February frolics by the Thames

Having survived a wet and lengthy January with a few local rides with the Fairfield Flyer, the first weekend oh February coincided with the top of the table clash between Aresenal and Liverpool on the football field and so it was arranged to fit in some cycling around this, not to be missed, clash of these two Premier league giants. Circumstances have changed since the last blog so the Liphook Loafer now lives in Walton on Thames and shall now be referred to as the Walton Wheeler. He had arranged tickets for the game on the Sunday and had planned a couple of cycle routes routes for us on Friday and Saturday - The Royal Tour plan was to take in Hampton Court on Friday and Pizza Express in Woking on Saturday. With the car packed to the gunnels I set off from south Wales for Walton via Hillesley in Glocestershire where I had agreed to pick up the Bury Biker aka Jim. Jim had been at university in Brighton with the Walton Wheeler and who was joining us for said weekend. After Jim had loaded his bike, 2 guitars and cycling paraphenalia the VW Golf was beginning to creak under the strain. It did make it though downthe M4 and M25 to Walton on Thames and the leafy suburbs of Surrey.

A blurry start to Friday saw us heading towards the Walton on Thames Marina and dodging traffic along the busy roads on our way to Bushey Park. Passing the huge water works to the south of Sunbury on Thames we skirtred the Queen Elizabeth Reservoir and turned into Bushey Park to be greeted by a herd of deer basking the faint February sunlight.

A very gentle and flat ride accross the park and the sighting of the occasional ringed Parakeet found us at the entrance to Hampton Court. It is an Urban myth that the Parakeets that can be seen flying around this part of London are as a result of them escaping when the film "The African Queen " was being made at the nearby film studios in 1951! Our plan was to have tour of this Royal Palace, built originally for Cardinal Wolsey but later given to Henry VIII in order to try and check Wolsey's fall from grace. But the entrance fee of £55 was outside our budget and so we decided our money woud be better spent on lunch and beer.

Our route back to Walton saw us cross he Thames from the norh side onto the tow path on the south side. This well used path is shared by pedestrians, cyclists, joggers and wheel chair users alike so our progress was slower than our usual peleton pace! A couple of strategic stops for lunch and liquid refreshment and we were soon back in the warmth of the flat and the anticipation of a hot shower - except someone had left the hot water running for the last 5 hours - so we had to be satisfied with a large cognac to warm us up... the sacrifices we have to make?

Saturday dawned early with the arrival of the Viking from Highgate, who had driven down from Norf London to share in the fun of Saturday's ride. There had been some debate as to the choice of route but we eventually settled on one created by Komoot, our go to navigation app! Taking us intially south from Walton into deepest Surrey, we arrived in Cobham, real commuter belt, mock Georgian houses with pristine drives in roads called Accacia Avenue and Tulip Close and real footballers wives country. Suprisingly rural, we found tracks through Prince's Coverts, Oxshott Heath and Esher Common Princes's Coverts is owned by the Crown Estate ane named after Prince Leopold 1 of Belgium who lived in nearby Esher.

A refreshment stop in a very, very busy gastro pub, The Prince of Wales on the outskirts of Esher was well deserved after The Walton Wheeler insisted on taking us through yet more trecherous tracks which he deemed as being "proper biking". Eventually arriving back at the flat we had acheived the great feat of having gone over the A3 three times and under it once. Our ride could be likened to Julius Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon in 49BC - it had taken it's toll on the riders.