1. Not enough training rides – I did a whole 3 practice rides in total before the event – the longest one being 65miles and that was about 6 weeks before. This was due to a lot going on the previous month(including driving to Switzerland and back) and not having enough spare days to train. So my bike training for a 100 mile century ride was 1 x 38 mile ride out to Redhill Aerodrome and back, 1 x 65 mile ride from Worcester Park to Milton Keynes, 1 x 38 miler around Box Hill and back via Epsom.
2. Moved house 2 days before – yeah great timing
3. Hardly slept the night before – so was quite tired for most of the ride – didn’t get to bed until around midnight due to sorting out new house stuff and then woke up at 4am as had forgotten to prepare some food for the day – usually sleep quite well the night before events like this, but this night, I was wired.

Anyways I got up at 5:20am – there were allegedly 3 trains from Wimbledon(or Raynes Park) station on a Sunday morning that would get me to the race start on time – one at 5:56am, 6:17am and 7:08am. Despite the race email saying my arrival time at Buckingham Palace should be 7:50am, I opted on the side of caution and went for the 5:56am train, but when I got to the station there were NO TRAINS! :O

Journey to the Start Line

Yes, I cycled the 3.5 miles from home to Wimbledon to station, getting there 10mins before 5:56am, only to be greeted with the news from the departures screen that there were no trains going to Waterloo(due to engineering works). My immediate reaction was that this meant I’d have to cycle the 9 miles to central London, which I really wanted to avoid if possible as I was already quite tired and really didn’t fancy any extra miles before starting the ride. So, I headed off down Alexadra Road and saw a big Rail Replacement bus at the bus stop. Deperately wanting to avoid biking all the way to London, I took a punt and asked the driver if I could put my bike on the bus and amazingly he agreed(Big Thanks to this Bus Driver!) – some other passenger then said, “You’ve got a friend already on the bus”. It turned out fellow rider “Kat” had already parked her bike on the bus too I chatted to her as we journeyed up to London via Vauxhall, getting off at Waterloo, cycling across Westminster Bridge(despite the guide saying this would be closed) and then making our way across to Victoria to the start queue. Kat had an earlier start time than me and I could tell she was a faster cyclist, so she headed off into the main queue shortly after we got to the start gates.

A Worryingly The Late Start Time

Just a quick note about starting times – to add to everything else I was also quite annoyed at being given 9:05am as a start time! the main reason for this is because I predicted I’d take at least 8.5hours to finish the 100miles and had read about stage “cut-off” times! Cut-off times essentially mean if you don’t get to an appropriate stage of the race within the specified time, in this event you would either be sent on to the shorter 60mile route or not allowed to finish. The times seemed quite tight given a 9:05am start time, which made me fret somewhat.

My start details were:
Start colour: YELLOW
Wave letter: G
Arrival time: 07:50:00
Load time start: 08:20:00
Load time end: 08:40:00
Start time: 09:05:00

Cut-Off Times Location / Distance / Time before you’re not allowed to finish

1 Woodford Green – Mile 18 11:00am
2 Four Wantz Roundabout, Chipping Ongar – Mile 32 12:20pm
3 Felsted School – Mile 53 14:00
4 Writtle – Mile 63 15:00

Considering all the above, I had a quick snack and then decided to join the starting queue anyway – yes I was early and the brochure hollered you’re not meant to start earlier, but as mentioned I was quite concerned about the stage cut-off times. I then saw another rider from the “G” Wave, so thought it must be alright to do so. Ironically the queue was huge and we had to wait at least an hour to get anywhere near the start line. If I’d taken the later train or decided to wait until the proper time I’d been given, I wouldn’t have crossed the line until probably well after 10am, meaning I’d probably have missed half the cut-offs. Apparently they were releasing waves of X thousand cyclists at once and this took more time to organise than expected. Anyways, being in the queue with thousands of other cyclists was fun, it was a nice morning, a great atmosphere and there was some most amusing banter heard from behind as a bunch of Essex Boys from the Hornchurch Cycling Club waited to set off. What I also found interesting was that most of the bikers seemed quite serious cyclists, including one guy who said he’d run a 2:38hr marathon and he did look remarkably fit. To add to the scene a couple were having their engagement photos taken by the Thames, funny thing to do on a Sunday at 8am, but there you go.

The Event Starts

So I eventually crossed the Start Line around 8:45am – it wasn’t much of a start line to be honest, you were cycling along one minute, passed a load of portable toilets by the Thames and the next minute you’d passed the start line Anyways with the 11am cut-off time in mind, I sped as quickly as I could towards “Woodford Green” to cover the first 18miles! I seemed to be pushed along by the crowd and other riders somewhat, trying to keep the pace up as best I could. Let me say I was feeling noticably fatigued/tired and was very concerned that later in the race I’d have to give up, as it felt doubtful my legs would be able to keep going at such a speed for 8 full hours. My whole aim and motivation at this point was to make it to the checkpoint 2 hours ahead of the cut-off time. I figured if I had a 2 hour leeway gap at 18miles, I should just about be able to make the finish in time.

Anyway, somehow I made it to the 18 mile Woodford Green first stage checkpoint without stopping and was about an hour inside the cut-off time(on the day I actually convinced myself it was 2 hours inside the cut-off time). My whole strategy plan for the race was to stop for a rest every 20miles(as had done in training), but as nobody else stopped at 20 miles I decided to keep going to get to the first major stopping point at 25 miles – which was in Epping town – arriving at 10:50am. There was a great reception for us bike riders – hundreds of people out on the street and a real celebration atmosphere. Here I stopped for a much needed Starbucks tea! I had hoped a nice cup of tea would wake me up and it did a bit, but not as much as had hoped. Anyways I had no other choice than to keep going.

We proceeded through Epping Forest. When I say “we” I mean me and thousands of other bike riders, this was a huge event and seemed to have a lot more people than in 2018. Anyway Epping Forest was meant to be a highlight, but to be honest I found the place to be rather uninteresting. Yes there were nice trees on either side, which were pleasant enough, but there wasn’t anything else, no animals or buildings of interest(none that I could see anyway) and we were cycling along a plain straight road all the way through it. Surrey just seems a lot more leafy and varied, suppose it might also be the case that I’m more a fan of technical tracks and really not much of a speed rider, I simply prefer cycling along rocky hill paths or sandy lanes than in a straight-line on a road even if it is through a forest.

After Epping Forest the ride opened up onto farmland, sprawling fields and small hills. Now this was very pleasant to begin with, at least for the first hour of so. You were in the country, there was fresh air, no cars to be seen, it was nice and quiet, well, except for the thousands of other bikes on the road. The only thing is this scenary style(if you can call it that) went on and on and on, for a very long time, for miles and miles, again without much variation. Maybe it was my general wearyness making me tetchy, maybe it was the hot sun beating down on my face sans sunglasses(why did I not wear any?), but I grew a bit tired of it, I wanted to see some skyscrapers or an airport or something. As stated it was a hot sunny day and I didn’t have any sun-tan lotion on either, so that probably didn’t help either. Oh man, it sounds like I’m complaining awfully, but please put this mostly down to tiredness and being annoyed/anxious about the cut-off times.

Half Way Happiness

I got to the half-way 50mile point at 12:58pm and was very happy to have made it that far, but really I wanted to get to the 75mile point Shortly after that and just before the Felsted School rest-point I stopped at the Palm Trees restaurant and bar – had a quick sandwich and a major drink of water. The Essex police were there checking the roads for any errant cars and I overheard them say that some people had complained that so many roads were closed – found this a bit amusing as allegedly the Ride-London-Surrey was moved to Essex because Surrey residents had moaned about how their village roads were closed for the staggering timespan of 4am – 7pm one Sunday per year.

Getting to the Felsted School pit-stop at 1:20pm (40mins within cut-off) was another enjoyable experience – except for the long path you had to follow to get into the bike park area, but no complaints as once again it was a fab atmosphere, surrounded by hundreds of other cyclists + we got free bananas and numerous free gels. I grabbed a load of them and all was good.

Should say shortly after the Felsted stop, I decided to start taking these gels and took them every few miles until the end of the ride! In a marathon I restrict myself quite strictly with gels, but today I was in no mood for such restraint, in fact prob took more gels than have ever taken in my life! I sudder to think what my blood glucose level must’ve been by the end or how many gels I actually took, especially the last 15 miles. I took them not only for my legs but to keep me awake too, so very healthy reasons.

Half an hour after leaving Felstead I sailed past Mile 60 at 2pm, then half an hour later passed through Writtle. Tried to look out for Writtle college, where my niece went to college, but had no real time to look around the place, there were 40 more miles to cycle.

Getting to the final rest-stop of Chipping Ongar High Street(Mile 73) just after 3pm, I stopped for a sit-down, another much enjoyed tea and finished the sandwiches I’d bought with me at the start(yes many people say 9 hour old ham sandwiches are unhealthy, but I disagree). This stop was in an Arts Centre grounds – they served hot food both outside and inside – there were rides for kids, a bar cooking burgers and again a real party atmosphere going on with lots of people enjoying themselves.

