PowerCycle

05/01 This post got long… short version: I’m healthy, happy and drying off.

Left London Saturday morning under gray skies and light rain. Nothing changed all day and it ended up being a wet, windy, cold ride with way more traffic than I would have liked (45F all day with headwind but I was warm all bundled up). Stayed that night at a CG in the village of Fowlmere after riding a little more than 50 miles up and down some steeper than expected hills (Appleacre Park – $10 USD). The hot (pay) shower that night was incredible. The guy was nice and let me pitch my tent under some trees to get out of the rain a bit.

My week long stay in London was the best and I can’t thank Alex and Ping enough for letting me stay with them. They are both extremely friendly and went out of their way to make me feel at home. I’ll always look back and remember them as my favorite part of staying in London.

The next day was just as wet, cold and windy (actually much windier) than the day before so I stayed put for the day. Glad I had a book to read. I’m thinking about getting a Kindle (again) because who doesn’t tour without a laptop, Ipod Touch and a Kindle? Actually I know a guy so I wouldn’t be alone. The 3G version would be nice since free internet is non-existent and I think you can check email with them? Update: checked later and yes, you can read/reply to email with the browser using 3G. The Kindle Touch 3G in the States sells for $189. Or you can buy an ad-supported one for $139 that’s not available in the UK. The $189 one in the States costs $85 more here. If I could get a hold of the ad-supported one I could save $135 (on something that costs $139!!!). I may start being really nice to someone soon. This also illustrates something I’m becoming acutely aware of in Europe–things cost 49% more but they aren’t 49% better. The hot and cold water doesn’t even come out of the same tap–that’s not better! What gives? I read quite a bit about this and all I got was blah, blah, blah, things are more expensive here. Some things make a little sense: hotels and campgrounds–land/property is expensive. Beer–something has to pay for the health care. Explain the Kindle price difference though. Labor costs? No. Transportation costs? No. Gouging because you can?

Monday morning was perfect. The sun was out in force and it was much warmer (68F). The wind was pretty strong but for most of the day I had it from the side or as a tailwind. I stopped and talked to a German guy a couple weeks into his tour of the UK although he is also renting cars and taking buses. He stayed in a hotel for the last 2 days because of the weather so I didn’t feel so bad.

The prestigious Cambridge University was my first stop. I didn’t actually stop because the weather was so nice but it looked fancy enough. Some famous people who roamed (or still roam) the halls are Charles Darwin, Steven Hawking and Issac Newton.

Next was the town of Ely. The towering cathedral, known officially as The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Ely , dates back to 1109 AD. It was visible from quite far away which I found out later as I was trying to leave and could never get it out of my sight. I rode around, took some pictures, grabbed some fish and chips for lunch and headed out. I was planning to head north a bit more but then saw that the track my GPS was on was going to take me on a dirt road. I changed the route preferences to avoid what was sure to be a mud bath and still ended up on one (that wasn’t too bad). It looks like I tried really hard to avoid places with the word “witch” in them.

It’s time to start bashing on England a little now. I’ve held off until now but it’s time to go Argentina on it. What is up with the traffic? All the roads are packed! It doesn’t matter if the roads start with A, B or N; they are all busy, all day, every day. The unlettered roads–the local ones that I’d much prefer to be on, never seem to go where I want without adding 50% to my miles for the day (slight exaggeration but not much). Traffic on them is not bad but still a car will go whizzing by every couple minutes. The really quiet ones like this I run into maybe 5% of the time.

And the prices… I covered that with the Kindle so I’ll just focus on the quality of campgrounds. They stink. Every one of them has been a hunk of wet grass that in the States you would pay $5 US for (State Park–private CG maybe $7 or $8). The average here is about $14 US and you get nothing. No picnic table, no raised tent sites, no water close by, grumpy managers, crappy showers (usually), no book exchange, no shelters to hang out in or maybe pitch your tent under, no electric and no wifi (electric is about $5 US more and wifi typically costs at least $8 US for a couple hours if they have it). There are a hell of a lot of rabbits so that’s cool at least. I might start eating them to keep the costs down.

