ADVENTURE OF THE MONTH — JUNE–JULY–AUGUST, 2006

A Bike Ride through History and Tranquility, Challenging Enough for Serious Cyclists, but Flat and with Limited or No Auto Traffic.
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PART I — GETTING STARTED

        Have you heard about Britain’s National Cycle Network? Over the last eleven years a comprehensive system approaching 10,000 route miles has been identified, developed, signed and mapped across Britain and Northern Ireland. Most of the miles are on low-traffic byways and motor-traffic free bike paths, many of these reclaimed abandoned railways and improved towpaths tracing 19th century canals and other waterways that crisscross the UK with low profiles.
        With its low-profile, low-traffic route system keeping grades and congestion minimal, the National Cycle Network makes it possible for almost anyone to cycle short—and even long—distances through parts of Britain and Northern Ireland that were unfriendly to cyclists just a few years ago. With an ever-expanding route system and a support infrastructure for information, meals, lodging, and equipment rental and repairs, the National Cycle Network makes such formerly unfriendly cycling territory as the Scottish Highlands or urban England welcoming to cyclists of all ages and abilities.
        Take western England, for example. Long industrialized, this lovely region of low hills and broad valleys is pockmarked with large towns and small cities and crisscrossed with densely trafficked roadways. But tucked among the folds of the hills and the bends of the river valleys are some of England’s most pristine villages, many with histories that extend back into Saxon times. Today, Britain’s National Route 41 lets cyclists—old and young, fit and fat—to ride through 1500 years of English history while barely breaking a sweat, or worrying much about traffic.

        All great journeys begin with a first step. Our first step was climbing out of bed early on Sunday morning, and it was the most difficult step of the day. Saturday night had gone from supper at the pub to drinks at the pub, then a walk under the stars back to our little cottage, where we crawled beneath thick comforters sometime after 11PM.
        It was June in the Cotswolds, and the weather had been superb — sunny, cool days followed by starlit, cooler nights. We hadn’t seen much rain this trip, just a couple of showers on the evening of arrival day. Although we love poking around the backwater villages of England, this time we wouldn’t be doing so much traveling by car. We had decided we would test the National Cycle Network to see if we could combine two loves, poking and cycling.
        Oh yeah…who are we? I’m a 56-year-old Yank taking a week off in the middle of Little League season (I’ve been coaching 13 & 14 year old boys for the last 18+ years) to join my 31-year-old son, Jess, who’s finishing up his MBA year at Oxford by fitting in a week with me between final classes and final exams. Our wives had kindly encouraged us to spend the week together, knowing, of course, that their independent travel adventures would come later that summer.

        Tea and toast was all we had time for. We had a train to catch shortly after 8AM, and we had a 4-mile ride to the station. We each carried a backpack with clothes for three days, first aid supplies, water and high-energy food (mostly chocolate and nuts), a few bike tools, and, importantly, maps of our planned route and a guidebook for the region. We used back roads to get to the station. It was rush hour and the main roads were jammed with traffic little interested in making room for cyclists.
        The rail station was busy, too, but that was no bother. Yesterday we stopped by the station to get our tickets and bike reservations. Bicycles are carried free on trains throughout Britain*, but, because carrying space on trains is typically limited to 2-6 bikes, reserving the space for your bike on specific trains is required. Bike reservations are usually free, but some railways charge £1/bike for the booking. Getting to the station at least 10 minutes before train time is also important. Extra time is needed to check you and your bike through to the proper platform. Remember to inquire of station personnel where best to stand along the platform in order to be close to the one train car that has bike space—usually hangers in a larger-than-normal vestibule or a baggage car ("van" in British). Once your train arrives, watch for the cycle symbol on the designated car. If entry to the car is via regular passenger access to a vestibule, let any exiting passengers off first before attempting to carry your bike into the train. Once in the car look for the bike hooks—like giant fishhooks—suspended from the ceiling in the vestibule or in the baggage van. Loop your front wheel over an available hook and make your way to a nearby coach seat. Usually you have two minutes for this process. (If you run into a problem—you cannot find the bike car, or all the bike space is full—alert train or platform personnel instantly, and they will hold the train and help you get your bike safely aboard.)
        Somehow our train had come in with the bike car at the wrong end of the train. Jess and I scrambled down the platform to the other end of the train. He jumped in the vestibule and I handed up each bike. Jess hooked the bikes on two of the four hangers—there were no other bikes, and we found two seats in the neighboring coach.

        Why were we taking the train? The Cotswolds are about as lovely as England gets, but, with their constant hills and dales, most cycling there requires constant climbing and descending on narrow, winding roads often heavily traveled. The National Cycle Network has ambitions for the Cotswolds, but these trails have not yet been developed. But, along the relatively flat borders of the Cotswolds the Network has developed numerous bike routes using lightly traveled back roads and off-road cycle paths along converted canal towpaths and abandoned railway lines. Our route — National Cycle Route 41 — begins on the western edge of the Cotswolds, in the heart of the historic city of Gloucester, and more-or-less follows the River Severn south to the city of Bristol on the River Avon. Along the way, the route follows mostly paved secondary roads, but also traces some unpaved sections of canal towpath.
        The off-road cycling along this route does not require fat mountain bike tires, but is not ideal for skinny-tired touring or racing bikes. Jess had his mountain bike—the bike he bought in England and used daily to commute back and forth to classes at Oxford. I brought my cross bike over with me from the States, an indulgence, to be sure. I ride almost daily at home in Pennsylvania, and am sure I would be less comfortable on any other bike, especially after hours in the saddle. But, getting the bike over and back was a bit of a hassle, requiring partial disassembly, special boxing, and an extra step at check-in, plus hand carriage on and off two trains and an oversize taxi in England to get me to my Cotswolds cottage. I more easily could have rented a bike** locally in the Cotswolds and had it set up to fit me for the ride. The price would have included insurance, and I could have rented a helmet as part of the package.