Getting Overtaken by Everyone

The theme of this ride seems to have been that everyone must overtake me. I got overtaken by literally everyone – like all shapes and sizes of cyclist, young and old, fit and unfit looking, those with far better bikes and those with far worse bikes, everyone. Found this even more confusing than in 2018 where something similar happened, lots of people who looked much less fit than myself overtook me with ease, except on the hills where I gave most of them a good beating. After that experience I asked some friends and was given a good answer – these rival cyclists were wearing cycling shoes – yes those shoes that clip on/off the bike pedals – apparently they can give 30% more power per cycle and I did remember seeing most riders wearing shoes, which would explain things. This time, however, was different! Many people that overtook were definitely not wearing cycle shoes – so I just had to try to accept they were either on drugs or perhaps I was just a plain slow cyclist these days. I even wondered if my bike hadn’t been oiled, but it had been.

Revenge on the overtakers!

Leaving the Ongar rest-stop, countryside still surrounded us, but during the final 2 hours of the ride, the scenary gradly became more built up as we approached back into London. As when we got within 20 miles of the finish, I also began to wake up! Maybe this was relief of getting to within a finishing distance, but for some reason it took me about 7 hours of nearly non-stop cycling and goodness knows how many calories burnt to kick my morning tiredness. This coincided with there being a few more hills than the previous 80 miles, which meant I began getting some revenge on those who had previously overtaken me, by overtaking them and over-taking those folks even slower than me – it really wasn’t much revenge really as many other folks still overtook me on the flat, but it felt like some justice was served at least.

Girl decides to fall off in front of me on the steepest hill

As mentioned this final 20 or 15 miles there was a notable increase in hills. Now, this ride is billed as not being very hilly and I’d have to agree with this – there are a few hills but not many, nothing like the Surrey version anyway. Ironically the biggest hill is at Mile 85 near Woodford! Now I quite enjoy going up steep hills and this one I attacked with a bit of relish, it was fairly steep but nothing overly difficult in my opinion, it was fairly long but I’d conquerred far worse. Anyway as I’m going up there were lots of signs saying “Keep right to over-take”, but due to slower riders getting in my way I was forced left just as I was over-taking a girl. Unfortunately she thought I was going to clip/crash into her and unfortunately she was indeed wearing those infamous cycle-shoes and couldn’t eject herself from them in time, so she fell over. Balancing on the pedals I asked if she was alright and she replied she was, thank goodness – bailing out at 85miles would suck and on I pedaled.

Personally I found the most difficult and annoying hills to be specifically approaching the Olympic Park. London Docklands and Wapping area which weren’t actual hills but annoyingly long and slow going road fly-overs. The one bonus was you got a fine clear view into London from these fly-overs and it was great to see Canary Wharf and other buildings.

Starting to Enjoy the Ride at Last

Following the final annoying fly-overs of the Lower Lea Crossing and the Docklands + having finally and fully woken up + being in the best mentally enhanced state all day thanks to all the gels taken, I started to finally enjoy the ride. Speed cycling through the mile long Limehouse Link tunnel and clocking up to 40kmh(25mph) was certainly a highlight, even overtook a speed biker there too!

The Finish Line

Eventually we got to within sight of the Thames and following the A1203 meant we were nearing the end, a quick turn left and there was Tower Bridge! cycling over this iconic landmark to cheering crowds and seeing Bronwyn amongst them was great stuff. Once past the bridge though, there was a bit of confusion as to where the end actually was! much like the start line, there was no indication of where the finish line actually was – you kind of assumed you had passed it, before having to dismount, collect the well-earnt RideLondon-Essex medal and walk our bikes to a street exit. Despite all that was in a most happy mood, especialy as apparently 20 minutes later Tower Bridge was opening its gates for a ship and so they re-routed the finish line at 6pm to the other side of the river(you miss out on crossing Tower Bridge if that happens) – so was very glad to have made it to the official finish line in time, wherever it was

Onwards to the Ironman

Following a Guinness and some food, I decided to be like normal people and just go home on the train, but…then I changed my mind and realised that it’s really not often I cycle 100miles and my ambition of completing an Ironman triathlon in a year would be significantly aided if I clock another 15miles today! So I cycled home via London(this involved a lot of map-checking and muttering to myself) and then around the block a few times – eventually clocking up about 119miles just to be sure Yes I was called various names for doing this and it took until 10pm but whilst you may laugh I only have to swim 2.4miles and run another marathon to complete an Ironman!

Lessons Learnt & Things To Consider

So there you go 100 miles ridden and probably gained more cardio fitness in 9 hours than in the past year, but what tips would I have for next time? Well, to start with, definitely do a bit more training, go to bed earlier and perhaps don’t move house the day before

As mentioned above and similar to my experience in the RideLondon-Surrey 2018 – what I found most confusing was that everyone, like the entire world, all levels of athleticism and non-athleticism overtook me – at least until the final 20 miles or so when I managed to overtake a few people and that was generally only on the hills – when they were tired and I had woken up. After some research it looks like the answer is quite simple – rather than relying on past athletic ability, James must actually go out and do some 2 hour practice bike rides and do these rides each weekend for several months. This makes obvious sense really, it’s the same with almost anything else, from playing tennis to playing the piano – do either of those for 2 hours a week for 6 months and you’re guaranteed to seriously improve, even if you don’t think you have. Allegedly there are no real short cuts with cycling(as I was hoping) but doing those 2 hour rides will increase your speed, sometimes impercetably and it’s almost certainly what most of those regular folks who overtook me had been doing. I suppose that’s what most normal people would do when preparing for a 100mile bike ride, give themselves 6 months to prepare, rather than relying solely on 3 practice rides to be enough

Related to the above, most of the way it felt quite imperitive to reach the 70mile marker, so perhaps a couple more long bike rides of 70+ miles would’ve really helped give confidence in this area too.

The other major potential improvement, should I venture to do anything like this again, would be to change my actual bike. The bike is a Bianchi Via Nirone 7 – which was gifted to me by my niece’s husband for the 2018 ride(he didn’t ever use it). This has been a fantastic bike, I’ve now done two century Ironman rides using it, as well as numerous other long-distance trips and it’s saved my bacon getting to Wimbledon train station on time and elsewhere on many occasions. The only problem is that it’s officially a bit too small for me, everyone who knows much about bikes comments on this. It’s a 55cm frame when ideally my bike size should be larger at around 60cm. It strikes me that if I were to dedicate myself to those regular 2 hour weekend bike rides, investing in the correct frame-sized bike would be a sensible and beneficial idea – another obvious one, I guess.

Links

Ford RideLondon-Essex 2023 Event Guide and Route Map

Gallery

The Scenario

That day I was alone, nobody knew where I was or where I was going, as I hadn’t told anyone. The mountains were quite empty too, being November 2007. The day before I may have told my Dad I was heading to the Lake District, but that was about it. My provisions included some chocolate, some biscuits, some bread “sandwiches”, some Kendal Mint Cake and some water. The weather was quite pleasant to start with and I set out reasonably early for once. Having not hiked a proper mountain for a quite a while, I thought it would only take a few hours to climb England’s highest mountain and using the official Scafell Pike Ordnance Survey map, assumed the trek to be fairly straight-forward. How wrong I was!

The Prelude Hows and Whys

So how did all this start? well due to everything going laughably wrong in my work, tennis, love and home life, I decided to go and climb Ben Nevis. Figured a time away from everyone and everything in the Wilderness would be a good change. As everything else was going dismally wrong it was no surprise when the mountain weather forecast (www.mwis.org.uk) turned out to be particularly rubbish for the Ben Nevis region that week, in fact they were forecasting snow up there – making the climb impossible!!! Well, I’d just had enough and decided to head to Scafell Pike instead come what may.

This account is in diary format because it’s from my diary of the time, so pls forgive the grammar…

Monday 5th November 2007 – Heading Off

After much packing of food, pots and pans, clothes, my tent(cos I planned to go camping) etc into my beloved Peugeot 306 and then being delayed some more due to having to pay my road tax at the post office(those were the days), I finally left Wimbledon around 3pm and drove for 7 hours non-stop up to the Lake District. The last 2 hours was heavy driving rain, but it completely cleared up as I reached my destination. I’d booked a spot in the newly advertised Murt Camping Barn (from the Independent Hostels website ) in the village of Nether Wasdale near Penrith. It was described as somewhat of a barebones barn, which was 5 miles away from the Scafell Pike classic mountain trail at Wasdale Head. It was very cheap back then and being November was off-season. This was in the day before Google maps and I had to locate the place in pitch darkness, using just my old fashioned map, some sparse directions given in the Murt booking email and my car headlights. After driving along various country lanes, my headlights luckily spotted a hand-written sign stuck to a tree at a crossroads which pointed to the barn. Just as I got to the sign, rather oddly I got a phone call from a friend inviting me to join him on the “Landmark” course, which I didn’t take up. It was remarkable really because beyond this point there was virtually no mobile signal in the area at all and he’d phoned me just at that minute. Anyways, after a bit more searching the barn was located down a driveway.

The Murt Camping Barn

First memories of this place are being amazed at the stars and the clearness of the sky, definitely the best since I lived in Australia!
The barn was also a lot better than expected – it had two floors – the bottom having a toilet, a coin-operated shower and sink (allegedly with hot water). Upstairs having a wooden picnic table, 5 matresses and an eating area. It even had electricity and lights! I cooked some soup using my gas pocket-rocket stove and went to bed, pitching my sleeping bag upon one of the mattresses.
Brilliantly my sleeping bag turned out to be a summer sleeping bag and it was a very cold night, but I was young enough to have slept moderately well and it was a bright morning to awaken to!

