Cycle - 6.2 hours - 07/21/2007
Took a ride out to Swindon this morning to see Richard and Alison for lunch.
As you may know, we had quite a lot of rain across the country yesterday with some localised flooding.
The Thames was swollen and fast flowing when I got to Henley and I noticed a lot of debris on the country roads but nothing serious until I got past Wantage near Uffington and its historic White Horse.
A few dips hadn’t drained fully and were too deep and long to glide through so much to my annoyance, my shoes got soaked as I had to pedal.
I figured I would be past the flooding once I got to Shrivenham as the rest of my route into Swindon was along A roads.
I then came across this:
Two cars and a van abandoned in flood water on the A420.
A hardy looking Hilux gingerly made the crossing, being careful not to make a bow wave, but everybody else just looked on.
There were probably four other 4WDs waiting with their drivers looking very confused.
This was probably the closest they had come to anything off road since accidentally mounting the pavement while struggling to fit into a parking spot outside Waitrose.
The water wasn’t flowing particularly quickly and was only about three feet deep so I changed into an easy gear and carefully pedalled through without incident.
The beauty of that was I then had the rest of the A420 until Swindon to myself.
I’m so glad I put a generous amount of Teflon lube on my chain last night as everything kept working smoothly and silently for the rest of my journey but Sunday morning will need to be spent giving my drive train a good clean and re-lube.
Workout:
- Type: Cycle
- Date: 07/21/2007
- Time: 07:00:00
- Total Time: 6:14:57.00
- Distance: 157.82 km
- Average Speed: 25.25 kmph
- Max Speed: 67.6 kmph
Filed under: Cycle, Uncategorized |
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3 Comments: :
Cycle - 6.2 hours - 07/21/2007
July 22nd, 2007 4:46 pm
Brad says:
Great pictures and story. Hopefully everyone in the local area made it through without too much damage.
July 25th, 2007 8:17 pm
riddenwords says:
I was thinking of you (and Karl) while in London last weekend with all of the rain. Kim spent half an hour under a tree in Hyde park before making a break for Kensington Palace for shelter on Friday.
I’m not sure I would have decided to ride through it but I guess having a car makes me weak and want to protect my bike…
July 26th, 2007 6:31 am
karlmccracken says:
I can see the sticker now . . . “The best 1 x 2 x far”. . . Mums queuing up to trade in their Chelsea Tractors for sturdy two-wheeled machines . . . revenue from the congestion charge collapsing . . . . when the revolution comes!
But the real story here’s at the bottom of the post (oh, and the title). A six hour ride! Good stuff.