Finding LFGSS

Day 4 (3/3)

Weather was perfect with the sun just hovering on the horizon behind us. We were happy and had found a place on Maps to camp just on the shore of England.

Problem was, they didn’t accept us. They didn’t even open the door, just an old man telling us no from the inside. 130 km, getting dark, tired and no place to sleep.

Pedaling slowly staring into the blue light from the phone trying to find a campsite. We headed towards one 30 minutes further into the country. Closed gates. Come on.

There were houses everywhere and it was going to be difficult to hide four people with bikes. Then HP gets through on the phone and the gate to Bristol Camping magically opens. We’re greeted by a lovely woman that shows us to an oasis of a campsite. All to ourselves again. This time with showers, a bonfire and even a rum shack.

We shower, pitch tents and finally manage to light a fire just – it’s just before midnight and we couldn’t be happier.

https://www.strava.com/activities/9402214147

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Enjoying the excellent write ups and your take on our little island!

Day 5: Hortham – Pangbourne
145 km / 1360 m

We’re getting into the rhythm now and we’re blessed with another morning of nice weather. The mentioned rum shack has been used to store and dry our crap, which made setting up camp a breeze. As we pack up we make another brew of coffee. We’re on schedule, but need to pull off another proper big day to get close enough to London. The final day needs to be short as we’ve booked boxes and workshop hours at Paradise Cycles, where we need to get to within opening hours…

The boss lady appears with a happy dog and laughs when she sees that we’ve made the rum shack look like a christmas tree of sweaty bibs. Not uncommon, she tells us. We do as we always do and ask for the best breakfast place in the area and get some sound advice.

We pack up and get going, satisfied to be on our way a little over 9. The breakfast joint is obviously a local favorite, and the local favorite is our favorite. The scrabby quartet hunts for power outlets and spread iPhones and power banks across the place before digging in a perfectly good all-you-can eat full english. Nice.

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Day 5 (2/4)

Fully loaded we ride north west through Wotton-under-Edge (and we thought we were done with weird town names leaving Wales). I get our first puncture. Thing is, I changed tires to the new Schwalbe G-One RS a few weeks before leaving and I’ve been really happy with them. This was my first puncture, however, and it turns out they are basically impossible to seat. Just too tight for my rim profile. We end up spending half an hour at a café, resorting to soapy water from the bathroom and a whole lot of elbow grease. But we get it seated and head onwards.

Roads kind of suck. Much more traffic than what we’ve had so far and although some parts are nice, we quickly get back to reality. Consequence of having three times as high a density of people compared to Wales I guess.

There are highlights though. After Swindon we’re greeted by this marvel of spiraling architecture to take us over the M4, and a few minutes later we meet a gang of masked up kids crowding the cycle path. For a few seconds I genuinely think they are going to rob us, but they give way and I think they were posing for some social media or something.

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Day 5 (3/4)

To be honest, my research on this part of the route was quite superficial. I just followed the basic advice here and let Strava sort the rest without looking much into the details. Which would turn out interesting.

After 90 km of quite uneventful riding (apart from the puncture and near-robbed experience), we take a right off the main road. A narrow dirt road appears and the stoke is high. We climb away from the traffic and youngins. Vast fields on both sides and we feel like we’ve hit the jackpot. Just 50k left to Pangbourne – roughly two hours, eh?

Wrong. What we slowly realize is that we are on something known as the ridgeway. It is spectacular. So beautiful. But also extremely hard. Short, steep climbs, technical sections and scorching heat. No places to refuel without doing a major detour.

We love it, but also hate it. We’re spending almost three hours covering the 30 kilometers to the other side. Multiple punctures (not me this time) and sore bodies are starting to take its toll – and we’re running dangerously low on water as we hadn’t even topped up our bottles before heading into the adventurous part.

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Day 5 (4/4)

In the end, we make it out the other side and get to Pangbourne Meadows just before 9 PM. Huge day. The campsite is big and professional with a boss that wants to take our picture (he used to be a photographer, he tells us). For the first time, really, we have a bunch of other tents around us. We take a much needed dip in the Thames and head to wotn for dinner.