Here’s what I like about England to balance it out: the people have been incredibly friendly–one kid (10 years old) asked me yesterday if he could help load my groceries onto the bike. The drivers are a bit nuts going so fast but they are fine. The scenery for a pretty flat country is rather beautiful. Although I’m not going into any of them because they cost too much, all the old buildings are impressive. The girls in London were quite OK to look at. Not one stupid dog has chased me in the 12 days I’ve been here. Several have wanted to but they were locked up like all dogs should be.

I ended up staying Monday night in Ferry Meadows Caravan Club Site outside Peterborough after a 75 mile day. That was $15.45 US and yep, it’s just a patch of grass. The showers were free at least. The River Nene running through the city was very high and there was a bit of flooding. I ended up having to detour a few times because the path was covered in water.

Terrible weather again today. Actually it started raining yesterday evening and didn’t stop all night. They are calling this “one of the wettest Aprils on record”. No kidding. While there was a break in the rain this morning I packed up and left. It rained all day and it was nice and cold again. Managed to ride 55 miles to a CG called National Water Sports ($12.87 to camp–terrible shower with scalding hot water that you can’t adjust, no internet/tables/rain shelter/dryer for clothes). There was a place up the road, Thortons Holt, that wanted $22.53 US to camp–needless to say I left.

The route I took was a bit devoid of things to see but I did go through the quite charming town of Stamford, famous for its medieval core of 17th–18th century stone buildings and its annual fair that dates back to the middle ages. The fair was even mentioned in Shakespeare’s Henry IV part 2 (it’s amazing the things I know–jk, thanks wiki).

Tomorrow I have a very short ride into the city center where I’m going to find a hostel and visit for a day. I really need to wash my muddy clothes and find some white gas for my stove. I think I might buy an umbrella too. That’s what I get for leaving my other one in Florida.

GPX track

Today was Tour de London. 37 miles of riding through the beautiful, wet, busy capital of England and the United Kingdom. I had 27 places to see and I managed to get them all in plus a few extras. OK, I did miss 10 Downing Street because it’s closed off to the public–I only knew about it because this is where the infamous secret memo came from asserting that the WMD/terrorism intelligence was being “fixed” by the US government to justify the invasion of Iraq. Some very impressive buildings were the Parliament, Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London (it’s a castle! who knew?!).

As far as pictures today was kind of a bust. It rained a lot so none really turned out very well but seeing everything in person was unforgettable. Some things were just guy things that I had to see of course: Scotland Yard, MI6 headquarters (like the CIA in the States), the 10 Bells Pub, a place frequented by the victims of Jack the Ripper and the Sherlock Holmes museum. I even managed to track down the crosswalk on Abbey Road made famous by The Beatles. I could have spent days just riding up and down side streets checking everything out.

Some things I found odd. Piccadilly Circus. What is it? I know what it isn’t. It’s not Times Square, it’s not a park, it’s not a circus and it didn’t seem big enough for public gatherings (like a public square). It was just loud from all the traffic and there were a lot of teenagers sitting on the fountain. Why are bus drivers enclosed in a bullet-proof glass bubbles? OK, I don’t know that the glass is bullet proof but no one is getting to that guy. Is there some kind of problem with bus drivers being attacked here? And why on Earth are there so many freaking cameras? England has more CCTV cameras than any country in the world yet study after study shows that they are nearly ineffective at reducing crime (except automobile breakins but that can’t be a big problem in central London with all the people walking around–they also don’t help that much with after-the-fact investigations). Sounds like someone is just making money off selling them. It would be funny if it was an ex-government official who now works for the camera company kind of like what happened with the airport scanners in the US.

As far as the traffic… I much prefer open street riding (without a bike lane) than an established “bike friendly” system like they have in The Netherlands, for example. For me it works out much better because traffic knows where I am, I know where it is and I know where the people are supposed to be. I can also get around much faster–no forced sidewalk riding, up and down curbs or lights at roundabouts to stop for. The problem I had with the bike friendly places is more with other bikes. They were all over the place and it was hard to keep track of where everyone was. As a pedestrian I didn’t like it either–too many paths crossing. Maybe it’s good for some people but I like being treated as a car.

