Psicle: April 2013

Looking for ways to celebrate our 50th years and getting nostalgic Simon and I decide that a Bath based cycle ride is in order. As my dad canoed the Kennet and Avon canal with his brother many many moons ago it seems a fitting route for me. I decide to organise and get some very basic maps printed (blue line with a few town names along it) and sell the idea to our footie mate Pete and ex footie mate Chris. I book the Bath YHA for the Friday night and trust to chance about the Saturday and train tickets booked the plans are laid...

I go down on the Thursday evening so that I can see my mum and twin sister on their birthday so a lazy ride from Balham to Paddington after work in the hot sun. Cruise around Hyde Park which is very pleasant then take a wrong turn and end up on the Edgware Road and A40. Good navigational start. Changing at Bath Spa for Keynsham I cycle the 2 miles to my folks just avoiding a massive downpour. Weather not so hot in the West Country. Next day my aunt comes round late morning and the four of us (twins plus my dad) drive to Pucklechurch with hail raining down on us as we leave the house. Apparently they've had snow up at the pub. Excellent meal even though only one veggie option but tasted good and washed down with a pint of decent West Country ale you can't complain.

After a cup of tea back at the house I cycle off along the nearby Bristol to Bath disused railway cycle track past the steam train workshops at Bitton and follow the River Avon into the centre of Bath. Navigating the centre it's step on the pedals time up Bathwick Hill to the YHA which is further up the the very steep hill (apparently 1 in 7) than I thought. Great views when I look over my shoulder though. The Youth Hostel is a misnomer as apart from a few tourists the majority are ageing cyclists even older than me. Hair colour is grey if any at all. Bike shed is overflowing as there is some sort of Sustrans gathering going on. Their age must be telling as I passed about 6 of them pushing their bikes up the hill. After bagging a top bunk (4 of us in a room) I laze in the last of the sun in the garden overlooking Bath supping a beer and reading an Orwell essay on the rigours of coal mining. Chris arrives at 6pm and we soon head into town for a quick tour of the abbey and before I bore him with anecdotes too much we find food served at the Curfew. This used to be an old drinking haunt with a strange mix of old men supping pints and trendy types (back then I was in the latter class) drawn by a ridiculously good juke box. Now it's a nondescript pub with a few oldies no juke box and a restaurant upstairs. Again, only one veggie option but the chef rustled up a special just for me which was excellent. I say rustled up - we got in the pub at 7.45, sat down at 8.15 and left at gone 9.30. One busy chef. After that we roll into what you could probably call Simon and my regular (not local) pub The Bell on Walcot Street. It's quiet inside but pretty busy out the back and we find Simon and Pete hogging the table football. After a couple of games we decide Pete is the best then we beat a couple of Germans much to my surprise as they are usually pretty good, probably due to nothing to do in the evenings there? We go inside to soak up the atmosphere but as it's 11 they call time. We pop back into The Curfew as still open then hit Bathwick Hill or rather it hits us. Simon and I show our Bath roots by skipping up it as if we were after the polka dot jersey. By 1am we're tucked up in our respective bunks for a disturbed night of snoring, creaking beds and me walking into the heavy metal waste bin whilst visiting the toilet.

Kelston Round Hill (I grew up down the other side of it) from the Bristol Bath railway cycle track

