25 March 1997

The weather was sunny, but windy. I went South on the M1 and then cut across through Whipsnade and towards Tring. It wasn't quite the route I'd planned but it did well enough - though I never had any free glimpses of the penguins, buffalo or escaped wallabies, all of which are usually near the roadside. I had my first map stop (huh? the road didn't look this way on the map?) somewhere in the middle of this chalk landscape.

The A41 roundabout was solid with traffic but freed up as we went further on. I filled up and got confirmation of my route at Aylesbury as I'd got slightly confused with the signposting, and the last thing I wanted was to end up towards Hemel Hempstead and have to do all that traffic again - let alone the Magic Roundabout where the brave or crazy get to do the roundabout in the opposite direction, or fight with half a dozen consecutive mini-bouts!

I continued until Bicester where I started to go South again on the busy A34. That's where the traffic started being lousy: stop start, solid, and I wasn’'t confident enough or balanced enough with my saddlebags to have a go at traffic weaving, despite the other bikers who passed me and put me to shame!

The problem was roadworks, but I also had some trouble with my clutch, the bike kept wanting to stall and took some revving to control. I was starting to fret: 100 miles from home and am I going to break down?! It later ensued that my clutch cable was too slack; I learnt something new. I pulled off the road once the traffic got slightly more normal, and let things cool down, but it worked okay once I got moving. Once I stopped worrying about that, I started feeling cold and hungry instead.

The A34 was quite exposed, and the wind chill was unpleasant. I came off at one service area but continued once I saw how full the Little Chef was: it would have taken forever to get served. The next one, a McDonald's, stumped me as I just couldn't see the way in, and ended up back on the A34 before I knew it. At this point I went into a kind of numb autopilot but finally got food, around an hour after I should've eaten, at the M4-A34 interchange. That was a seriously good burger and I took a long rest. It was about 2p.m. by then and I'd not made as good progress as expected.

Palestine

Just as I started looking for Palestine, a light rain began: silly rain, with the sun still shining. I rode through exposed farmland and found a sign for Palestine, where I set off along a narrow little country lane, eventually finding a few houses and a red flag warning of danger in the nearby military playgrounds. I went right round the block, coming out at Grateley railway station, where there was another sign for Palestine.
I did the whole tour once more before taking my photos at the abovementioned sign, since the village apparently wasn't big enough to warrant a sign of its own. I went round the block a third time, just in case, got jeered at by some schoolkids in a bus, and then found my way back to the A303, the main East-West route down that way, where I continued to truck.

Not long after, much to my surprise, I rode past Stonehenge. It looks much more spectactular from on far; I remember being glad that as an English Heritage member I hadn't been required to pay to go in, as I would have felt severely ripped off!

I stopped for petrol again somewhere in Somerset, apparently about an hour from Glastonbury. The journey at this point was more relaxed, though I tried to pay the man £3.03 instead of £3.09 because I’'d been following the A303 for so long! He showed me some alternative routes to where I was going and we had a bit of a chat. By that point, it was nearly 5p.m. and he confirmed that the traffic on the A34 was always terrible, though of course it was way too late to avoid that!

Glastonbury and beyond

The A39 was busy and I also needed several map stops. One of the Mallett villages was the key to my route but I overshot both entrances on the first pass and the simpler one on the second pass. I was beginning to have nightmares about never finding the damn place! As a result of this I had to tackle an intriguing turnoff: I had to effectively double up on myself, doing a u-turn down a steep slope, and round a car as well; I nosedived into a slightly gravelly road rather amazed that I didn't drop the bike...

I rode through some very isolated countryside and made my way through to Chedzoy with little trouble. It was nice to see pretty villages and quiet roads. I parked up at the church and 'phoned Lorraine and John for directions. John was waiting for me not far beyond where I'd walked in my search. I had to ride up a little rough track and into their backyard - another sort of u-turn on rubbly gravel. At this point, gently, gracefully and with some surprise, Katie and I slid and I dropped her for the first time. If I hadn't been so surprised, I would have had the giggles. John just picked her up with me. What an entrance!

Katie was undamaged, I collected one small bruise to the knee (I'm getting better at falling, and held the bike most of the way down) and we all got a chuckle out of it.

After admiring John's custom jeep we went in where I was welcomed amid much teasing, and fed. Both of them were amused by the number of layers of clothing I peeled off - it apparently brought back memories (there have been occasions when I sat down in all the layers and found it very difficult to get back up again!) Lorraine (of Pomegranate Products) and John are both bikers, though a little frustrated at the time due to the recent arrival of their son and the recent sale of their bikes. They do have plans to build a trike - with a baby seat!

I cleaned off the beard of mud that always forms on my face during riding, and began to rest.

The comet

We spent a quiet evening getting mellow on the wine, listening to Simon and Garfunkel and perusing maps. John had marked his map with blue below a certain height, which clearly showed how this area had once been a series of islands. I also planned out my own route for the next day, having found it therapeutic and good to have an idea of the lay of the land in advance (not that, on some occasions, it had mattered that much...!

I went to bed around 11, feeling knackered, after Lorraine had evicted a large spider from my room. Katie was boxed in by vehicles and covered in a blanket against frost. All was well. It was nice to be looked after by those who understood about bikes.

I'd ridden 213 miles over 7.5 hours... my longest journey to date.