Garmin emailed me back with 2 suggestions to fix the inaccurate ascent numbers on my 62stc (due to the elevation changing non-stop even if I’m not moving). One was reinstall the firmware and the other was reset all the user settings. Neither one helped.  I certainly didn’t climb 10,338 feet through the city of London today in any case.

Tomorrow I’m going to the British Museum and Saturday I’m out.

GPX track

04/23 London! It was a bit overwhelming riding along with so many things to see but there isn’t much room for forgiveness on the roads so I held back on the photo moments. As luck would have it I arrived just in time for Monday rush hour. Of course it rained all day which added to the fun but honestly it wasn’t bad.

There are fees for driving in the central area during peak times which probably helps keep the cars down–I didn’t run into any bumper to bumper traffic and there was no honking which made for a more relaxing trip. Only the hard core bicycle commuters were riding but there were a lot of them which made things easier for me. I just did what they did with the exception of obeying traffic rules–that was mostly me.

The highlights were riding along the famous Thames River, getting a free cleaning at a car wash after riding some muddy trails, crossing back into the Western Hemisphere in Greenwich (0° longitude aka the prime meridian), riding across the Tower Bridge and seeing the London Eye, Westminster Palace and Big Ben. I also cut through Hyde Park (with Speaker’s Corner but no one was there however I was mostly just looking for a bathroom).

I’m staying with Alex and Ping, warmshowers hosts who returned recently from a 6 month bicycling trip to Chile. Alex is also a security consultant so we have some computer geek commonality as well. And Ping ruptured her Achilles tendon which made me realize I need to make sure I take better care of mine (it’s back to 100% now). She also said I must be knackered and I had no idea what she meant (it means exhausted). I’ll be here for 3 nights before heading north.

GPX track

04/22 I sure burned through the cash today. At the last minute I decided to go visit the 900 year old Leeds Castle since I’d heard about it before and it wasn’t that far. There was a bit of climbing to get there and the rough, busy, bikelaneless England roads weren’t always fun but I made it.

The first part of the day was an adventure that I just loved. I rode along a deserted forest road, lost my tent, went back and found my tent (only 1km away), rode along some crazy single track and had to squeeze through some very narrow anti-car(?) barriers.

It was about noon when I pulled up to Leeds Castle. This was my first castle visit and I was kind of excited to go inside. My excitement waned a little at the ticket booth–$31.78 US to get in (for the year which doesn’t do me much good). This is part of the problem:

This castle and its grounds are now a major leisure destination in the county of Kent and feature a maze, a grotto, a golf course and what may be the world’s only museum of dog collars.

I just want to see a castle; not go to an amusement park and especially not one that has a museum of dog collars–which gives me a good idea…maybe I should start collecting them. Unfortunately you can’t even see the castle without paying. I suppose if I see just one of each major kind of thing my pocket book won’t suffer too much. Having the annual English Heritage pass would have only saved me 10% since Leeds is only an affiliated site. Actually I don’t think bicycle tourists should have to pay an entrance fee to anything but that’s a different story (the people at Mount Rushmore had it right–they let me in without paying because I busted my ass to get there).

I wasn’t disappointed but it wasn’t quite what I expected. The areas open for the self-tour were through rooms that were furnished with items from the previous owners–most from the last private owner who lived there until 1974. There was no dungeon to see which kind of sucked. I thought all castles had dungeons. Some Googling taught me that in fact very few castles had dungeons. WTH. Anyway, I think I was expecting something a little more medieval. I mean King Edward I (Edward Longshanks) lived here–there should have been more things of his.

The rain started not long after leaving the castle and never really stopped. There was a campground not far but it required going back up a big hill and I didn’t feel like it. As it got later I was getting low on options so I stopped at 4 different B&B’s to see how much a room was but no one answered the door. I ended up in Rochester and paid an arm and a leg for a decent room on the main drag. The best was having to pay $8 US for the internet. I broke down and had a pizza at this place called Pizza Express. Worst pizza ever for $20 US. It was so thin I laughed when I picked it up. After “dinner” I went next door to the market and bought a couple sandwiches.

I climbed 12,006 feet (and counting) today (not really–more like 1000 but that’s just a guess). I emailed Garmin support about it but I don’t think they’ll have anything to say because others have been reporting this issue for a while.

Tomorrow London!

GPX track