www.dadswell.co.uk Mostly cycling records, mostly on three wheels
An Educational Experience
June 2005
Mrs Bloom looked across to me and said "Mr Dadswell, I feel the need for
intellectual stimulation." I hesitated momentarily, and then
replied "A First Class idea Mrs Bloom. What says we take the Long
Barrow from Oxford to Cambridge and back in the High Summer?". And
so it was decided that on 26th June 2005, a small group of people should
gather together at a point between those unspoiled cities ... and at 8am
precisely, one of those number should say "go!".
We chose to base our ride at Buckingham, starting and finishing near the
Tesco supermarket on the southern bypass. No pressure, but we knew
that if we finished well inside 8 hours, then we should be able to get
cleaned up and changed before the cafe shut. My first guess
was that the route would be about 140 miles, and so I was a little
disappointed to discover (when devising the schedule) that it was
actually 160 miles. There was no existing record in our category,
so (again) we could only judge what a fair ride would be by considering
the times recorded on other machines. The fastest ride on the
books was 7h 30m, and so I scheduled for us to match that.
It's 23 miles to Oxford from Buckingham, and we soon had the tandem tricycle running comfortably ahead of schedule. At Bicester we were 5 minutes up, and this had increased to a 10 minute advantage as we approached Oxford after a few very quick miles on the A34. Suddenly I was trying to remember what time I'd agreed with Alan Deadman, for him to be in place to witness us at St John's College, Oxford.
(photos at Oxford by Alan Deadman)
Fortunately, he was ready for us as we coasted around him, and so we
were safely witnessed at the first extremity of the ride - 11 minutes
up. We were just inside one hour at 25 miles.
We had been a bit alarmed to make such good progress, and were expecting
to discover a serious headwind as soon as we left the leafy boulevards
of Oxford. Surprisingly, however, it wasn't too bad. How
long would we hold onto an 11 minute advantage? We actually crept
up to 12 minutes approaching Bicester, but were back to 11 once through
the town. As we approached Buckingham, we then did a few slower
miles, as my wife had called in asking us to stop as one of our children
was ill. But just as we were about to leave the course and abandon
.... she changed her mind, and we received instructions to continue !
I was somewhat confused by this sudden change of heart, and took almost
an hour to really get my head into the ride again. This must've
made things difficult for Marina ! As we left the interminable
sequence of Milton Keynes roundabouts behind, we then had a few rough
miles before turning towards Bedford. The weather was still
against us, but our advantage over the schedule crept up a little, and
as we crossed the A1, we were ten minutes up again. We held on for
the remaining 20 miles to the eastern turn, and at 1240 we were picking
our way through the little junctions and cobbled streets that adjoin St
Johns College, Cambridge.
At the required point, we were witnessed by Alan Turner as we spun
around in the middle of the road in front of the college gates, and with
some feeling of relief we were into the final 55 mile section of our
journey. And the wind direction? As we left the town, there
were some flags which were really not pointing the right way for us.
So we ignored them, mumbling something like "oh, it's local geography
distorting the air flows ....".
Once out onto the open roads again, we were running along quite nicely.
The sun was shining, and we added to our advantage at each checkpoint.
By the end of the Bedford bypass we had 25 miles to go, and were 16
minutes up. It seemed likely, therefore, that we would beat 7h
15m. But there was still work to do, and we had been out there for
over 6 hours. We struggled to the M1 junction, and despite riding
well across the Milton Keynes section, the vast total of roundabouts
seemed to be forever causing us to lose speed and then drag ourselves
back. With 10 miles to go, we had a 17 minute cushion.
The closing section includes a fairly lumpy few miles as the route
crosses Whaddon Chase. We were (or at least I was) tiring a
little, and our speed was suffering. But then, as if by magic, the
terrain suddenly became friendly, and we were doing 30 mph. In the
space of a minute, we went from "let's get it over with", to "hey, we
could beat 7h 10m !". We sprinted and sprinted and sprinted.
We crossed the line in 7h 10m 2s. Gnashing and grinding of teeth.
But hey, it was faster than we'd expected to go, and there had also been
a section where we'd only really been running on one engine, so perhaps
it was a good result after all.
We had finished comfortably ahead of the 4pm deadline, and so adjourned
to the luxurious surroundings of the Tesco cafe for a fry-up. The
officials, who were Den Mills and Bob O'Dell, sorted out the paperwork
and we were soon making our various ways home. The next
significant event on my cycling calendar is the Mersey Roads 24 hour,
where I will ride the tandem-tricycle with Dave Johnson. Marina
will be riding alongside her Walsall team mates, hoping to once again
take the team prize. Who knows what the day will yield ....
Ralph Dadswell July 2005