After the adventures of King Alfred's Way (breakfast pizza, knee-high mud, epic hills and nearly getting blown up by the MOD), Abi and I declared it was time for another cross country cycling adventure.
The bikes were looking a bit too clean so we needed to sort that out. Mountain bikes should look slightly grubby even when entirely clean.
We had hoped to do Coast to Coast but the logistics were a nightmare so we decided to find a route in between us both which didn't involve abandoning vehicles hundreds of miles apart. I'm in Rugby and Abi is in London so we had a fair amount of scope. There is a lot of potential mud, hills and adventures between London and the midlands.
After a bit of negotiation and Google searching, Abi suggested the Northamptonshire Way. There would be a small matter of vehicle abandonment (1 car at either end!) but a lot of trails, a few pubs and hopefully not too much falling off the bikes. Or at least if we did, into something squishy rather than rocks.
Day 1: Souldern to Kettering
The adventure started as mine usually do … with a toilet stop.
Desperate for a loo stop on the way (too much coffee!), we screeched up to an outside cubicle at a petrol station. One step instead … and I noticed a trail of blood and further splashes up the walls. Um. Backing out rather quickly after confirming there was no body in there, I decided I would wait for the next toilet. At a different petrol station. Preferably some way away.
And without blood, diseases or potential casualties slumped in a corner, please.
As it's rather off-putting when you're trying to wee.
Without any further calamities, toilet-related or otherwise, we arrived at our start point and I abandoned my faithful Skoda in the village of Souldern at the edge of Northamptonshire.
Lights on, snacks pocketed and maps ready, we hopped onto the bikes and set off down a road, which in the usual way of interesting routes turned into a trail. And we were on our way.
The weather was bright and beautiful. This was a little concerning as the weather in the days leading up to the ride involved torrential rains and floods. It felt a little as though we were being lured away from our nice dry cars – and the option of backing out – until we were committed. Then the heavens would open and we'd be be up to our pedals in mud, floods and floating cows.
We reached our proper grassy downhill and I promptly fell off the bike. Turns out that a mountain bike with hybrid tyres is fab for roads and giritty tracks but not so good for wet grass. And it turns out my balance isn't improved with thicker tyres.
Who'd have thought.
Luckily the ground was mushy, so not only did I fall off and carry on down the hill on my face, I sent up a tide of muddy water. Marvellous.
At least it was a soft landing.
I had a proper look at the tyres I'd put on a few years ago when I was planning on doing a bit of cycling on tracks. Smooth on the bottom and then a bit chunkier on the outside. OK, marvellous. So good for roads and maybe dry, firm tracks but not so good for anything else if I wanted to be able to steer. Never mind. Who needs to turn anyway? Turning is for pussies and people who need to go around corners and stuff.
It was going to be a long few days.
We bumped along the trails for a while, alternating between long wet grass and shorter grass covering rutted tractor tracks. It was fun cycling and I may have tipped over a couple of times, but who's counting? So long as I didn't drop my snacks, I wasn't worried. And even if I did drop a snack, there was the 10 second rule.
(The 5-second rule is extended on bike rides to give me time to unclip and blow the germs off the snack. **Germs can't survive The Blow**)
We had to cross a couple of small streams and rivers. I didn't remember “very wet feet” on the course description … and it turned out the crossings were usually shallow fords or ditches but due to the recent heavy rain, they'd been promoted.
Northamptonshire towns for some reason tend to be quite grotty. Polluted, dirty and rough … but the villages. Divine.
Full of beautiful sandstone houses with pretty gardens and quiet pubs, they were tempting to stop at. However, we had a stop planned at Kettering this evening and miles to go yet. No pubs yet, Booker!
We passed a beautiful stately home, tucked away safely from the rabble (and dirty cyclists) within high stone walls. We could see red deer grazing on the lands as we passed. Abi decided that that sounded far too posh and decided they were cows with antlers.
There are plenty of HS2 railway works in the midlands and because of these we were diverted off a byway. We followed the signs and the Herris fencing around a wiggly route and came out by some strange mannequins wearing Network Rail orange clothes. Actual shop mannequins but in railway kit.
We decided it was probably a strategy by NWR to cut down on overtime payments and tea breaks.
We didn't get lost so much as had a few unexpected diversions. Ride with Booker and see new places. Unexpected ones. The route occasionally tried to send us onto footpaths rather byways or bridleways. We took a few miles diversion onto a road when it tried to send us down a particularly tight path which was clearly not bike-friendly. Call me a detective but the big sign saying FOOTPATH and NO BIKES was a bit of a clue.
Well today there's no clock ticking or race officials telling us we had to follow a certain route, so we turned around and navigated around the footpath by the lanes. There's no point annoying the locals by going where we shouldn't and we were in no rush. Maybe later when it got a bit closer to pub closing time, we'd be more rushed. But not now.
Many of the trails were hard going as they were deeply rutted and not in a fun way. There were a lot of deep criss-crossing ruts with long grass covering the ruts so it was difficult to stay in them. These were hard going and a lapse in concentration would take you off. It was hard cycling and not much fun and there seemed to be miles and miles of them. I lost track of the number of times I ended up on the ground.
I just kept telling myself that bruises = signs of a decent adventure.
I'd thought I'd come into this adventure fairly fit so was quite surprised when I was finding some of the fields hard-going. This wasn't a good sign as I had quite a lot of miles to do and it wasn't good to be finding it tough this early on. Was it the difference between riding a road bike and a mountain bike?
In fact, I was finding it hard even turning the pedals.
Oh.