Problem is. Everything is closing. We chase from place to place, begging them to not close the kitchen. But in the end, we strike gold. The only restaurant that will take us in is a Turkish one called La'De Kitchen Pangbourne. We order literally everything on the menu, and it was amazing. The best meal of the whole trip.

Exhausted, but happy to have made it, we head back for sleep. Still need to get up early tomorrow.

https://www.strava.com/activities/9407953775

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Great story!

I enjoyed this write up. Looking forwards to the next installment!

Loving this write up, hungry for the next instalment (also hungry for some Turkish food now, that last pic looks so good)

Absolutely love this thread and write up

Cheers guys!

Day 6: Pangbourne – London
96 km / 270 m

Alarm clocks go off at 7 and we roll out historically early just after 8 AM. We pick up loaf, ham and cheese at the grocery store and enjoy it on the sidewalk. A triathlete stops by, and it turns out he has already done the opposite of what we are supposed to ride. So much for thinking we were starting early.

A drizzle is looming. My navigation is a little too scenic, following a dirt path by the Thames. Voices in the group want speed, not wet mud. But it’s too late and the first 10k is slow before getting on a proper road in Reading.

We gradually meet more cyclists. As the value of their bikes go up, the number of waves go down. It feels like going back in time. Everyone is on a road or TT bike. Back home, it’s much more of a mix with fatter tires and all kinds of fashion or not clothing. Here, it’s Rapha and club jerseys only.

HP has a puncture, but other than that not eventful and we get to Windsor where we stop for a snack. The tri-guy fondly spoke of some fancy café where all the cyclists from London go to have a legendary cinnamon bun.

Yea, no. We stumbled by The Windsor Cycle Hub. Lovely community dedicated to getting people into cycling. All kinds of ages and people were very welcoming – even wanted to document the four not-so-wise men coming from afar – https://twitter.com/WindsorCycleHub/status/1677705957126680578 – We enjoy a snack there and beaver onwards – past the S-Works Cinnamon bunch. Dodged a bullet there as we are not in the mood to discuss threshold watts and tanlines right now.

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Day 6 (2/3)

Final stretch, but…

The drizzle is picking up and disaster strikes, as I feel bumps being absorbed abnormally well. Morale is low as we’re standing by a busy road in the rain trying to seat my f*#%ing Schwalbe tire, using sunscreen as lubrication. Luckily we started early, so when we finally managed to make it rideable we were still on schedule.

Now, some additional info about the rain. I don’t know if we’ve made a deal with the devil or something, but we’ve been extremely lucky with the weather on these trips throughout the years. It has pretty much only rained during the nights and on the final day – when it doesn’t really matter that much. When it has rained on the final day, it’s been proper rain though, and this year didn’t disappoint.

As we're getting into London it’s pissing down. Totally drenched now and starting to feel that it’s been a lot of riding the past six days. Now we just want to get to the finish line, get changed and drink beers.

Riding through central London is quite a pleasant experience though. Considering the size of the city and traffic I feel safe and it’s easy to navigate. As the rain eases up and the sky brightens, we finally coast into the alley of Paradise Cycles.

Done.

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Day 6 (3/3)

The guys at Paradise were super helpful, working overtime on a Saturday so that we could get changed and find something to eat. Even managed to get the hotel next door to store the boxes until the morning after when we were flying home. Big thanks!

Then, about the finding LFGSS thing. When we got to Manchester, we also found ourselves canceled from the Airbnb booking we had in London. Enter Platypus, who even before it happened had offered a place to stay in London.

With bikes boxed and stored we spent the time well over to his place, stopping by a pub, a wine shop and take-away joint. He welcomed us into his home and we had an amazing evening with food and drinks. It was the perfect ending to an eventful trip.

Thank you, Barney!

Thank you, LFGSS!

https://www.strava.com/activities/9412497162

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As the value of their bikes go up, the number of waves go down

This is so true!!

❤️ enjoyed the whole writeup!

I’m only on day 2, but this is some proper stuff. Really enjoying your write up! Will be coming back for more later.

Just stumbled across this. A lovely thread.

The road up from Machynlleth is a tough old climb!