Tuesday 8th November 2007 – A Nice Day To Climb Scafell Pike

Opening the barn door I was stunned by the view, it was nothing like expected! surrounded by countryside and mountains, there were chickens in the back yard, with fresh eggs too (don’t forget I’d arrived at night). Shortly afterwards I set off in the trusty Peugeot 306 down the road toward Wasdale Head, the drive past Wastwater lake is spectacular as well as somewhat daunting with the huge lake contrasted by giant slate mountains surrounding both sides. I honestly didn’t think you had mountains like this in England, but you do. I parked at some random parking area and hoped that was alright. I discovered and let me emphasize – there is nothing at this Wasdale Head place, except a pub(The Wasdale Arms), a small Inn hotel (which looked closed) and a hiking supplies shop. I visited the hiking supplies shop and bought some Kendle Mint Cake, along with the Scafell Pike Ordnance Survey OL6 map, because the lady in the shop said it contained more info than the simple “walkers map”. This was probably my first mistake. So this OS map, it shows all the paths up and around the mountains and how to get to the summit of Scafell Pike(978m high). Let me point out there are quite a few other peaks in this area.

The Trek Begins

So I set off walking. First problem here I noticed was that there were no signs to anything! this was unlike the treks I’d been on in Australia and New Zealand. Anyway, I eventually found one saying “Scafell Massif footpath” so I followed that and crossed the nearby river and decided to turn left cos I couldn’t make out the right hand path very well and the map looked to me to take the left path anyways. Now what happened next was because I didn’t read the map properly or rather I didn’t know how to read the map properly at all! I mistook a waterfall on the map for the river I was next to and ended up walking almost around the base of the mountain for about an hour!

After this hour I’d noticed I wasn’t actually going up any mountain at all, so I tried to work out where I was using my compass, but to no avail! I then decided rather angrily that the map/path was wrong and I was going to climb the mountain face literally The angle of the hill here was about 70degrees and I think here was where I pressured my knee joints too much the first time! Even worse I got to this place with some rocks, to have a rest and a snack, putting my backpack on the aforementioned rocks and the friggin’ thing fell off and rolled down the mountain slope and I had to chase it downwards, luckily it stopped after about 100m’s, but that was still most heinous!

Anyways I carry on trekking up hill as that seemed the sensible thing to do. It was quite tiring, but I like to push myself so I just walked and walked. Eventually I get to some “peak”, which I assume might be Scafell Pike and it’s here that I spot the first 2 people I’ve seen all day long. I must’ve been walking for nearly 3 hours by now. From a distance I holler at them asking where Scafell Pike is and they point towards these 2 distant peaks.

On The Run From The Mist

Most heinously I notice that the mist is starting to come down on the peaks they pointed at, like rolling clouds covering everything, was an amazing sight. Now it was also about 2:30pm, in November and whilst I wanted to out-run this mist, more importantly I was very determined and to me more importantly was to get to the top!

After going cross country some more I finally find some semblance of a path, which is good, as at this point I am getting most annoyed at the lack of paths in this place! again I look at the map and have no idea where I am on the map, but I follow the path and come to some cairns (which are stone markers) which I follow, as these are usually a good and helpful sign of going “somewhere”.

The Mist Catches Up

Now what amazed me was the speed the mist caught me up and soon it covered all my surroundings. Visibilty dropped to about 5 metres, as everything else was engulfed in cloud. I really didn’t care though, as getting to the summit is what mattered and the path was going upwards at least.

I then meet this bloke and his dog heading in the opposite direction and ask him where the Scafell Pike summit is and he indicates to keep following the path and says “yeah you can’t miss the summit”. I also ask how to get back down and he says take the right path. So I keep following the path am on, eventually getting to a kind of highest point area and then the flippin’ path divides in two! Marvellous! It is marked by the biggest cairn ever seen and I assume this MUST be the top, I am most annoyed by this cos again I’ve no clue where I actually am and there’s no markings or anything on it indicating this is the top, but I just have to guess this is the top(it wasn’t the top), which would be just typical of this place which refuses to have any signs anywhere!

Don’t Panic – It’s only freezing with 0 visibility and you’re lost, alone and wearing shorts!

Despite being at the alleged top, here is where a minor panic starts! I take a photo of this alleged “summit” and decide pronto is the time to leave! Despite the calmness of these words, let me describe the scene – the mist has seriously descended even more, visibility is about 10feet, the temperature is probably below ZERO, my fingers are numb and the wind is kicking up at hurricane force. I’m also alone, wearing shorts and gloves that aren’t water or wind proof! More importantly I’ve got about an hour of daylight left to get to ground level from a place where there are no defined paths or routes to anywhere that I can find! The path I’m on is now forked and I’m really not sure which one to take. I have to say, this is the scariest outdoors situation I can remember. I pretty much felt that if I got stuck out here in the dark I would be in BIG trouble. At this time I was also most concerned about reports of Panther’s and other wild animals out on the moors! Beforehand I was very cynical about how you can possibly get lost on a mountain, all those stories about folks getting lost for days or having to be helicopter rescued etc. sounded quite stupid to me, but now I know how it can happen! So I decide to follow what the dude on the path said and take the right turn. So I hop down this path as fast I as I can, becoming very conscious of the dimming light.

One Fluke Moment As The Mist Clears

Eventually I find a wooden hut amongst the rocks, open the door and it’s some kind of an “Emergency Shelter” and…NOW THIS IS THE BEST, I look on the map and the ducking thing isn’t on there!!(well I couldn’t find it) Frantically consulting my compass, I look over to where the path goes(South) and in the distance across the mountain I see what looks like a road, “oh good” I say to myself, that must be the correct way home, HOWEVER, just before setting off again I notice at the side of the shelter and in the total opposite(Northly) direction is a sheer cliff which has mist and gale force winds rocketing up from it. Intrigued by natural wonders like this I randomly decide to peer over the windy and cloud swept precipice and just as I do, the mist clears for about 20 seconds! I glimpse the edge of a lake! Hang on I think, there’s only one lake round here. Quickly looking again at the map, I confirm there IS indeed only one lake around here and that’s Wastwater and hang on, what is that shiny silver object? that looks like a couple of cars parked next to it! Again luckily I had my big binoculars so I check it out, it IS cars, it IS Wastwater!! I decide I’m taking those binoculars on every mountain trip ever from now on! Once again the clouds engulf the area and the view of the lake and the cars disappears, but peeking directly downwards(in the direction of the lake) I see a path at the bottom of this sheer cliff!

Only One Option – Jumping Off A Cliff

Now I realise that due to this somewhat desperate predicament there’s only one option – I have to descend this 80 degree ducking cliff and get to that path! With an intake of breath, I kind of ease myself down and jump off it, literally into the breach of rocks! adrenaline takes over as huge winds blast against me as I fall/descend! it was here that I tragically lost my beloved 2002 US Open Heineken Day Cap, blown off by the wind and despite an attempted search it was never seen again I end up spending a good 20minutes on my hands and knees slowly sliding or surfing on scree(loose rocks/stones)!!! it was totally Nuts and upon reflection somewhat mad and staggeringly dangerous, but I HAD to get to that path or get stuck/lost on the mountains all night long.
At one point I see the path below is bordered by a flat wall and lined with a wire railing, I had visions of being stuck on the wrong side unable to get across, but somehow I jump down over that and land on to the path. Relief ensues, as this is clearly a path winding downwards to the safety of ground level. After this cliff descending “event” my hands/knees/legs are not in the best condition and I then have the pleasure of walking another 3-4miles as night fall begins. The path eventually leads back to the bridge I crossed originally and I get to see the waterfall what I thought was a river on the map. By now it is very dark and I realise where I’d gone wrong on the map!! it dawns on me how easy the hike should be if you go the right way and find this path, oh well I ponder, maybe I’ll do it tomorrow

Staggering Into The Pub

I roll into the Wasdale Arms pub, totally shattered, ordering a nice pint of ale and a beer & beef pie plus mash. Man, was I grateful for that pie! reckon I must’ve walked 15+ miles that day including several miles on a serious uphill slope. Consulting the OS map, it turns out I was possibly about 1metre from the summit in height and probably 3m’s away from the stone monument that marks it !!
I later discover that if I had followed that path by the Emergency shelter South, I would have ended up on the other side of the mountain. The ‘road’ I saw was actually another river! And there’s NOTHING out there for about 20miles! It would have been a true test of my survival skills. To be fair I did have a thermal vest and trousers and food in my backpack and I’ve always considered the SAS survival skills I learnt as a kid would save me in such a situation, but I think cos of my general low confidence and stressed-outness I didn’t fancy this at the time. Anyways, let me state back then it took an awful lot to really physically tire me out, I’ve planted sugar cane all day, played tennis for hours on end, run to Kingston etc and not been too bad afterwards. The only comparison I can make to this “Scafell adventure” is possibly when I did the insane Grand Canyon “walk” with Nathan back in August 1999 where I only survived because I’d bought a t-shirt and in the end was totally exhausted!

End of a Wonderful Day – More Fun Back At The Barn

After all this I went back to the barn, discovered the frigging heater on the shower didn’t work, honestly only wanted one thing that day, a hot shower, BUT NO NO NO, couldn’t have that, so went to bed.