Bath with Kelston Round Hill way in the distance from Bathwick Hill

Bath YHA and not an oldie in sight

Saturday the sun's out and we're down for the 7.30 breakfast along with all the other oldies. Scary to think we're up with them. After a good fry up we're all set and speed down Bathwick Hill to where we pick up the canal and have a very pleasant couple of hours meandering through Bathampton and Bradford on Avon through wooded countryside, past smoking barges, over viaducts and all on very good cycling surface. We rise up alongside the 29 Caen Hill locks and come into Devizes past Wadworths brewery and the big marina. We're following National Cycle Network Number 4 and pretty good sign posting so far so no chance of any mistakes is there... past Devizes the NCN4 goes off canal and on road so of course we get immediately lost but end up at a very pleasant pub called The Barge behind a saw mill on the canal at Honey Street with a view of the Alton Barnes white horse facing us. Ploughmans lunches get us fueled up - very good except for the supermarket processed bread pretending to be Granary which seems a theme way out west. After a lot of dicking about on and off the canal kept on course partly as we keep on bumping into a team of 3 couples who are doing the same route and who have a detailed map with bridge numbers. Map envy coming into play here. We mainly stay on the canal but it's gone downhill drastically and either very bumpy or just plain bottom of a farmers field crazy. At this point cleat boy number one (yours truly) slips on a muddy patch just as I'm contemplating unclipping my feet and I slide over into a patch of stinging nettles. Sore arm and sorer ego I struggle out of the cleats and right myself. After this we go up some pretty steep hills one being on the edge of Salisbury Plain and very exposed with no vegetation over 24 inches. Of course this is where the heavens open dumping a load of hail on us (painful) then sleet (wet) then a little rain for good measure. Ah well the whipping wind drys us out quickly. After canaling it a bit more chatting to a very chatty Irishman about London and bikes then meeting the 6 with the decent map we get totally off piste with only my luxury fruit and nut mix keeping us going. Another hill sees us passing what is either an anarchist festival with a Slits tribute playing or a wedding party with a dodgy covers band. As all the marquee tents are as white as the driven snow I suspect the latter unless the Slits have come into some cash and we don't stop hitting the cranks. One busy road later we go off on a B and reach the gorgeous canal again at Great Bedwyn. Unfortunately the towpath sort of peters out into a field and going the way of Manfred Mann's Davey we ride the A4 going into Hungerford. Simon and I sit outside the Sun Inn appropriately in the sun whilst Pete and Chris are inside on the complimentary wifi tracking down the last 4 beds in Hungerford. Well done Pete! We tootle off to the Three Swans Inn and after a shower and laze have a quick couple in the bar before going for a decent curry (persuade all to go veggie tonight) and then back for an earlier night. Less bed creaking and bins tonight but Simon claims I'm still snoring.

Saturday packing - Chris looks on wondering why on earth I need a spare inner tube

Intrepid cyclists just outside Bath

Beautiful stretch of canal

Locks at Devizes...

... and the view back down

White Horse overlooking Honey Street - one of seven apparently

Ploughmanned Up

Sunday we have a civilised breakfast at 8am then off again. We pass more pill boxes which have travelled along the length of the canal with us. I find it unlikely that the might of the German army was going to invade by travelling east to west along a small canal but apparently it was a major southern line of defence mainly next to bridges. Surely for propaganda purposes rather than an effective defence? Anyway they look cool now - strange concrete blocks frequented no doubt by local youth and itinerants. We hit fields pretty quickly and have to navigate heavy swing gates one of which swings back to get revenge on Pete before he can get out of his cleats and cleat boy number 2 bites the dust. Stop for coffee (Simon a half) at the Rowbarge Inn at Woolhampton and tuck into the fruit and nut mix whilst watching hoards of elderly hikers each with two Antarctic standard issue walking poles then they all put on blue hospital plastic overshoes on to go into the pub except for one poor guy who makes do with two massively oversized shopping bags. We stop laughing when someone points out that that'll be us in 10 years time. I'd rather go the YHA Sustrans route... We tootle on sometimes braving the canal and sometimes road but as we near Reading the towpath becomes a lot better and we up the pace along the flat (as in smooth). At Reading near the Thames country pubs give way to shopping malls and we visit Waggamamma. After the excitement of that Pete declines the gentle riverside ride to Maidenhead and after accompanying us to the Thames takes the train back home through the newly relegated town. Probably the right decision as we soon leave the Thames and the NCN4 takes us all over Berks but nowhere near the river. After one particular killer hill we come down through a wood off road and see a village cricket match in progress. Opposite is the Bee Hive so we sit out front in the garden next to the warning signs that you do so at your own risk whilst cricket is played over the road and sip beer watching the gentle game. After that it's the back country lanes to Maidenhead where we get the train back to Paddington and London traffic back home for us last three. Not one puncture in 4 journeys of 110 miles along unforgiving terrain so Madonna del Ghisallo must have been looking down on us.