was taken, I called out to the farmer to let him know and he sent one of the dogs to get the escaping sheep back to the fold.

We reached the outskirts of Whitstable. One of the problems with adding cycle routes onto pavements after the event, rather than when planning the road, is that you keep getting switched from one side of the road to the other which makes you lose time and sometimes your sense of direction so you have to keep checking.

Exiting a roundabout on the pavement I was looking down at my phone and the route to be sure we had taken the correct exit and Steve had decided to stop. I looked up too late to brake or completely steer round him although luckily Steve had the presence of mind to move his body to the side. I slammed into his bike and over we all went, me on top of my bike on top of his. We picked everything up and surveyed the damage with both of us saying it was our fault, it can only be the man at the back, me! We started pedalling again and found that his rear wheel now had a bit of a kink in it and was catching on the brake pad on each revolution. I also suggested his tyre pressure was low but he was happy with it. So on we went. 

On we pressed, wobbly wheel, low tyre pressure, tired rider and then, a puncture, just as we left Herne Bay.

Post puncture repair

Steve is mechanically excellent and so he got the spanners out as he didn't have quick release wheels. He had checked his spanner on the front wheel before leaving and would you believe it the rear nuts were a different size. There was a gardener sat in his van and I caught his eye and asked if he had any spanners. He was the least helpful person in Herne Bay, he said he didn't have any, his mowers clearly never needing any adjustment. I had seen a man just put his bins out and go indoors. Steve knocked at his door and an adjustable spanner was borrowed and we were offered three old flat spanners to keep

which we politely declined as they were imperial and we would need metric plus we had every other fastener catered for and they would add to the weight to carry. New tube inserted and off we go again.

From Herne Bay it should have been easy, but at Reculver the signs ran out. Steve was tired and so he explored up the hill a bit but didn't see any signs. Mrs Google told me go inland so we did and found the Viking Trail, which is fine as it does go to Broadstairs but the inland route is more hilly and Steve was heading into an unknown distance. I did a 77 miler during LEJOG so expected I could do it again. (Just ride all the way up the slope to the castle and then you will see the sea wall to ride along).

Then we ran short of water and had to stop and buy some, this can't have helped with either our efficiency or our brains as dehydration just does you in and you don't even realise.

We pressed on as best we could with every slope seeming steeper than ever. We had climbed twice as many metres as on the previous day and then the climb up Tothill St, headed towards Manston Airport, was just one climb too many. Steve had hit the wall, bonked, blown up, run out of gas, however you describe it he wasn't fit to continue. I offered him an apple juice carton and a Stoats bar (no stoats were harmed in the making of these lovely cereal & fruit bars which I only discovered aged 63 in Edinburgh on my way back from John O'Groats and I can buy in my local Waitrose) both were refused as he didn't want to spoil the dinner our friend had cooked (luckily risotto can be done at short notice and I had turned on location tracker so our progress, or lack of it, could be followed). Steve said he was a bit dizzy and he couldn't even manage to find his phone to 'phone a friend'. I phoned our friends and Ric jumped into the car to come and fetch Steve and his bike. Feeling a bit bad but knowing Steve would be ok after some food and drink and a rest, I got back on the bike and pedalled on, 6.5 miles to go and 40 minutes to do them in.

The bus stop I left Steve in didn't even have a bench!

I was actually a bit tired myself, being 65 miles into the route, but found the energy to tap out the remaining 6.5 miles round the top of the airport and through the fairly quiet roads of Broadstairs. I spotted the familiar registration of Ric's car when he was on the out trip so I knew he was on the right route and I turned into the destination street and was caught by the broom wagon with Steve hanging out the window to make some pithy comment (that's good, he's ok then!) as we pulled onto the drive together.

So there we were, 6m and 15s to kickoff. Safe, beer in hand, sat on the sofa with a mushroom risotto and the football starting (not a great football fan but our friends are so it is all part of the fun of the visit) all was right with the world.

Wednesday was planned as a rest day so no need to think about the journey back yet, the world would seem better after a good sleep.

If we had that day again we would probably have packed more water at the start (it was easy to buy more en route though) as we both had panniers, spent a bit longer planning the route and in my case probably bought a proper printed route map, I would have pushed Steve harder to eat more as I knew from Lejog you can eat two full meals and two snacks a day and still lose weight, pumped Steve's tyres up to make him try them that way and perhaps stayed in Gillingham as it was more like the mid-point, but the day was the day it was, we didn't break ourselves, only bent the bikes a bit (mine also as I realised the next day) and Steve felt he had let himself down, but he hadn't, he had battled on until he simply couldn't go another inch.