After Thoughts – ALWAYS BE PREPARED

So Why was I so badly prepared? Well simple answer is I was oblivious to how the weather can change out there combined with having no idea how to read an OS map properly. That’s just how I rolled back then so to speak too, despite my Dad telling me endlessly the scout’s motto “Always be prepared”. In my defence I’d done a “bit” of hiking in Australia and New Zealand, where the weather was way better. I hiked the Overland 110km trek in Tasmania on my lonesome over 8 days wearing regular trainers, no need for any of bonefide trekking boots for me like what everyone else I met on the trek had. Apparently if it had rained it would’ve been big trouble, but it didn’t rain As an illustration of my lack of preparedness suppose should admit on the Overland I became known not as the guy in trainers, but as the guy who didn’t have a gas stove and had to hike an extra 20km to the start and back on the second day to buy one. Well, sure I’d read somewhere they had free gas stoves on the way, ah well.

Since 2007 the other thing have always wondered is how/if I would have survived the night out there on the mountains. Despite my obliviousness to other things, my actual survival knowledge/skills surprisingly shouldn’t have been at a bad level. Oddly inspite of only having been in the Cubs 3 weeks and having never been a scout or doing any adventure training whatsoever I was brought up camping, learning to make fires etc. As kids, my younger brother had the original SAS Surival book by John “Lofty” Wiseman and we both read and learnt every page in that book from trap making to which fungi kills you. Before he owned it, we often used to borrow it from the library, put it that way. I also had an Osbourne Survival skills book and still remember a lot from those books and those days, this was way before TV shows like Ray Mears or Bear Grylls, so we were kind of ahead of our time on this one. If I had taken the wrong path it would have been like being chucked in at the deep-end after practicing in a paddling pool, a real interesting test.

DISCLAIMER – Important

I suppose I’d better not recommend doing this to anyone else, so if you’re visiting the mountains anywhere, take with you all equipment needed and learn to read a map BEFORE you go + tell someone where you are going, in case you do get lost. zzz

Gallery

The falls Brazil-side

The main town near the waterfalls on the Brazil side is Foz do Iguaçu. We stayed there for 4 nights. The first 2 nights at the “Iguassu Eco Hostel“, which is right near the airport and helicopter tour field + is walking distance to the waterfalls and the Bird Park(aka Parque das Aves which is well worth visiting too). We visited both the waterfalls and Bird Park in 1 day. The the only downside to the Eco Hostel is that it’s quite a long way from the main town and there’s not much going on there, it’s just a chilled out place to relax, but you can always get an Uber or bus into town for extra beers/food(it’s about 15mins away). Saying that, they do serve water, beer and decent buffet meals of beans, rice and meat for about £5, but there just aren’t any shops around.

The falls Argentina-side

To see the Argentine side waterfalls, just ask the hotel to hire you a taxi to take you there and pick you up at a desired time in the afternoon(say 5pm). The taxi driver will sort out passport checking at the border on way, it’s very easy. We booked this at the Eco Hostel place and it cost us about £25 each(it’s cheaper if you can find others to go with). Should say there’s an odd $2 tourist tax when you leave the Argentina side waterfalls and go back to Brazil(apparently it’s to do with the town and the National Park), so try to remember to carry some cash with you.

Our other 2 nights were in a “hotel/hostel” called Pousada El Shaddai which was a good place in the main town, with kitchens and a swimming pool, near the bus station and a 5min walk to a big supermarket and a load of restaurants(oddly, they were quite hard to find in this town). The morning before flying back to Rio, I visited the Itaipu Dam, the world’s 2nd largest hydroelectric dam from here by Uber and bus.

The town on the Argentine side is called Puerto Iguazu and by all accounts is just the same as Foz du Iguassu, just a bit smaller. You can do exactly the same thing there – visit their side, then hire a taxi or bus to the Brazil side. Alternatively you could stay on the Brazil side a night or 2 then taxi over the border and stay in Argentina for 2 nights(lots of people do this).

Visiting Paraguay

You can also visit Paraguay for a day-trip(or for longer) from Foz do Iguaçu, as it’s right on the border – you can get a bus or Uber from the main road or main bus station in Foz do Iguaçu to the Paraguay border bridge, it takes about 20mins. Warning: Do not go over the border in the bus or taxi though – get out, walk to the Brazil customs buildings and get an exit stamp from Brazil, then walk over the bridge and get an entry stamp into Paraguay at their customs building. On entry they may ask you some random questions, but do not worry, just be honest and say you’re visiting for the day or however long. Ciudad del Este is the name of the Paraguay border town and it has lots of cheap random stuff for sale there(electronics/ornaments/fake-trainers etc). They also have a huge posh Oxford Street type store called Monalisa Store and others. When leaving to go back to Brazil, do the same as when you entered – get an exit stamp from Paraguay customs, then walk over the bridge and get an entry stamp back into Brazil at their customs building. Then catch the bus or Uber back to Foz do Iguaçu centre. Note: Don’t trust any randoms at the border, one guy on the Paraguay side tried to stop us getting a Paraguay exit stamp, claiming he’d get it for us, BUT just ignore them and walk into the customs offices and get your stamps yourself, it’s much safer that way.

Other Tips When In Brazil

Should say my 2 tips for Brazil are – use Uber as it’s safe/cheap(our Brazil friends told us this + there’s even an Uber pick-up bay in Rio airport on the 2nd floor at Terminal 2) and get a THREE Sim card that has GoRoaming if you need free data or get a PAYG one with 5Gb on it for £15.

hope that helps, thanks,

Notes and Preparations

This blog details the crossing at the King Hussein Bridge (also known as the Allenby Bridge) from Jordan into Israel. There are other border points, but this is meant to be the easiest one, as long as you already have a Jordan entry stamp/visa*. All you really need is to be somewhat prepared and to have some patience. Please make sure to know details about your trip to Israel, as you will be asked – which hostel/hotel you’re staying in, what you will be doing there and how long you’ll be there. Also have a copy on your phone or printed-out of your return flights if possible + make sure to have some cash on you to pay for the bus crossing. There is a Bank of Jordan at the border, but having some cash to start with, saves any extra bother(there are several ATMs in central Amman). Due to the interview and times taken give yourself about 4 hours to cross this border.

* = you usually get a Jordan entry stamp/visa on arrival at the airport or wherever. If you do not have one, then use another crossing, as the King Hussein Bridge does not issue visas.

Important other note – The Israeli Entry Card

In case you don’t know, Israel do not (generally) stamp your passport anymore. This is due to all the problems you can encounter entering certain Islamic nations if you have an Israeli stamp in your passport. Instead, they give you a ticket/card/paper visa that stays in your passport through-out your Israel visit and which is removed when you leave the country.

Oh yes, also Beware the Jordan entry stamp!

Crossing this border is all well and good, but it’s very sensibe to plan to come back via this border or another Jordanian border – rather than flying out of Israel. The reason for this is you get a Jordan entry stamp in your passport when you enter Jordan and an exit stamp when you leave Jordan, BUT if you fly out of Israel you won’t get a Jordan exit stamp! To any keen-eyed border guard who can be bothered, it’ll be pretty obvious what you did here and he’ll rightly assume you visited Israel. Problem is, if you happen to visit Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan or Yemen on the same passport, they may well reject you at entry. My original tri itinerary was Holland, Beirut, Amman, then cross from Jordan into Israel, tour Israel and then fly out of Israel back to Europe, BUT after realising this and there being a slight chance I might visit one of those nations(oh the love of random travel), I had to re-schedule my trip to cross back into Jordan, visit Petra(was a great decision have to say), before flying home from Amman(Jordan). If you cannot be bothered with this hassle then just fly in/out of Israel and visit Jordan as a side-trip BUT AVOIDING the King Hussein / Allenby Bridge crossing – as the other foot crossing do give visas on arrival (Wadi Araba Crossing or Sheikh Hussein Bridge crossing).

ANYWAYS Crossing the border…

I stayed in the fine Farah Hotel in central Amman and totally recommend this place and their wonderful staff. They sorted out a taxi from the hotel to the King Hussein Bridge(about 25JOD), which took about an hour.

The taxi drops you off just outside the border crossing – it’s a dusty, untidy, wasteland sort of place. TBH it looks like you’ve been dropped in the middle of nowhere. There aren’t many helpful signs, so I kind of wandered into the border crossing area, carrying my full backpack. Now, do NOT go to the “Departures” sign where the bus is! Firstly you need to get your passport sorted out first. To do this, just go to the “Public Relations and Tourism” entrance, which is next to the Bank of Jordan outlet. Go to the “Departures” booth and fill in the small white passport form they give you. These guys don’t say much, but if you ask, they are most helpful. They will stamp the white form and give you the passport back. Then go to the Arrivals booth(opposite) and give them your passport. They will tell you to wait.

Leaving Jordan

After a short time, they’ll take you(with your passport) to the bus(outside by “Departures”) which takes you over the border. You have to pay for the journey across No Man’s Land. It cost me 8.5JOD with 1 piece of luggage(my large backpack).

There’s a lot of stuff on the net about times when to cross the border, but I crossed about 4:30pm on a Sunday and there were 4 of us on the bus!

Anyways, the bus drives off and then there is a passport inspection at the Jordan border, whereby they take the small white passport form out of your passport and keep it (as a record of you leaving Jordan). I assume this is where they give you the Jordan exit stamp too.

The bus then heads towards the Israeli border and there’s a stop as it’s checked for bombs, which is quite reassuring really. Once that’s over, you drive a bit further and finally arrive at Israeli passport control! This far it’s EASY! Next up though is the part famous amongst travelers!

Israel Passport Control – be honest and know your stuff, folks!

If you’re in a tour or group of some kind, you probably have a big advantage, as you’ll likely just be questioned a bit by the passport officers, but won’t get stopped for an interview.

