Tell us about your weekend ride

Congrats man, and nice write up too

Pretty cool bit of trivia from a comment:
“Good to see you carrying on the noble tradition of Alf Engers whose 49:24 comp record in 1978 was achieved after a night shift at a bakery, and he also provided a write up for Cycling Weekly”

@Eejit - cheers!

Great write up, thanks for sharing!

Thanks. Nice to write it down before it’s all forgotten!

Really well written, and congrats on the time!

Ticked off a ride I've been meaning to do for a while today, down to Gosport, ferry to Portsmouth, along coast, ferry to Hayling, then home.

Ferries are quite pricey, and Gosport charge you an extra £1.70 for a bike!!! Ridiculous.

Anyway, it's a nice route by the sea.

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How much is the Gosport ferry these days?

£5.10, plus the £1.70 for the bike...

Granted it's a return. They only sell returns, which is cheeky.

I mean who wants to go back to Gosport?

Tonight I'm going the do the Exmouth Exodus; 100 miles Bath to Exmouth overnight, like the Dynamo but hillier and much much smaller, very unsuported.

It's my first go at it, so there's a good bit of excited looking forward to this adventure and quite a lot of; you fool what the hell do you think you're doing! You never get round will get stuck in a ditch in Somerset etc.

We'll see!

It's a great route. I did it twice, in 2007 and 2009 (when it still started in Bristol). Both extremely rainy editions--should be lovely tonight. Enjoy!

Thanks!

Exmouth Exodus

Leave plenty in the tank for the crossing of the Blackdown Hills!

Had a nice day out yesterday.

Took the train out to Leigh on Sea.

From there, tooled along the coast through Westcliff and Southend, then north to Wallasea Island. Thence on a ferry across the Crouch to Burnham.

Burnham was lovely - had tea and a bacon sandwich overlooking some esoteric yachting event on the water.

After lunch headed north through Southminster and Tillingham to Bradwell (where, oddly, there was a time-trial going on).

At Bradwell went to visit the Chapel of St Peter on the wall - the main objective of the day, and the only part of the trip I thought to photograph.

Then headed for Munson to look at St Mary’s church, but had a change of plan at Latchingdon and decided to head for a train station.

Said train station happened to be South Woodham Ferrers. With half an hour to wait for the train we decided to repair to the local pub.

As luck would have it, the local pub was filled with about 200 West Ham fans watching the football. Normally, I assume a couple of ponces from Greenwich dressed in Lycra would have been - quite rightly - given a good kicking, but while we were at the bar West Ham had a penalty, so nobody noticed us.

As a side note, the only style of beer available on tap appeared to be lager. I normally like to bang on about how drinking lager is unpatriotic - it being a German beer and all. Thought it best not to mention that in a pub full of tattooed West Ham fans and St George crosses.

Eventually got the train back to Liverpool Street and exited onto Bishopsgate - which was basically packed with pissed people from Essex.

Headed back to the relative sanity of South East London for a cheeky Pizza in the yard at Davy’s Wine Bar.

Lovely weather, great day out. Piss poor effort taking pictures.

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Did it ! Which is an achievement for me! One off the Bucket list.

Nice one, congrats! I’d not heard of this, and would be up for hearing a ride report if you can be bothered :-)

Did 10 minutes after dinner with my son and saw the most astonishing rainbow. Best ride in years.

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You're probably asleep right now, but we will need a report. :)

OK, so a bit of a read. TLDR: Exmouth Exodus, A challenging self supporting very small ride that ultimately was a nice day out. If you like a long ramble........

So there I was at Green Park Station Bath. Bath's redundant railway station at 9pm with about 15 other cyclists fueling up on Pizza, Beer and Coffee ahead of the Exmouth Exodus. Several visits to the loo later my nerves were jangling, could I do this ? This unsupported ride of a hundred miles across Somerset and into Devon, many climbs totalling over 1800 meters, across some remote countryside with not many bail out options. This was a real challenge for me, one of the reasons I was there, has the old boy still got it, after many years of knowing about can I actually do? Done the Dynamo but this is a lot tougher, no pop up cafes every 10 miles, 16 or so people somewhere in darkest Somset.

After a group photo we set off, within a mile the Peloton had shattered to to lots of groups all with their own idea of how to get out of Bath, I was in a group of 4 going through the two tunnels, literally two old railway tunnels now a cycle path, I have wanted to ride this for a while, fast well lit and flat nice long tunnels.

Four became two after the first big climb, me an Craig. Graig was great, he'd rode up from Otterly St. Mary to the start. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of all the local roads which he was determined to share with me which was both really useful, I had genuine concerns about getting lost in the dark, he knew where we were always. Didn't really want to know about individual humped back bridges on the B16284 at 3am, but swings and roundabouts, got mentioned too.

It rained, it pissed down coming down the long decent into Well's was an aweful expletive laden experience which was the low point. So many reflections on the ride seam to mention rain, got figure, I supose.Trying see, and not crash as well as planning how to get to Taunton to abandon. In that part of the world all roads seamed to lead to Taunton. We took shelter in a 24 hour garage, the rain did ease up and eventually stop, thank goodness!