        Edna St. Vincent Millay was writing about me when she wrote, "There isn’t a train I wouldn’t take, no matter where it’s going." Even a short journey across England raises my spirits. It’s not the train, although I admit to being a railfan. No, it’s the sense of impending adventure, of being thrust into someplace new only with imagined possibilities, knowing that the memories will likely be entirely different than the imagined experiences. And out the window those pastoral scenes gliding by are nothing less than a slide show by John Constable.
        From Kemble station near Tetbury, Home At First’s base in the southern Cotswolds, Gloucester is 35 minutes distance by train. From Honeybourne station near Home At First’s cottages in the northern Cotswolds, Gloucester is about 106 minutes and one change of trains (at Worcester Shrub) — yes, you must take the bike off and put it back on and have reservations for both trains. Fares range from £4 to £11.50 one-way from Kemble to Gloucester, depending upon a number of factors: class of service (2nd or 1st), train selected, advance purchase, and availability. Fares range from £3.50 to £9.50 one-way from Honeybourne to Gloucester, but are available in 2nd class only at this time of day.

        Gloucester! When the Romans founded what they named Glevum in 97AD they had in mind protecting the southernmost crossing of the River Severn from the wild Welsh tribes who lived in the hills across the river to the west. Those same Welsh hills would form our western horizon most of this day.
        We were spot on time at Gloucester rail station. Out we jumped with our bikes and gear. We showed our tickets to the guard to get out of the platform area, and were quickly through the station lobby and outside into the brilliant sunshine. Now to find the river — we knew our route south to Bristol would parallel the river all the way as the Severn carried the waters of western England and eastern Wales south to the Bristol Channel and the Atlantic. Clearly signed for visitors was a bike route from the station into the town pointing to Gloucester’s two most important attractions: the Cathedral and the Gloucester Docks. Quickly we crossed busy Bruton Way and rode about 100 yards into the busy shopping heart of central Gloucester, where, because shopping here is for pedestrians only, we dismounted and walked down the middle of Northgate and Westgate Streets amidst throngs of shoppers.

        To the right off Westgate Street, College Court led us away from the noisy crush of shoppers to the quiet, cobbled square and lawns surrounding Gloucester Cathedral, one of England’s great Gothic cathedrals, now over 900 years old. We were only the most recent of visitors, and certainly far from the most significant. One king of England was crowned here: the 9-year-old Henry III in 1216. And, 111 years later his grandson, King Edward II, was buried here, the body coming from Berkeley Castle—which we shall pass later today on our bikes—where the king had been murdered by the supporters of his estranged wife, Queen Isabella of Aquitaine. When, later, a cult of sainthood grew up around the murdered Edward II, the medieval pilgrimage to Gloucester became the town’s first tourism.
        More recently a fictional Brit, one Harry Potter, has drawn tourism to the cathedral. Scenes from two of Harry’s movies (The Philosopher Stone and Chamber of Secrets) were filmed at Gloucester Cathedral, and starstruck children beam with recognition the instant they enter the church’s spectacularly gothic Cloisters. Children also like to climb the cathedral’s imposing 269-step-tall tower and easily eavesdrop on conversations in the Whispering Gallery. For us a walk through the glory of gothic Gloucester Cathedral^† needs neither kings nor movie stars as a draw. This is one of our favorite churches—anywhere.

        In the cathedral’s forecourt we found the first of the day’s route markers for National Route 41. If this convenient placement were to be an indication, finding our way to Bristol would be child’s play.

        We left Gloucester Cathedral via cobbled College Street and re-entered the pedestrians-only Westgate shopping quarter. A Route 41 marker appeared, directing us down Berkeley Street and on to Gloucester’s Historic Docks. Here several spic ’n span brick warehouses straddle the northern terminus of the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal, which has brought shipping inland from the deepwater Severn to the port of Gloucester for 180 years. Its 16-mile route required 30 years to build, finally connecting Sharpness Point on the Severn with Gloucester city under the direction of the great British engineer Thomas Telford in 1827. Today’s canal traffic is mostly pleasure craft, including canal boats, cabin cruisers, and heritage vessels. The old brick warehouses wear a sunny sandblasted orange coat and no longer play their dreary traditional roles supplying the metal industry, eel market, and agri-business of Gloucester. Today, the warehouses include the Antiques Centre (in the Lock Warehouse) with 70 shops of antiques and collectables filling its five stories, and Britain’s National Waterways Museum (Llanthony Warehouse), which chronicles the inland navigation system of the nation. The docks also quarter a shopping center (Merchants’ Quay), and a canal boat excursion operation (Queen Boadicea II Boat Trips). Our own canal excursion was about to begin, as National Route 41 follows the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal south out of Gloucester for the first part of the ride to Bristol.

END OF PART I — TOTAL BIKING SO FAR: 5 MILES!
WATCH THIS SPACE — WE REALLY GET ROLLING NEXT TIME...