The Israeli passport officers question you in the toughest manner I’ve known, it’s like a higher level version of the US passport officers. The fact I was on my own seemed to immediately arouse suspicion, but the key is to just to be honest and answer as best you can + try to keep up with quickfire questioning! Now, I knew where I was staying in Jerusalem, how long I was there for, that I was joining a church group for a 10 day tour of Israel, BUT I didn’t know the exact itinerary of every single day of the tour and so this was good enough for the lady to withhold my passport and tell me to go sit down and wait, along with all the other dodgy types sitting and waiting did make friends with a guy from the USA who’s mother was born in Syria(I think) and we had a fun discussion about Brexit and President Trump.

About 30 minutes later a guy holding my passport called my name and took me to the infamous interview. They take you to a private room, away from everything, which helps the whole intimidating atmosphere. To be fair, it was about the same intensity of questioning as by the previous officer, but he asked a lot more questions! He asked why had I been travelling alone, wanted to see my return flight ticket/details and even asked me why I was shaking! I said I didn’t feel nervous, although in hindsight I probably was, as it was so intense All in all it probably took about 15 minutes. He then sent me to sit again and said somebody would bring my passport back. My US friend had disappeared to his interview, so I sat around for another 20 minutes and then my passport was returned and I was free to go.

After this I had to show my passport once more, along with the prized Israel entry card(whatever you do, do not lose this) and then walked out to catch transport to Jerusalem! It had taken about 1.5hours to clear the famous Israeli passport control.

Onwards to Jerusalem!

Once outside, you can then get a shared taxi to Jerusalem(which was 50Shekels) or there were others to Jerico. It takes about 40minutes to get to Jerusalem and was quite a scenic trip through the hills as the sun set.

One Last Passport Check: Before you enter main zone of Jerusalem, because you are traveling from the West Bank, there’s another passport check as you enter, so prepare for that too

Crossing the border back from Israel to Jordan

This experience of crossing back into Jordan from Israel was a bit different for two reasons. First I did it from Tel Aviv in the afternoon and second, crossing the border was a lot quicker.

Tel Aviv to Amman in an afternoon

I took Bus 405 from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which takes about 50mins, mine left at 3:20pm and arrived at 4:10pm. Then caught local Jerusalem Bus 1 to Sultan Saliman, which takes you to near the Golden Walls Hotel, just outside the city walls. It was the day before Passover, so areas of Jerusalem were very busy with Jews getting ready for everything being closed that weekend, it was most interesting to see.

To the right of the Golden Walls Hotel is an entrance to a shared taxis lot, here you can get a ride to the King Hussein / Allenby Bridge border. As it was late afternoon and inspite of some hard haggling, they charged me 120 shekels, there were only 2 of us going there and yes this was a rip-off, but I had no choice. Apparently it is a lot cheaper before 1pm.

Leaving Israel

Due to volume of freight traffic, we queued for about 30mins just to get past the Jordan border checkpoint, where they checked passports and whether we had any weapons. They also did a bomb scan. The taxi dropped me at the point I recognised as being where I’d arrived from Jordan. This time, you follow the line on the left to the Departures queue to have your bags scanned. After this you wander into a room and have to go to a separate desk to pay the Israel exit tax(they do take credit card). Make sure they give you an exit tax receipt.
Then you hit Israel passport control again! This time it’s to get an exit permit. Again, they ask you some questions, but it’s a lot less intense. I got asked “were you traveling alone?” and “What were you doing?”. I answered I was on a church tour, with that the passport guy looked very disappointed at the lack of dangerousness in that and handed me my passport. Maybe he was hoping for me to say I was wild partying in Tel Aviv or something Following this there was an exit permit booth to check I did have an exit permit and had paid the exit tax. After that you’re now ready to cross back to Jordan! This whole process took maybe about 20mins.

Re-entering Jordan

Next up, you wait for the bus that crosses No Man’s Land again to the Jordan passport control area – depending on the time of day, it can be long wait for the bus, was standing there with a few others for about 30mins. Again they check your passport at the checkpoint entering Jordan.

The bus turned up and cost 4JOD(bus was 2.5JOD and 1.5JOD for my backpack). It drives through No Man’s Land and up to the Jordan passport control area. This time go to the “Arrivals” booth (next to the Passport booth and opposite the Departures booth where you went for the Israel border cross) and give your passport in. Wait for your name to be called. They check that you have a Jordan entry visa/stamp – which you should have got when you originally entered Jordan, I got mine at Amman airport. If you don’t, you’ll likely be sent back to Israel, as you cannot get one here at the King Hussein / Allenby crossing.

Once that’s all sorted out, you can then wander outside the area and there are usually taxis waiting outside. I got there in the dark and was quite fortunate to share a taxi with nice lady who spoke good English to a suburb in Amman. She didn’t like/trust the driver, so she made him take me to yellow metered taxi once we got within Amman. This metered taxi guy was such a good guy and only charged me 5JOD into central Amman, I gave him 10 as a tip then just a short walk to the Farah Hotel! All in a day!

Quick Summary of the Trip and How the Stamps and Visas work + costs :

Land in Jordan at Amman airport – Get a Jordan entry visa/stamp in your passport (costs about £45).

Taxi from Amman to King Hussein Bridge(about £30)

Cross the King Hussein Bridge on the Jordan side by foot – they check you have a Jordan entry stamp and give you a small exit paper, but do not give you a Jordan exit stamp in your passport.

Enter the Israel side by bus(costs about £10), get interviewed and get an Israel entry card which sits in your passport during your visit to Israel.

Leave Israeli passport control, take shared shuttle bus to Jerusalem(about £12) and tour AMAZING, historical Israel.

Take taxi from Jerusalem to King Hussein Bridge (about £30 in my case but go earlier in the day and you only need to pay £12)

Cross back again at King Hussein Bridge – pay Israel exit tax(about £40), get tax receipt and an Israel exit permit. They take back your Israel entry card.

Re-enter Jordan by bus(costs about £5) where they check you have a Jordan entry stamp/visa.

Get taxi back to Amman(about £55). Visit Petra, Dead Sea, wherever(“beautiful Jordan”, as my taxi guide said).

Leave Jordan at Amman airport – where they give you a Jordan exit stamp.

Summary: you now have a Jordan entry / exit stamp in your passport and no evidence you went to Israel!

Helpful Links:

Crossing from Jordan to Israel via King Hussein Bridge (Allenby) Terminal

1) I play tennis and bike it quite a bit on the side.

2) A combination of laziness and various tennis/running injuries have made me quite careful and cautious of over-training. One time I ran on an ankle(or knee) injury that subsequently took me out for about 9 weeks. Another time I seriously thought I’d broken my foot.

3) It never occurred to me to run more than what was needed.

4) I’m generally not disciplined in anything and get distracted easily to consider such a thing.

Anyway, after hearing Henry, I decided I had to step things up a bit and try to run for at least 5 days in a row! After the second “run”,  which involved a slightly tight, bruised knee and the fear of worsening it, I invented one simple rule – a “run” must consist of a distance of at least 2km(just over a mile) and be non-stop “running” ie. not walking. Yes, this challenge would require something of  distance, but be short enough so busyness was not a valid excuse to miss a day.

Managing to do the 5 days alright, I thought why not extend this effort to 6 days, then 7, as that’d be a full week. That then became 10 days and so on until I hit about 16 days in a row. My aim now moved on to 20, then 25 and then 30 – as that would be a full month! No, can’t stop there, because 31 days is a full month. Now once I’d hit that 31 day target, it dawned on me that loads of people have run for a whole month in a row and this played on my mind(there are lots of blogs out there) + I have friends who’ll probably match that one day, so decided it would best to keep going. After reaching about 35 days, I chose 50 as the new and final target, as I had really started to want a day off by then.

How did I find it? Due to my work, social-life and generally being a Yes man for last minute invites, fitting in the daily run would often prove difficult. I ended up running at all times of day and night, from 2am in the morning to 11pm at night. I ran after breakfast/lunch/dinner, before breakfast/lunch/dinner, before going to the airport, after landing in a new country. I ran across different countryside, towns, cities and countries – wearing proper running clothes & shoes, wearing formal shoes, wide awake or very tired. I came to like the daily discipline and got somewhat addicted to it, it was an unusal experience of having to plan when and where to run, instead of just leaving it to chance. It was quite a fun and challenging up to about Day 31, after that I really wanted a day off, as I suspect my natural randomness was getting bored by the “having” to do it. Amazing really considering it could be reduced to about 15mins out of my day. Oh did I get any fitter? It’s hard to say, probably yes, but who knows to the manner of ending

Anything disastrous happen? Errm yes, in Portugal I managed to slip over on a marble floor at the end of a run and break my bloomin’ collar bone! Amusingly I didn’t realise that it was broken, spending a few days hoping it was just severly bruised, so the last 2 runs were actually with a broken collar bone! That’s when I decided to definitely stop

Running diary :

Having done a marathon in June and that long bike ride in May, I was obs quite fit, but surprisingly it took several weeks to fully recover from the marathon and so waited until then to start training. For anyone interested, my training diary was as follows :

Mon 2/7/2018 First day woke up feeling 100% fit, so got out and…Cycled 50 miles to Rusper and back via Box Hill. Yes, just got out there and biked 50 miles, because it had to be done.

Mon 9/7/2018 The Prudential Ride 100 starting times info are given out. My start time is 8:16am, hoorah! that means a nice early start to get to Stratford from Worcester Park then!