The next day, the local bike shop expressed their admiration for Steve having cycled for 30 miles on a kinked wheel with a flat tyre and wondered how the heck he had even got that far. They mentioned that the front wheel should have a skewer in it and the retaining nuts should have been on the inside of the forks, not the outside. They straightened the wheel and supplied a new spare inner tube, all for £21, and pumped both tyres up to 60 psi. I was banned from mentioning tyre pressures on the way home which of course I did all the way!

What a day. As Steve himself said, without an incident or two it isn't an adventure at all.

Derek

Barnet to Broadstairs & back - day 1

 

Some friends moved to Broadstairs and I had visited them once in the car but the idea came, via a mutual friend Steve, to cycle down to see them. Steve, a few years younger than me, was at the point in his cycling where I was a year ago, able to cycle 50 miles without a problem but didn't know if he could repeat it on consecutive days. We hatched a plan to split the 100 mile journey into two stages, have a rest day and then cycle back over two days. It was all flexible as hotels aren't busy and so if it all got too much we could just find the nearest hotel and book a room. Also, my co-director was doing a day trip visit by car on the Thursday and so she could bring my car if needs be, put the bikes on the roof and we could come back in the car or when we liked by train.

Steve lives in Enfield, near my favourite bakers since Victoria Bakery closed down, Holtwhites, who bake prize winning bread and Pastel de Nata, Portugeuse custard tarts which transport me to Porto if I close my eyes. Please don't go there and buy them all up. Like old folks on a train trip we used up what was in our larders and made sandwiches for lunch, banana sandwiches for Steve, cheese & cucumber for me on Holtwhites sourdough.

The plan was for me to set off at 9am, flog up Ferny Hill, always a good start to a ride, past the lovely West Lodge Park Hotel (an excellent place for lunch or dinner but you'll need a few quid and they have an arboretum I must visit) and then get to Steve's at about 9:30 He was really excited, he said when I got there, about the adventure. Cycling gets you like that.

A quick look at his bike, a Kia, I didn't know they made them, came 'free' with a car apparently and it had then been gifted to Steve, was lightly loaded with modest panniers (Steve not needing a computer like I lug around with me as some work still has to be done and a phone or ipad just isn't adequate) and ready to roll. Off we went. Steve leading through the quiet back streets of Enfield and Bush Hill Park, across the A10 at Lincoln Road and then onto the tow path.

The tow path was quiet as it was a drizzly day and it seemed like, before you knew it, we were in the Isle of Dogs. It was a route Steve had ridden a few times before and myself just once and his route knowledge was better than mine. A slight faff once on the island due to a building site closing off our route and no diversion being posted but before long we were where we needed to be.

You can see it was a bit wet but I was ready for it.

This is the rotunda 

which contains the lift and stairs on the Greenwich side, where you come out and are right in front of the Cutty Sark. 

I hadn't realised you could check if the lifts were working, I naively assumed they would be, but both were out of action (you can check the lift situation here) and so that is 87 of these to get down, with a fairly well loaded bike

and then 100 on the south side to bump up. Tiresome & tiring.

There were other options available but we just sighed and got on with it.

The industrial sections along the river bank were surprisingly interesting to cycle past. Here is a typical scene.

The sandwiches were taken on the banks of the Thames under some old concrete steps with a viewing platform above which gave us some shelter from the light rain. In the 30 minutes or so for which we stopped only 3 walkers came by, it wasn't the day you would choose to go for a walk.

The whole section, whilst a bit wiggly, was great to ride although one or two signs seemed to be missing but we either used our heads or google location on the mobile (I didn't get around to loading a route up on the Elemnt Bolt) only got slightly lost, which can be fun as you find new things, and didn't find ourselves to have over-exerted from doing 50+ miles plus some steps.

It carried on drizzling which stopped the camera coming out again and we meandered along route 1 and 177 until Shorne where we were booked into the Inn on The Lake. The hotel is right next to the cycle route so no time is lost in finding it although it is adjacent to the A2 and some slight noise does penetrate the double glazing but it isn't enough to cause any annoyance.

We didn't go to look closely at the lake so here is one of the hotel's photos of it.

There were no cycle racks at the hotel nor a bike store which is a bit of a lost opportunity for a hotel sitting on a cycle route. Reception didn't bat an eyelid though, just put your bikes in the lift to the first floor they said and keep them in your room, clearly the safest place for them, so we did.

The rooms are clean, a good size and reasonably priced. There happens to be a stock photo of my dinner which was tasty (chef hadn't got around to making more fishcakes so I opted for cod & chips with garden peas not mushy). The menu was extensive and adequate calories for cycling were to be had.

I remembered to take a photo of the headboard which regular readers will recall was a feature of my LEJOG trip.

So day 1 completed without drama, that was all to come on day 2!

Derek

Can't wait

I tried to tweet this but twitter was being awkward so I'll blog it instead and link to a tweet

Clearly a VIP - very impatient person.

Should I be grateful they didn't try to bulldoze their way through between me and the central refuge?