No cycling in Omdurman

Tweet

I missed the ride a couple of weeks ago as duty as honour took me to Khartoum to continue some strategy work I’m doing out there for a big Food and Agriculture organisation. So whilst the others were peddling through the damp streets of Berkshire, I thought I’d wander down and experience the intoxicating sights and sounds of Omdurman Market with its labyrinth of narrow, winding paths crowded with open-air shops selling everything from blood stained Victorian pith helmets to traditional Sudanese perfume (Khumra). For those of you interested in such things, the Battle of Omdurman (1898) at which Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, defeated the Mahdist army, was the last time the British Army ever used cavalry in anger.

Anyway back to cycling, I understand Graham, who turned up for the ride looking like an old woman with a head scarf, was very quickly lost to illness after just a couple of miles, Chris got several punctures and had to be rescued, leaving Harley and friend Steve to complete a 56 mile circuit which took them down to Kingsclere, onto Newbury which apparently included a very leisurely stop for coffee and several pastries, Beedon Common and back home. 

Last weekend was back to business as usual, more or less. Graham’s Son Henry was playing in a rugby tournament in Devon so Graham thought he’d peddle down to Bideford to join the family, an ambitious 160 mile trip. He reports that it was all going very well until the heavens opened reducing his vital scrap of map to a small piece of pulp. Let down by his usual homing instinct, Graham meandered off towards Exmoore from where he had to be rescued by his wife some hours later. Looking on the bright side, Henry did him very proud, I understand.

Chris, Harley and I planned a slightly less ambitious 130 miler taking in 5 counties. Leaving Streatley at 05:30 on Sunday morning we headed North through Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire visiting the hill top village of Brill which is known for having one of the earliest (1685ish) and best preserved examples of a post mill (the earliest type of European windmill) in the UK. Onto Northamptonshire where we paid a quick visit to my slightly startled brother and his wife in Croughton before stopping for breakfast at Cincinnati Joe’s Diner in the market square of the sleepy market town of Brackley. Now we are talking a nine out of ten breakfast here, not a rating we give lightly – highly recommended if you are passing that way.

Heading South East from Brackley there are some seriously good cycling lanes as you head towards Aylesbury via Steeple Clayton and Whitchurch; smooth straight and flat through some lovely countryside. Our route took us out towards Tring and the 5^th county of the day Hertfordshire, before turning for home via Princes Risborough and Chinnor where we hooked up with Steve for the last 25 miles to home.

I must say having fallen off an airoplane from Africa the day before, I was certainly feeling pretty knackered by this stage and if we hadn’t stopped for a major investment in Mars bars at the petrol station in Benson, I have a suspicion my legs would have stopped going round. Anyway the ride was just over 130 miles at a none too shabby 16.4 mph.

The bike boxes for transporting our bikes to Venice and then back from Sicily to the UK arrived this week, so I guess its time to start some serious planning....    

The eyes of a failed rapist

Tweet

This week we were privileged to be joined by the frightfully elite, all titanium equipped crew of Neal, Geschäftsführer of the legendary Velo Adventure Company, Martin and Rupert, an ex-Parachute Regiment officer who is built exactly like a monkey.

The three of them joined Graham, Harley and I in Aldworth at 06:00 for the start of our planned 120 mile trip. As we rode into a cold, clear Berkshire dawn, Rupert told me that he’d been in the Army with my cousin Peter who he recalled, was once accused of having “The eyes of a failed rapist” by their Colour Sergeant during an inspection at Sandhurst. Charitably, Rupert thought this was probably a little unfair although I must admit there is a tale that my Great Grandfather Dr. Thomas Bodley-Scott was a man of such questionable character that his friend Robert Louis Stevenson, used my forebear as the basis for the infamous character of Dr. Jekyll of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde fame. Don’t they say characteristics sometimes skip generations? Sorry Pete!

Anyway back to the matter in hand. Apart from the excellent company, one of the main reasons these rides are so enjoyable is Graham’s route planning. His routes are always woven out of his encyclopaedic knowledge of the British countryside and this morning’s course to the gentile spa town of Cheltenham was no exception. We took the country lanes through Compton, Famborough to Wantage then onto Lechlade, Chedworth (where Graham once lost an important game of Tennis) and onto Cheltenham.

One of the usual features of our trips to Cheltenham is Jeremy’s annual pilgrimage to the small characterless bungalow where he was born and brought up typically followed by Chris’ tirade on how this upbringing must account for the arm chair socialist tendencies he sees so much evidence of today. Thankfully neither of them could make it this time so we were spared this detour and headed directly for breakfast at a nameless cafe in Cheltenham High Street where certain physical characteristics of the waitresses made happy men feel old, a great improvement on the previous week by the way.

I didn’t mention that the Elite Titanium Crew are in training for some 24 hour London to Paris event and consequently are rather fitter and more disciplined than we. So under their influence, the return journey saw a well drilled peloton carving its way through the countryside to Cirencester, Highworth, Great Shefford and home. The whole 127 mile circuit was completed at an average of 16.3 mph and according to Harley’s computer with 7,000 feet of climbing and some 5000 calories burned.