The next part is me leaving and getting out of London. London is an absolute mother of a city and cause I live on the east and was going west it takes forever to get through. This next part might bore the pants off you so feel free to skip ahead to here. You should know up front that I don’t condone any of the following 4 days, do not copy any of this, if you think you’d like to do a similar cycle keep this blog as a reminder of what not to do.
While packing up my stuff I realized the panniers are a lot smaller than I thought, suddenly my travel towel didn’t look so compact anymore. Went for a smaller hoody than originally planned and the 3 thinnest t-shirts I had. 1 pair of jeans, a book, note pad, food, some tools and pretty much everything else I’d be wearing on the road. Feck it was heavy enough. Also had a camel back on my back with about a litre of water and a couple of light things.
Quick look at the weather, being the optimist I only ever look at the high for the day. 3 degrees all week, not bad. Looked at the route on the laptop, looked straightforward enough. Could either take the A315 or the A4 and then get on the A30. Eeeny meeany miney Mo! A315 it is. Wrote that down on my arm so I wouldn’t go the wrong way. Have to just go along the bottom of Hyde Park and keep going west.
Big problem was going to be gloves. I have a great fingerless pair I got with the bike but come October time you need fingers. I bought my current pair in October 2010 which lasted till mid-November and then I needed a hard core winter pair. I got a dream pair for 35 bills that were complete comfort and warmth without being too bulky. Then I left them in a bar one day before training. Went back looking for them later but the barman was quick to say he didn’t find anything before I got a chance to ask him. Winter was almost over so I didn’t get a new pair and then this winter I was barely cycling so didn’t bother again but I knew with any sort of cold I’d be in trouble. I decided to cut out ten little squares from some fabric and stick them into the ends of the finger tips for protection against the wind. You’d think you should wear two pairs of gloves but cause you can’t move your fingers around it actually makes you colder. Everywhere else I was well wrapped up. Thought about leggings but went with shorts instead. Also for the first time I got to try out my proper cycling shorts. The ones I have have straps that go over your shoulders like a wrestler’s outfit, like the one AC Slater wore but in black. Never had the balls to wear these out before and never cycled far enough to need them. Of course I had another pair of shorts on over these.
Took 2 trips down the 3 flights of stairs in my slippers, first with the panniers and boots and then the bike and camel back and then set off. Got about 200 yards down the road and looked down at my gears and noticed a strap from the panniers was dangling about just dying to get caught in my chain. Had to stop to strap it in but cause the front of the bike is so light and the panniers were so heavy when I leaned it against a lamppost the front kept moving around and making the bike fall over. The panniers were strapped on well at the top but the straps at the bottom weren’t long enough to secure to the rack so had to just tie a knot in them. Realized this was a problem later cause I packed the left side of the panniers with all my food and the right side had my clothes and tools so the left side was flopping around a bit and the first time I stood up on the pedals my balance was thrown to the right so didn’t attempt that again for the rest of the day. This was a big problem for hills and at traffic lights when you need to stand up to give yourself a push at the start.
Took usual cycle lane towards tower hill and by the time I got there I had noticed that for some of my fingers the fabric didn’t cover them properly or got lost in the glove somewhere and these fingers were actually much warmer than the ones wrapped in fabric. 20 minutes in and had to make my second stop to sort this out. But all the bits of fabric were stuck so far up that it took an age to get them all out. So far progress was slow. 3 miles down. The next stretch was a pretty enjoyable ride until I got to Big Ben. The last time I went to Hyde Park this way the roads were closed off but now I’d have to manoeuver through some one way streets.
By the time I got to Hyde Park I had already stopped at a massive amount of red lights and the clip on pedals were becoming a pain. Road pedals really aren’t made for cities cause they are harder to clip in and out of than MTB’s. With MTB’s you can clip in on either side so you can’t miss but with road shoes you can only clip into one side. If you have to stop at a light or if a lemming runs out in front of you and you don’t clip out in time then you slowly fall over and embarrass yourself wiggling about trying to get free. So coming up to every red light I’d go real slow to make sure I got out in time. As hard as clipping out was at first, getting back on was much worse. I’m used to staying in the one gear every time I cycle for the whole journey and just standing up to help get going after a light, but I couldn’t do that now so I’d be in a high gear and slowly move on from the lights while desperately trying to get my right foot into the pedal without looking down cause that threw off my balance. The fuckers would always be upside down too so it always took a while and if you accidentally step on the pedal with the back part of your shoe which is shiny plastic stepping onto smooth metal you slip right off and risk falling into traffic or worse: crushing your balls on the crossbar.
Got to Hyde Park and went down the A315 just like my arm said. This was definitely a bad choice cause it really was stop start for another hour and a half. There’s a massive roundabout around a shopping centre kind of thing in Hammersmith and unfortunately I was aiming for the last exit. There’s 4 or 5 lanes of traffic going around too so it was well dodge weaving into the right lane off balance knowing if I had to stop there’s a good chance I might fall over. After a few nerve racking minutes I eventually made it to Chiswick High Street. Absolute piece of shit road with plenty more traffic, red lights and lemmings. Defo should have taken the A4. The A315 meandered on for a bit then turned into the A205 for a minute just to mess with my head and then back to the A315. Kept seeing signs for Hounslow which made me think of Onslo from Keeping up Appearances.
Something else I couldn’t stop thinking about was needing a leak. These padded shorts were as tight as a motherfucker and combining them with being squashed on a saddle for a couple of hours was making nature call long before I’d hoped. Now I was just sauntering along scoping out bushes and trees wondering where would be best to stop. This went on for the longest time till it became distracting and enough was enough. I pulled up just past a huge billboard where there was cover from the cars going my way. Low and behold there comes a woman taking her sweet time out for a stroll in the middle of nowhere in freezing weather. She took an eternity to pass before I finally got to go. And Jesus did I go. Then I looked down and I thought I’d waited so long I started pissing fire – I’d never seen that much steam before. What am I, a camel? Feeling fantastic I continued on.
I guess I didn’t look at the map closely enough for the next part cause the 315 turned into the A30 which I did eventually want but not until I got through Staines. At a big roundabout the A30 became a hard-core road with no street lights and I figured it was time for me to get on the path. Lucky I did cause I warmed my hands, checked my phone and saw I was going the wrong way. Got back to the roundabout and took an underground walkway to get across the road and when I got out the other side my bearings were broken. My little blue triangle had said to go this way but now it was saying I was going the wrong way. Crossed the pedestrian lights and I was still going the wrong way. Didn’t trust it so went down the road for a minute, checked again and yep I was on the way back to London.
Turned back around and got on the right track. I didn’t think that was going to be the part that would mess me up cause I was coming up to a big left right left left right to get through Staines and I thought this would be the only major problem. By the time I got through there my upper body was getting cold. By now my toes especially on my left foot were numb and my fingers would have been but every time I stopped to check the route I warmed them up. But my upper body getting cold was more unexpected. I promised myself when I got out of Staines and onto the home straight of the A30 I’d put another top on.
When I left the house I had on a cycling t-shirt, a normal t-shirt and a jacket and thought I was going to be too warm. For socks I decided to go with black ones to match my boots and shorts. Cold feet turned out to be a major problem I didn’t anticipate. For Christmas the aul lad got me a pair of black woolly knee high socks like the Billy Barry kids would wear – as a joke I guess. I didn’t really see myself ever wearing them but as I packed my socks I thought about them for a minute as a novelty item but unfortunately didn’t take them. When I got to Johnny’s house they were the first thing I checked my bag for just in case and was sick to see I hadn’t brought them.