Sat 14/7/2018 Bike ride to Redhill and back via my tennis friend Simon’s BBQ in Banstead – about 70 miles. Visited a fine church / coffee shop in Redhill called West Central and Redhill Aerodrome, nice to see the planes taking off.

Tue 17/7/2018 Biked to Sainsburys for some food not the longest ride ever.

Sat 21/7/2018 70mile Ride to Southwater and then to Cheam Tennis Club finals day, then home and round block to make up the miles. According to my bike computer – left home at 9:08am, 65.90miles to Cheam tennis club, 71:37miles total at home.

Fri 27/7/2018 Cycled to Stratford Westfield to see start of Prudential Ride 100! Got the train to Waterloo, then biked it from there to see exactly where would have to go Sunday. Then cycled back to Waterloo and got the train to Raynes Park and biked it home from there.

Sat 28/7/2018 – The day before the ride I had to go to the Excel in Docklands to get my registration details and to see the cycle Expo there. It turned out to be a bit of a hectic day as I needed to get a few things. So on the way back, I went to Decathlon in Canada Water to get a bike mac and a couple of bike wallets that attach to the handle-bars and cross-bar. Then to Halfords New Malden to get some Chamois cream – as advised by my tennis friend Martin. For the ride I prepared my secret ham sandwiches and various other snacks.

Sun 29/7/2018 – The BIG DAY – the Prudential Ride 100 Surrey! Got up at 4:30am – had Shreddies cereal. Drove to Wimbledon and parked in Wilton Crescent. Got the bike out the car and managed to get the 5:31am train to Waterloo. Cycled from there to Olympic Park, following everyone else along the way. We went a bit of an odd route, over London Bridge, past Lombard St, then right turn at lights and then onto A11.

Ride highlights :

• At the start it was light rain, but my new bike mac + old waterproof Colombia trainers were excellent in these conditions.
• The crowds cheering us on, people in Surrey opening their gardens to offer food/drink, the other riders, Great atmosphere!
• Stopping and having a tea at Newlands Corner – about 45miles in.
• What made the ride nice was the last 55miles were a lot easier than the previous 45 and seemed almost downhill by comparison.
• Stupily queuing at Newlands Corner for 30mins for a tea meant got to Box Hill just as they closed it (some poor guy apparently had a heart attack going up there).
• Having to wait 15mins in Leatherhead cos their council made it only a 1 bike lane road and hence a big bike traffic jam area.
• My friend Paul NOT coming out to cheer me cos it was raining.
• Seeing my Mum and Dad in Wimbledon by Sainsburys, then the big cheer going past the Alexandra Pub there.
• Cycling up Wimbledon Hill and overtaking a load of people like on the other hills
• Being confusingly overtaken by all sorts of random people on the flat roads(mystery solved 2 weeks later)

Ended up doing 92miles in total on the ride – as they closed Box Hill (the one bit I really wanted to do) – it took about 8.5hours(this includes 30mins tea queue + 15mins in Leatherhead). Afterwards hanged around and watched the pro riders come into The Mall, which was fun. My girlfriend eventually turning up to see me for a tea and some food well after I’d finished(she’d been at a family thing in Wales) and after that, like a nutter, I opted to cycle back to Wimbledon and do repeated circuits between Grand Drive(in Raynes Park) and where my car was parked until I had clocked over 115miles like in an Ironman! well I thought it’s not often I cycle nearly 100miles, so may as well top it up to the full distance finished about 11:15pm

Later note: Waterloo to Olympic Park, looks like was actually an extra 7.5miles(start 5.54 on clock)! Then 92.06 So Total 110.27 final reading.

Mystery solved: Throughout the whole ride wondered why so many people kept overtaking me on the flat roads. I’m not particularly fast, but it was the variety of people that was so confusing, many certainly didn’t look as fit nor as experienced at biking as me AND this didn’t happen on the hills, where I overtook significant numbers of folk. Anyways couple of weeks later somebody revealed to me that almost everyone else had “cleets” AKA bike-shoes which clip to the pedals, whereas I just had plain trainers and that was prob why. Yes, these cleets can give you up to 30% MORE power when biking! oh well personally glad I did it the hard way any!

Alrght, Tips for anyone else: Do some regular cycling, use a racer bike as light as possible, get used to the bike and make sure to do at least one 70mile ride, then you should be fine. As can be seen above I did about 1 long ride a week and made it. My biggest concern was finishing in less than 9hours, which I prob didn’t need to be so worried about, but am glad to have concentrated on distance rather than speed. It was hard at times, but worth it. The day is most enjoyable and goes a lot quicker than expected, you are propelled along by all the other riders. Also buy some cleets if you want to make things easier for yourself

Prudential Ride 100 Surrey Route Map for 2018

Tues 14th Feb 2017

The plan for the morning: up at 8am, breakfast, pack car, 9am head to Wimbledon, go for 10km run, back by 10:30am, pick up Paul and head to Lancaster! I was signed up for the Hampton Court half-marathon on Sunday, hence the need for a run. Unsurprisingly, getting ready took longer than hoped and I got to Wimbledon around 10:30am! Picked up Paul at 11am and drove 5 hours to Lancaster University, stopping off at a service station for a spot of Costa and a Greggs baguette. A very helpful and informative bear of a man checked us into the uni and we headed to our room, which was most clean and pleasant. I then worked out this was probably the only day I could do a much-needed run, so that was the next priority. The booking.com reviews said there was a gym and sauna in this place, so we headed for the sports centre. Being gymophobic, Paul did not want to go to the gym and after being informed it would actually cost £12 + VAT + council tax, neither did I. Paul was kind enough to go back to the room and wait, so I went for an exploratory 7 mile jog instead – headed towards Lancaster Town Centre, then back and around the University grounds. Other than finally making it to Lancaster city limits(a goal of mine for many years), the definite highlight was the curious mirage towards the end, of hundreds of athletic young student women yelling and jumping around for netball practice, which you don’t often see round where I live…

Our next plan to walk the 3 miles into Lancaster, was altered, thank goodness, to getting the bus instead. On the bus Paul noticed our tickets said “Return to Bowerman hotel” and despite Paul being quite keen to get off, we passed/ignored that place and stayed sat until the town centre.
We walked up to the castle, which had some nice night views and an interesting plaque about how it used to be a prison. Paul also got to see the railway station! After a bit of wandering, we ended up at the Brown Cow pub – which was a great place, with fine Guinness, except this was Valentine’s night – so there was Paul, myself and about 2 other people. Still, we saw the Champions League shock defeat of Barcelona 4-0 to Paris St-Germain(the four of us cheered each goal) and the barman even said we could get a takeaway and bring it back! I was quite happy to do this, but we ended up going to Wetherspoons and grabbing some ‘real’ food(aka buritos) instead, which you prob should do after a 7 mile run. We caught the bus back and set the alarm for 6:30am!

Wed 15th Feb 2017

So, up bright and early around 7:30am (Paul did get up earlier) – we dined on a fine breakfast at the uni guest refectory place – Paul got confused about this being actually free, but other than wanting to pay for it and being sternly told ‘no’ by the dinner lady, he enjoyed a plate of bacon, egg, sausage and some toast! I had cereal, fruit, yogurt, bacon, egg, sausages, hash brown, toast, beans, black pudding, melon, fruit juice, tea + water, pain au chocolates and anything else I could find/put-in-my-pockets. Until packing up, I’d assumed we were actually staying in student digs, but turned out we had actually stayed the conference centre accommodation.

After navigating the way out, we headed North. Google Maps told us “Scafell Pike” was allegedly only an hour or so away via Kendal so we headed there. Paul was well prepared for climbing Scafell Pike – possessing only a thick hoody and no gloves nor hat nor much else. I’d hiked up a hill in freezing Snowdonia the week before and despite telling him this and recommending to really buy at least a coat, hat and gloves, he casually said he would buy them today. We parked in Kendal town centre car park and after a quick coffee buy, headed to Trespass to buy some gloves – the girl in her 20’s delightfully informed us that it was highly dangerous to even consider going up Scafell today! as it was at least 3 arduous miles up there, that it ‘gets dark by 3pm’ and how she’d been up another peak on Sunday and it was covered in thick snow and ice and the mist is so thick up there you can barely see your hand in front of your face! also if you take the wrong path, it could lead to the alternative 9 miles long route and take 10hours! By the end I was waiting for her to mention wolves and the beast of Bodmin, such was the level of utter madness she explained it would be to attempt such a thing today…I kind of disagreed with her, but just muttered to Paul every now and again. Anyways, Paul declined her offering of £55 ski gloves to help the situation, but he did purchase a most fetching wooly hat! Annoyingly there wasn’t enough signal to send a stupid Facebook message to my church friend and Kendal-native Kelda, but driving out the town centre woke me up enough to realise we’d been going in totally the wrong direction! we should’ve been heading for Wasdale Head, not just “Scafell Pike”!! On Google Maps “Scafell Pike” is the ‘other’ side of the mountain, the wrong side of where we wanted – that’s the 9mile walk side! As in all the best situations, Google Maps went AWOL, but eventually came back, saying we were now a good 1.5hours away from Wasdale! Hoorah! Eventually we followed a random B-road route cross country via Coniston Water. The countryside had changed quite remarkably from Lancaster, the hills were alive. We drove miles through countless ever-narrowing country lanes, endless blind bends and hill tops, down 14% gradients and up super-steep inclines – many, with beautiful views, causing us to stop several times and take photos.

