More off roading and pub cycling.

I've been cycling the Bristol to Bath cycle path for the last few weeks every Sunday Morning. The distance from my house to the end of the path at Bath is around 17 miles each way which is probably near my limit with a couple of stops along the way. I've only done the full distance once but I have done three quarters of it several other times.

It's a good flat route to cycle along and I believe follows along the old railway path. Well it's relatively flat along the cycle path, but not so flat from my house to the path.

There is a great tunnel along the path at the Bristol end, and on a hot day like today it's a welcome break from the sunshine. It's quite good fun to cycle though the tunnel at speed as all you can hear in it is the drips of the water and wheels of my bike.

There are several places along the route where you run parallel to the old railway track. I'm guessing that a few train spotters keep this steam train running along the railway. At a couple of points you even have to open gates to cross the track.

It looked like a fully working train and the carriages also looked like they had cutlery laid out on the tables ready for lunch.

If I decide to stay in the UK then I'm going to have to invest in a proper road bike. It can be quite knackering to ride a mountain bike along the smooth tarmac. The gears are all set so low that most of the time I'm in the top three gears, also the knobbly tyres don't do me any favours.

Earlier on in the week I went out on a brief country ride with some work friends. Wiki is planning a pub bike ride for our development summer day out in September. We decided to ride the route that Wiki has planned for the day, unfortunately without stopping at any of the pubs.

It's only 5.5 miles each way with one small hill and one larger one. I'm sure that everyone can walk up the hills if they are struggling to cycle up them. We also have most of the day to do the route which only took us about 40 minutes without stopping.

Here you can see Wiki, Claire and Severien in front of the Maharajah's well near to the Cherry Tree pub. This 370ft well was built for Stoke Row village by the Maharajah of Benares (now Varanasi) in 1864. As the local area governor, who was from Stoke Row, had told the story of a boy in the village whom his mother had beaten after drinking the last of the water in the house during a drought.

The Maharajah was so touched by the story that he financed the digging of the well, along with a keeper's cottage and a cherry orchard to provide for the upkeep of the well.

Here's a lovely picture of Claire that she took just after taking photo of me in front of the well with my camera. I'm not sure what sort of face she's pulling at the camera.

Once we got to the Cherry Tree pub I was quite looking forward to a few pints of Guinness, however Wiki had other ideas. While Claire and Severien waited at the pub Wiki took me out on an off road track that she wanted to show me. I was expecting a short ride around the area but it turned into a ten mile off road trip.

I really enjoyed the off road track, there were a couple of small single track drops and some up hill bits as well. We did it all while hardly stopping at all, but I had stopped at one part on an uphill grass hill. While I was cycling up the hill I came around a bend only to see that it got even steeper which made me want to stop and walk the rest of it. Meanwhile Wiki just cycled past me, disappointed that I had stopped so near to the top of the hill.

I think that Wiki is without a doubt one of the fittest people that I know. Throughout the bike ride she barely looked like she was ever out of breath. She did confess that on the big hill she did break a sweat. I think I broke a sweat just getting up the small hill, let alone the big one. My only saving grace was that I could ride faster along the trails and downhill off road sections as she was a little more afraid of coming off her bike than me.

Here's WIki on part of the off road course beside a big mud puddle that we decided to cycle around rather than though.

Once we got back to the pub I had my well-deserved pint and then we went to Wiki's place, which is close to the Cherry Tree. She made us a fantastic dinner of Thai meatballs and rice. Yum yum!

One funny thing was that once we had finished at Wiki's place it was quite late so we caught a lift back to Wallingford in the back of Nick's van. As there were four of us I volunteered to sit in the back of the van with the bikes. I think you can just about make out the bikes and foot holding up the bikes to stop them falling on me on the left hand turns!