The big bike ride of 15/02/10.

We started what was going to be a very smelly day at 8am in Swavesey, where we joined the newish Guided Bus Route going into Cambridge. This was a fairly slow, boring and familiar part of the trip with both of us falling off. Tim got caught by a sneaky 'car trap' and caused a bit of damage to his bike and scraped his knee. Limited first aid skills meant we couldn't get plasters, a bandage or a menolin wad to stay microtaped on because you, obviously, need you knee a lot for cycling! We gave up and it didn't dry up the whole day.

Tim's knee

I managed to hit the kerb at a funny angle, going along instead of up and ripped my (sister's...) leggings at the knees but otherwise all fine. We carried along till we found Cambridge Regional College and The Golden Hind, working out we had made it to the 'outskirts' of Cambridge. By now it was 9ish, so had taken a lot longer than the planned half an hour. We had to stop off at a Co-op in search of anti-sceptic wipes we'd forgotton and ended up buying a small, glass(!) bottle of TCP for the journey. Tim fixed his bike with a trusty spanner by removing half a supporting arm of his mudguard and we continued... only to end up completely lost in Chesterton and not in the centre of Cambridge where we needed to be for some kind of a starting photo. FINALLY we made it in to the centre of town at about 9.45am. This meant we were running really late and were a bit worried at this point as to the time we would make it to London by, if this was the rate we were going at! Luckily we didn't get lost once we left Cambridge, and there was also a thankful lack of punctures/falls/emergencies/loo stops etc. The borrowed road bikes we used made fast time so it's okay to read on, this has a happy ending after the inital drama!

Outside King's college

We left Cambridge through Trumpington, crossing over the M11, passing through Haslingfield and heading for Hauxton. Just into Hauxton, we turned left onto London Road (B1368), which is the old coach road, and it was pretty much straight on from there. In summary we passed through Newton, (the very pretty) Fowlmere, Barley, Barkway (where we struggled up some horrendous hills and ate too many fruit pastilles and flapjack for sustenance), Great Hormead, Hare Street, Hay Street, Braughing and then descended into Puckeridge. This was literally a huge downhill and we made our top speed here of 29.3mph! Not quite enough for the speed camera at the bottom! From Puckeridge and Standon it was a bit confusing as they'd recently built a new bypass and my map was 2005 and therefore outdated in terms of Cambridgeshire's ever-changing roadworks. We managed to improvise the way to Collier's End, then onto High Cross and into Ware in good time. This took us to about 12.30pm and we stopped for lunch and rang the Mums etc. Lunch in Heartfordshire is expensive: a sandwich thing and coffee cost about £4/5 each!

Lunch

We set off south, down into the first outer boroughs of London after whizzing through Great Amwell, Stansted Abbots (which included a very scary roundabout with lorries and broken glass), St Margarets and Hoddesdon. Broxbourne and Wormley run right alongside the very busy A10, and it was tricky finding our way onto the old, quieter version (the B176) but with the help of a gaggle of kind pedestrians we made it. We headed through Waltham Cross, nearly ending up on a high walled dual carriageway at one point but turned around after a glance and less than five metres! It looked too scary! The next part took much longer than anticipated...

We joined the A1010 somewhere around Enfield Wash, admiring the colourful curry houses, markets, cool stores and busy bustlingness that was, we thought... London! Yay! This falsely led us to believe we were nearly there. An hour later we'd passed through Ponders End and only just reached Edmonton, where we pulled up at a bus station to ask a bored policemen if we we're heading the right way for central London, as it had seemed to have taken aaages so far. The clouds were looking ominous, it was getting cold and just gone 4pm so the light was fading (but here bike lights were switched on, don't worry Dad). He found it hilarious we were heading for the Thames and, although we were heading the right way (phew), said it would take another hour and a half. He called some other policemen over to have a good laugh at us and sent us off with a useful map of North West London. Finally we made it through Islington to Shoreditch, after the most terrifying experience ever in Tottenham. Buses and taxis roared from every side as we navigated four-laned roundabouts at high speed, having to think fast. A fall at that point would have been a quick squash and that would have been that. :( There were just so many people! It was crazy and very stressful.

At Shoreditch the heavens opened and we caught sight of the Gherkin thing! This was exciting! Thames! Wooooooooo! We sloshed through puddles following the building and signs for the river for a while. After lots more traffic lights, where we got to chat to some other cyclists, lots of posh shops, fancy hotels and big business buildings we finished up at London Bridge, right next to the Gherkin looking out over the (misty) Thames to Tower Bridge one way and the Eye a little way off in the other direction. We ate a whole pack of M&S biscuits in the rain in celebration and then headed off to McDonalds for some food.

The too-convenient MaccyDs

Luckily we were really near Liverpool Street station somehow, as we hadn't thought about finding the train station once we'd finished. Once we cycled there, the next train was in fifteen minutes, and though we couldn't find an ideal place to store them, we got the bikes onto the train with no trouble and for free.

Bikes on train

Overall a successful trip! We totalled 71.55 miles with roughly a quarter under 7 hours on the road, taking about 9 hours for the whole thing. We got back to Cambridge absolutely shattered about 9pm, so over 13 hours after we left home! I definitly had a distinct waddle the next day, but it was worn with pride.

A massive thanks to everyone for the sponsorship so far. We really appreciate your generosity and estimate to finish up with about £1500 between us, all going to a worthy cause.

- Rach