The Climb Begins

We finally got to Wasdale Head only 2 hours later than hoped, around 1:15pm! The lady in the Wasdale Head shop was more stoic with a “oh you’ll be alright, by the time you come down it’ll be dark but that’s not til 5pm, see how far you can get”. I agreed with this lady more than the one in Trespass There was also a cool, very simple, summit map on the wall outside – a lot easier to read than my Ordinance Survey map! After buying some essential Kendal Mint Cake, hurriedly packing my pack with necessaries and finally convincing Paul to borrow my spare ski jacket and ski gloves, we were ready. The bonus after observing the terrain and mist covered hills surrounding us, was that it was starting to dawn on Paul, that this hike, perhaps, did require more clothing than just a hoody! We finally started walking around 1:50pm. Despite my warnings, advice and encouragement, then followed approx 30mins of overly quick walking, followed by complaining, sweating and moaning about “why do people do this?” and exasperations of “do they actually do this for fun?” from Paul. I think we had walked half a mile max at this point. We turned a bend on the path, which led to a glorious view of the path winding upwards, it went up and up, into some ominous low-level mist clouds! I found this quite amusing, as Paul could now see and appreciate the gigantic size of this place! I fear he had assumed, like anybody that hasn’t done this kind of thing before, that climbing this mountain was going to be a quick wander up some hill and that the map legend saying it was a 2.5hour hike was a joke – I mean, the path is only 3 miles long and and you can easily walk that in less than an hour, Right!

The Rain and Mr.Sensible

It started to rain as we entered the mist cloud level. Another 15mins or so and we met our first person coming down the path – a guy in his late 20’s, in just a light coat and no pack. He gave us some positive encouragement, “yeah the rain goes on, but higher up it stops and you’ll be fine once you’re past it”. We then met this older guy who was less up-beat. He’d injured his ankle walking an alternative path, before deciding to hobble back down for the past 45mins. He only told us he was injured after telling us how difficult and treacherous it was “up there”.

It has to be said the rocky path down looked very wet and very slippery, far more than when I walked down the path 10 years ago in December 2007. This did concern me somewhat, but I kept quiet.

Due to the constant rain, we both looked quite bedraggled, but oddly it wasn’t cold at all. This made it perfect timing for Mr.Sensible and his girlfriend to turn up! they were in their 20’s and he was a very nice guy, but very grown up! they’d evidentally gone up at a sensible time and were now descending at a sensible time, as that was sensible! He asked, nay demanded, “you’re not going up to the summit, are you?!” (almost implying – I’m not going to let you go up there), he frowned, sighed and added, “…you really need the right equipment to go up there!”. Paul’s first words were “yeah I know, I thought wearing jeans would be a laugh!”. This was highly funny, but Mr.Sensible did not smile, he was more shocked at the waterlogged look of the two of us and seemed very concerned we weren’t immediately turning right around and joining him on the way back down. He then told us there was “lots of snow, lots and lots of snow up there”, his girlfriend re-iterated “yeah lots and lots of snow, lots of it”. He added that it was zero visibility conditions up there too! His last effort, after looking stunned at my orange/grey trainers, was “You must have very wet, freezing feet!!”. At this point I did sympathise, as he must’ve reckoned we were totally clueless idiots(not a bad assessment really), so I tried to reassure him that my shoes were actually waterproof fell running shoes + I had bonefide ski gloves on me! he kind of gave up at this point and they headed off, shaking their heads, convinced we’d undoubtedly be needing helicopter rescue within a few hours. I didn’t mind, he was just trying to be sensible, which is fair enough, but sometimes you can’t help two clueless idiots like us lol. I was actually quite concerned my fell running shoes wouldn’t grip the slippery stones on the way down, but he who dares wins and all that. I should say, despite being unprepared clothing-wise, Paul had some very good Timberland walking boots, much better than my shoes to be honest.

The next and last people we saw on the path were a mother, father and their two 4 and 6 year old sons gingerly coming down the path. This inspired Paul to say “if a 2 year old can get up there, so can I!”.

Just after this, I suggested we rest a bit and eat something, for energy. At this point I managed to weigh Paul’s backpack, only to find it weighed a ton! no wonder he was sweating so much! he’d brought his tablet and 2kg phone charger with him, along with numerous other heavy objects! I transferred some of this stuff to my pack and we continued.

The Snow

We proceeded on and Paul moaned less, as he got used to the constant exercise and terrain. We came to the bit where you have to navigate the path via cairns(piles of stones) and we only got past this bit because I remembered it from last time. It was moderately challenging. Mr.Sensible was kind of correct about the visibility, the thick mist made it difficult to see the next cairn. We hit the snow line – where I noticed the snow on the rocks above us increased in prevalence. I started to fear Mr.Sensible might turn out to be even more correct, but tried to ignore this.

We went up and up until the path leveled out. We plodded on and on, until bizarrely the path started to go down hill, which didn’t seem right. Phone GPS’s were consulted and I tried to look at my OS map, but neither worked! after a few more yards we realised we had no idea where we were, so we posed for some photos and headed back. We then happened across the blinkin’ correct path up to the summit!! it was SO obvious, we’d walked right past it and had wasted 15mins with that wrong way! I asked if we could walk a bit of the way up and have a look, which we did, but it was after 4pm by now and had gotten very cold + visibility was very low. So, we took some photos and decided we’d turn back after all. This was a mutual decision – I could tell by his words, concern about not being able to get back before dark was on Paul’s mind and I too was more concerned than usual. Not so much for myself, as last time I’d had to hike down in the dark on my own, but more that I knew the slippery rock path part would be difficult to navigate, especially if you were new to this kind of thing and in the dark, serious injure was possible! I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen, if only to stop Mr.Sensible proclaiming how right he was all along. Having to turn back was a shame but not a big deal, I was most impressed that Paul seemed perfectly fine now and we’d had great fun thus far! Our clothes were even dry due to the altitude and atmosphere!

My fave highlight on the long way back was coming to the snow river crossing – quite high up, a narrow river splits the path at one point. You have to cross the river via some rocks, but due to the altitude and cold, the river was largely hidden under thin ice and thick snow! At this point, a perfect timing of tiredness and dimming light clogged Paul’s mind! the light meant the grey rocks of the path faded into the mountainside and the snow filled river now suddenly looked the most “path-like” thing around to follow and he mistook it for the path and started lunging up the river! It was very funny as he plunged through the snow, up hill, to a point where I had to shout “oi! where are you going? the path’s over there!”.

We made it past the cairns area, several times having to wait for the mist to clear enough to see the next one. Have to say making it past this area in the dark, with a torch, would’ve been crazy.

The Path Back

We then got to the horrid slippery, wet path bit. Paul sensibly stuck to the rock/stone/gravel path, his Timberlands were made for this, but my Columbia’s weren’t and I considered it highly dangerous to even try! Luckily, I remembered my tendency to be able to cover ground quickest by striding/running/balancing down the grassy sides of mountain paths rather than on the paths themselves, where the stones get in the way. It allows me to move quickly, but stop often to admire and enjoy the view, which was improving all the time as the sun was setting! This balancing technique does tax the knees, but in the shoes I was wearing, it was far safer than the wet rocks.

We spied 2 people ahead join from an alternative path, they were really speeding down the mountain, clearly a lot more keen to get back and were soon lost from sight.

About half-way down, it dawned on me that Paul was now somewhat worried about the darkness kicking in, as he was speeding up significantly.
I tried to tell him to take it easy, I said slow down, we have time, but he was unconvinced. Suddenly there was a loud crack and an yelp of “argh!”. This was the sound of Paul being welcomed into the real world of hill hiking, as he slipped and fell on the rocks! He landed on his backside and bruised his hand, but he was alright, thank goodness! found out later his Lynx deodorant was severely dented, having taken the brunt of the fall and probably saved his coccyx. He fell a few more times on the way down after this! It turned out things weren’t helped by him not wearing his glasses! he’d put them in the side of my backpack on the way up(they kept steaming up) and one of the arms had broken off, so he had no choice but to soldier on, squinting to see the way in the ever fading light.

Lost in the Pitch Darkness

I kept claiming that I’d walked down in darker conditions back in 2007, but must admit this was now worse! it was becoming properly dark and Paul was convinced we were still miles from civilisation and the lights we could see in the fields below were miles away. We had a small argument about which one of the 2 lights on the horizon was the pub and which was a hotel(he was right, I was wrong).

We made it to the one sign post on the trail, which meant we were nearing the end, but Paul had kept count of the number of gates and was once again unconvinced, he reckoned we had 4 more to go and he was right(again)! We descended to ground level and got to the final gate. From here I vaguely remembered you could walk straight out onto the road, near where the car was parked, but the only path I could see ran by the river, so assumed that must be the way. Mistake #1! Thanks to this we ended up walking at least another mile through random fields in what became total and utter pitch darkness! We realised we’d gone the wrong way, so we cut through some trees and headed towards one of the few lights around – it turned out to be a farm house and I could see my car just beyond it. The major problem was getting to the road involved scaling a wall, a stack of crates or a large field gate, which was too much effort at this point. To be honest I was worried Paul was in no condition even to attempt this and was none too keen myself. So, we tried to find a short-cut. After walking back and around the farm house, we found a latch gate, but it was tied shut with rope and I couldn’t figure out how to un-tie it. Paul has been in the USA the past 2 decades and thought the farmer might shoot us too, as we were trespassing, so we tried to find another legal way out to the road. Another 10mins of wandering in the dark and being blocked by stone walls, then walking over broken stone walls and into another field bordered by stone walls, I decided enough was enough and insisted we head for the farmhouse again. We got to the latch gate and this time I managed to untie it, in total silence, saying I’d take any responsibility if we got a “Hey! We don’t like your type round here!” shotgun style reception. Luckily we did not…and the car was just a short walk away.