On through the night, many empty quiet country roads, I really got into the space using lots of the road knowing there were very few motors about.We both pushed up some of the climbs, I genuinely find this more efficent than grinding up at walking pace. Craig was regretting riding up from Devon and decided to abandon in the 24 hour Macdonalds on the A303 at 5am. Being the only customers in a 24 hour, Macdonalds was an experience in it's own right. Not my natural environment.

Right I knew this moment would come, the last 40 miles solo, over the Blackdown hills, with a timed train to catch. Note to self; next time spend the extra for an anytime ticket, it's worth it! The sky was lightening, the weather was at last remembering it was August. Off I went, properly navigating with off my phone for the first time, it worked I got there but had a few melt downs after hitting a bump in the road the screen would become something else completely, grrrrrr.

Pressed on enjoying the the beautiful scenery,all up and down tired but eventuall ok when having done the last big fuck off climb it plateaued out and have several miles of suprising flat roads , that I was really grateful for, the a long rolling decent on narrow country roads that ha grass and stones in the middle of them. This was the, "yeah I'm gona do this!" moment,breath. By the sea and finally in to the urban(?), Route got really knarly on bike paths through parks and railway stations. I kept misssing turns back tracking gettin in others way. Saw Exmouth railway at decided that was my finish line, no last miles, was it through the underpass or round the roundabout? No cafe, breakfast or beach, no time, said Exmouth on the sign and at that moment that was good enough.

I did it, this (for me) very big thing, lots of labour of all sorts, emotional, mental and physical. My bike,a '97 Claude Butler Professional didn't miss a beat and felt ideal for the ride, 853 joy in my life. One guy did it on a Brompton, which stggers me, this ain't Brompton Country! Hero!

Did it! Did the difficult thing, faced the fears and did it anyway. Sure there are people on the Forum who'd do it Fixed, turn round and ride back to London, but that ain't me. This was a big un for me.

I successfully got round and I remember it as a nice day out. I do hope the Exodus continues perhaps even gets a bit bigger, it dose need someone to pick up the burden of making it a bit less Self Supporting and better known if it is to return to how it was years ago. Is that a good thing? Don't know. If you like a difficult but doable challenge, I recomemend it, might even do it myself again, one day; one day.

Ha, nice one! Needs a proofread, but I'm amazed you're even up.

Does it no longer go via Cheddar and Cheddar Gorge? I didn't realise the route had changed so much with the switch to Bath. We certainly didn't go through Wells. My favourite climb was Burrington Combe, which I guess they don't do any more (streams of water running down as we went up), and I struggled the most with the long gradual drag up to Exmouth, before the disappointingly brief descent.

Like you, I got lucky with local knowledge both times. I rode most of the second time I did it with the vice-chair of a local CTC DA.

Sure there are people on the Forum who'd do it Fixed, turn round and ride back to London, but that ain't me. This was a big un for me.

Not on the forum and not fixed, but in 2009 there was a guy who had ridden to Bristol during the day, then did the EE, and then rode back to London. I ended up riding back from Dunwich with him a couple of weeks later, at least until a mechanical I had in Finchingfield.

Sorry to hear it rained again! I looked at a weather forecast and it didn't show anything, but it wouldn't be a weather forecast if it was accurate.

Done the Dynamo but this is a lot tougher, no pop up cafes every 10 miles, 16 or so people somewhere in darkest Somerset.

I'm also surprised there were so few people; there were at least 100 back then. And the DD of course didn't have those regular food stops ten years ago. No idea if the EE will go the way the DD has gone.

I successfully got round and I remember it as a nice day out. I do hope the Exodus continues perhaps even gets a bit bigger, it does need someone to pick up the burden of making it a bit less Self Supporting and better known if it is to return to how it was years ago. Is that a good thing?

Yes and no. Technology has, of course, made it all less interesting. Navigating by route sheets at night was more fun than having GPS computers. Lights also used to be a lot less powerful. Fewer people would do it if technology hadn't developed, but it is less immersive today.

The DD had only a single food stop for many years, until numbers got such that the local economy got involved, and it's now a nice earner for lots of businesses along the route, which is how it should be, so that's definitely got better. But yes, you win some, you lose some.

Anyway, chapeau!

Superb, well done! Can feel it through the write-up. The Exmouth Exodus is definitely tempting one year, as living in Bristol makes the Dunwich Dynamo a total ballache logistically.

Me steam of Consiousness

Felt like there wasn't A Route. It's Bath > Exmouth, however. Which I kinda like. If there was an organised food stop like the Sibble Headingham one on the Dynamo, that might focus peoples routes?

Agree about route sheets, they are more fun if also more prescriptive. Got the feeling Craig was doing a very bespoke ride, that only we did. Still pick a souviner one at start of the Dynamo, it's a good cause!

Thanks for the chepeau Oliver!

Thank you! Hope you liked my ramblin' and Do! It's fun, honest :-)

First proper ride after surgery, actually first proper ride after the crash in June. Think the arm is still attached. Pretty happy about our little off-road extension which sent us into Watlington and to this cool cycling cafe/pub/pizza/bbq joint...

https://www.strava.com/activities/12181329726

I find out on Wednesday if I can ride...

Not weekend, but had a day off yesterday.

Wasn't really feeling it, so plodded round. Got some new tiles. Saw some big fields and big skies. Didn't die.

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