Road Cycling Essentials

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Went out for 36 miles this morning and was very pleasant. Though I accidentally rode into a farm yard thinking it was a continuation of the road only to see a woman frantically waving and pointing to say I had gone the wrong way! haha!

FAO FrenchTart, I recce'd that route for you to Gorse Covert, it starts off a good surface then just deteriorates into a muddy farm road/track with a very loose surface. A road bike can handle it in the dry but you have to slow down a fair bit, but probably wouldn't like to do it in the wet.
 
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uniQ said:
A bicycle :)
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what kinda bicycle? lol.
 
Gutted. Someone broke into the bike shed outside my block of flats last night and stole mine and another guys bike.

With his they just cut the lock but with mine they unbolted the metal railing it was attached (didn't actually notice this was possible until now). Been here for a year with no problems... Called the police, neither of us have insurance as well so i doubt we'll see any kind of return.

Now got a 45 minute walk to work everyday till i figure something out = (

Edit- It was your standard Specialized Allez and Boardman. I will say I've got my money out of it over the years but it's still not a nice feeling!
 
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physichull said:
Went out for 36 miles this morning and was very pleasant. Though I accidentally rode into a farm yard thinking it was a continuation of the road only to see a woman frantically waving and pointing to say I had gone the wrong way! haha!

FAO FrenchTart, I recce'd that route for you to Gorse Covert, it starts off a good surface then just deteriorates into a muddy farm road/track with a very loose surface. A road bike can handle it in the dry but you have to slow down a fair bit, but probably wouldn't like to do it in the wet.
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Ah, thanks for checking it out. To be honest I will possibly need to get the train back next time anyhow as I will also be working (from home) that weekend. I may not even be able to make the ride - I'll have to check out/adjust my schedule.
 
mpledge52 said:
The route I took involved getting the ferry from Gravesend to Tilbury. It runs every 30 mins apart from an hour (or maybe hour and half) gap at around 3 ish. So fairly regular, but not regular enough for me to avoid stiffening up! It's £3 one-way which I thought was a bit steep considering it only takes a few minutes to get across.

This is all off the top of my head, but I think that's the most Easterly point you can cross the Thames. Next one to the West would be Dartford. Obviously you cant go through the tunnel or over the bridge but apparently there's a land rover that does shuttle runs for cyclists, although I couldn't find exactly where you had to be, how often it ran etc. Plus the fact the roads around there are much busier. Further West, the next one I know for sure is Tower Bridge so that's central London which obviously I wanted to avoid. I imagine there might be another ferry between Tower Bridge and Dartford, but that's still a bit too central London for me.

As for the route, I really enjoyed the Chichester > Gravesend side of things. There's a couple of fairly busy A-roads involved, but no more than 5 miles worth in total. I'm sure you can avoid them altogether if you didn't mind doing a few extra miles. It's also the flattest route I could make as well (wuss!). Again I'm sure you could circumnavigate some hills but you'd increase the mileage.

I don't know if it was because I was pretty shot to pieces by this point and therefore fed up, but Tilbury to Chelmsford wasn't as good. Busier roads, and had to go through the centre of a couple of towns. I'm sure I could've improved the route with a bit more research, but again not without upping the mileage considerably.
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Cheers for the advice, may look at doing something later in the year, just have to do it on a day when I can get a lift home next day! :D
 
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