The Pub and Pie

We drove to the pub. I remember 10 years earlier staggering into this pub, after having gotten lost in the mountains for the entire day that time and having a Guinness and pie, probably the most grateful for and best pie I’ve ever eaten. This time was similar, except I was only mildly tired, whereas Paul was the completely shattered one! haha! Also the pie this time had much less steak, as in I had 1 smidgen of steak in mine and that was the sum total of steak in both pies! It was still a darn nice pie though.
We drove back the 20mins in total darkness and checked in to our hotel – the most excellent “Strands Inn & Brewery” where we then had a few more pints of local made beer before retiring to bed!

Thu 16th Feb 2017

The final day of our trip. We both awoke feeling fine, Paul said despite the previous day’s exertion, his legs were ‘alright’. Had a wonderful breakfast in the pub and began the drive home. First stop was down the road at the Murt Camping Barn where I’d stayed 10 years previous, it didn’t look like it had changed that much. We then took a random detour, we kind of gave up bothering to look at any maps or judging which direction we were going in, but somehow ended up at this cafe/restaurant called The Byre – in Bootle, no, not in Merseyside, but in an area called Copeland. I spotted a local newspaper with Theresa May on it and apparently she had indeed just visited, in the run up to some election! Next up was Lake Windermere, as Paul had kept mentioning visiting this place when he was younger. He was very happy to see this place once again, but I became obsessed with finding “The Bobbin Mill” as it was on every sign we seemed to pass. It was a staggering sight once there, but was closed – oh Bobbins! Next stop was Low Sizergh Barn, a farm shop place where you could have a tea, eat some cake and watch cows being milked, live. I bought some sausages, had tea/cake and watched the cows being milked. Following these events we proceeded south, eventually stopping for food and a tour of Wolverhampton. The Royal London pub was a great place and a fine dinner was consumed. Final coffee stop was around 10pm at the same service station we stopped off on the way(I think), then home around 1am and that was that!

Google Map of where we went on Scafell Pike

[See image gallery at jamesreed.org]

and here’s the blog itself…

London to Paris 2016 Bike Ride Diary

Day 1 – Sunday left at 1pm – 89km/55.3miles – Wimbledon to New Haven

We left later than planned about 1pm(after daringly going to chuch in the morning). We headed out into the Surrey countryside via Mitcham, picking up Cycle Route 21 until it became too complicated and off-road for us(Stephen crashed his bike into a ditch). This was just after Warlingham. Time was getting on as well, so we then switched onto the A22 South road at Godstone.

Passing through: Bletchingly, Copthorne, Outwood lane, turning onto Turners Hill B2028, Ardingly horstead Keynes, Chailey

We A275 to South ease over railway bridge to the YHA South Downs youth hostel.

Getting there seconds before the 10pm closing time, we made some nettle tea, before going to bed.

Trip counter: 89km/55.3miles

Day 2 – Monday – 52.4km/32.56miles – New Haven to Neufchâtel en Bray

Cycled to the ferry port, which was a bit further than expected – 7.48km/4.65miles = 96.48km/59.95miles

The ferry left prompt at 9am and landed in Dieppe, France at 2:15pm. We then had a leisurely lunch at “Cafe de Paris” in Dieppe town. Then tried to find the route via railway track and after a bit of faffing about, eventually found the proper and fabled “L’Avenue Vert(Green Way) at about 4:40pm. We followed the route, cycling to L’Arcs de Batileau. This park is where the trail starts, we decided to rest for 5mins on bench to appreciate what we’d achieved, now being true international cyclists

We saw an interesting chateau at Saw les Messeniers, then carried on to Neufchâtel en Bray. Trying my best French, we tried Hotel St Pierre and Le Grand Cerf(the grand deer), but they had no rooms, but we got in at the rather nice Hotel Les Airelles(the cranberrys). We enjoyed a well-earned dinner – this costs us €143 (62 for room, 19 breakfast, 61 dinner).

Trip counter: 141.40km/87.86miles at Les Airelles

Day 3 – Tuesday – 50.07km/31.11miles – Neufchâtel en Bray to Gournay en Bray

We got up earlyish, had breakfast and followed the route. We had lunch at Forges les Eaux (cost €35)

Trip counter: 191.47km/118.97miles now at Gournay en Bray.

Stayed at the Hotel le Cygne which was €65 for room. Got to practice some more French with the really nice owner, who was very tolerant of my efforts. It really is a case of the more you practice, the better you get.

Had dinner at the pizza place €49

Day 4- Wednesday – 67.29km/41.82miles – Gourney en Bray to Gisors

On the way out of the Gourney en Bray hotel, I heard a song which was quite good called Boulevard des airs or arts?

We Left Gournay and managed to get lost twice! We biked it down this railway track 4km and back, which was very useful.

Stephen had the official L’Avenue Vert book, so a note for that book: Turning to St Germer is 4km down track before Auchy railway where sign says Beauvais is 24km!

We got hit by Heavy Rain and wind from St Germer de Fly onwards, but it wasn’t too bad on the bike to be honest. Although we ended up having a much appreciated tea and kebab in the town.

Our stop for the night was La Moderne Hotel in Gisors.

Trip counter: 258.76km/160.79miles at Gisors

Day 5 – Thursday – 81.94km/50.91miles – Gisors to Cergy

Our ride continued south, next up was the very quiet place of Bray-et-Lû on the border of the Parc Naturel Régional du Vexin Français(a huge national park). We had lunch in the restaurant Au Vieux Zinc.

Trip counter: 284.37km/176.70miles – 25.61km/15.91miles at Bray-et-Lû

This next bit was probably the toughest of the trip. We eventually ended up at Cergy (currently writing this in a cafe by station) after a wasted detour to Jouy-le-Moutier and Neuville, which was along a very long steepish road, then we had to go all the way back to the Avenue Vert, where we’d started before ending up at Cergy. Despite looking like it on Google Maps, we found there is no accommodation in Jouy le Moutier! Just one restaurant and a church, everything else was closed!

We finally found the Cergy Apart City Hotel, the only place available nearby and where the night guard said we could just take the bikes up to the rooms in the lift!

Dinner at Cergy was a chicken burger at the SNCF station, as nothing else open. We both slept pretty well this night.

Trip counter: 340.70km/211.70miles at Cergy Apart Hotel.

Day 6 – Friday – 48.57km/30.18miles – Cergy to Nanterre

Neuville-sur-Oise 12miles? According to Stephen

There was a long ride through the forest and we saw a dead snake!

Maison lafittes
Trip counter: 368.41km/228.92miles – 27.71km/17.22miles

Lunch at L’Avenue

Trip counter: 389.27km/241.88miles

We stayed at Hotel Armandier, Nanterre

Torino Italian restaurant

Day 7 – Saturday – 18.82km/11.7miles – Nanterre to Paris!

A short ride along the river and we got into central Paris – it was most exciting and fun! we cycled down the Champs-Élysées and even round the Arc de Triomph roundabout aka Place Charles de Gaulle!

We then made our way to Notre Dame, which was our officially finish! We had made it to Paris!

Trip counter: 403.48km/250.71miles – 14.21km/8.83miles at Norte dame cafe. Le Montebelo.

Dropped off bikes at our hotel, Hotel Mansart, who were kind enough to look after them. We then went and visited The Louvre. Had dinner at pizza place next to the hotel, before turning in for the night.

Day 8 – Sunday – 25.12km/15.6miles – Paris to Wimbledon via the Eurostar

Trip counter: 408.09km/253.58miles – We left Hotel Mansart in the rain.

Arghh! due to rain, my bike trip computer stopped working so had to guess the distances after this point.

We cycled to Rue Amsterdam, down Rue Mansart, round block to Concorde, then over bridge, took a right turn along the river then onwards toward Tour Eifel. Cycling under the Eifel Tower was one of my highlights of the trip! Then across the garden, left turn right, turn up road, saw 3 cafes. Over bridge to Concorde. Straight up right turn past the Coliseum along all the way to the opera house, left turn at Bounville New Station. To top of Rue Lafayette, right to Gare du Nord train station!

Now we had to drop the bikes off at the Eurodespatch baggages place. We’d booked a place on the train for the bikes and were lucky enough that it was so off-season, that they didn’t have to disassemble them(there’s space for 4 standing bikes on the Eurostar, after that you have to disassemble them into a bike pack, which is’t a big deal really).

Lunch was in a cafe opposite station called Au Baroudeur Patient, where I tried French sausage dish which was not to my liking, the waiter had warned me beforehand. As always the Eurostar was a pleasant trip to London and we arrived at 15:30 and took about 45mins to depart, find the Eurodespatch UK office and pick up the bikes.

Trip counter: 408.12km/253.59miles – my trip computer must’ve dried out or was happy to be in its home nation, as it started working again at Eurostar London!

We now began the final bike ride home to Wimbledon. We stopped for a baguette at Pret a Manger in Victoria (419.54km/260.69miles – 11.42km/7.1miles). Then it was a matter of cycling through Wandsworth and back to Wimbledon. We arrived around 7:30pm

Final trip counter: 433.21km/269.18miles – 13.67km/8.49miles