We were glad when these trails spat us out onto a paved road and we passed a sign for the Wharf Pub which was slightly off our route. We decided this would be our lunch stop and bottle re-fill point! It was a good choice and I had a bloody lovely burger. Had a chat with an old lad a few pints in outside the pub who was telling me all about his cycling days. Impressive stuff.
Abi and I left the pub and were back on the road for a bit before it turned into a muddy track with the occasional stone in the middle which prompted the conversation; Is this paved and what counts as paved anyway? If a car would go down it? Is it if a certain percentage of it drivable counts as paved? Wheelchair accessibility?
The trails were fairly mushy and there was the odd puddle or two … I was on a mountain bike this time so was pretty smug about being able to hit the puddles and mostly keep going. No-one wants to put their foot down in a puddle. Except maybe a duck.
We were navigating down a mucky farm truck behind a farmer in a jeep and he pulled over to one side just before a massive puddle.
Weird. Maybe he had farmery things to do.
I carried on through the puddle which just got deeper … and deeper … and deeper. I was determined not to stop or put my feet down although I was already soaked to my chamois. Finally the puddle got shallower and I rolled out the other side with a massive sigh of relief.
“That was deeper than you thought.” commented the farmer. Ah. So that was why you stopped. You wanted to see a cocky cyclist fall off in a puddle. Well, unlucky.
Although I was somewhat damp. Like a fish.
We were passing through lots of very pretty villages, the houses of a warm golden stone and usually clustered around a village green. One of the loveliest even had a reading room in the centre – in Blakesley. Picturesque and with the public reading room, made it feel as though it would have a lovely community.
We turned onto some trails which were familiar and I realised we were on the old Brampton Valley Way, a disused railway line which I'd run many times when marathon training. We turned onto a stoney track and up a hill where I paused to watch the sun
setting.
Abi caught me up and we cycled towards Brixworth Country Park and Pitsford reservoir which I have run around many times. It felt strange to be so many hours into a cycling adventure and only an hours drive from home.
The views across the reservoir were beautiful, the golden light at sunset and the calm evening made it feel very peaceful and mellow. We left the sandy reservoir tracks and were back onto lanes.
As we came into a little twilit village, Abi realised her back tyre was soft. We'd gone through so many trails where the farmers had blackthorn, I wasn't surprised that one of us had a puncture. The thorns are long and vicious on the blackthorn and you have to be careful not to prick yourself as the cuts go septic. We sat on the war memorial benches on the village green as Abi mended the puncture. It was fading light when we started and full dark when dark when we finished.
We set off into the dark lanes, with lights fully on and my spokey-dokeys glowing in the light from Abi's bike torch. The lanes turned into a rough trail across fields and we were navigating by the arrows on the posts. Guesswork at its best as to where the gates would be or any obstacles in the dark. Sheep were in the fields, lying down in the dark … I didn't want to hit a sheep. That would be baaaad.
Out of the fields and back onto the dark lanes, edged with high hedges. Out of a gap in the hedge came some small shapes in the dark, about the size of a labrador. It was muntjac deer! The first one made it across in front of my bike and darted into the hedge. The second wasn't so confident and skidded to a halt in front of me, his little hooves clattering on the tarmac and lit up with the circle of light from my bike torch. He stopped for a moment, then darted back the way he came.
Back onto trails, deeper and more well trodden now and whenever we saw a glow of orange sodium lights in the distance, we thought it would be Kettering, our stop for the evening but the lights appeared and disappeared and it seemed to be a different town after all.
We followed field after field and down and up into trails and under trees, before we came to a stone bridge and into a park. We were in Kettering! I had worked in this town years ago in my first office job and had fond memories but it felt dirty and a bit grotty as we cycled through. It wasn't helped with close passes from the cars and bags of rubbish split open covering the pavements. In the end, we had enough of the dangerous driving and as the pavements were pretty deserted, we hopped onto them with the bikes as it felt safer.
We dodged the rubbish bags, but we didn't feel like we were in a nice area. The people we saw looked at our bikes.Not because they were cyclists but as though they were eyeing up their net worth.
We finally found the building for our rooms for the night and it was easy enough to follow the instructions to get the keys from the lockbox. According to these, we were free to adjust the thermostat in the kitchen if needed, but we didn't bother looking as we were heading straight out for food. My room was cute with a high bunkbed and a sofa underneath but it was dirty and I nearly died falling backwards trying to get a bike up the narrow, steep victorian terraced house stairs.
What a way to die. Under my bike, hungry and covered in mud.
We dropped the bikes and our bags, had a quick shower and headed out for food. We booked a table at a curry house called the Raj and had a 20 minutes walk to get there. We ignored the bloke doing donuts in the supermarket car park in his 2009 Vauxhall Corsa and sidestepped the man passed out in the doorway, his bottle of cider next to him.
The Raj had incredible food and the service was great, although the waiter seemed a bit nonplussed as to why we were visiting Kettering and stated “It's a dump!” As non-locals we didn't like to agree but we certainly hadn't seen the best bits this evening. I got a doggy-bag for the rest of my curry and we made our way back to the digs, hopscotching over the tin cans and pot noodle containers scattered across the pavements.
Day 2: Kettering to Wansford
We started the day with a large coffee at a local coffee shop with all of the cream and fuss and a giant amount of gingerbread syrup. Abi recommended a visit to Butterwicks which is an incredible bakery, with the most mouthwatering display of cakes. We couldn’t decide which we wanted the most and decided to pick one each and share. I went for a cinnamon fritter at the recommendation of the staff and Abi decided a lotus biscoff donut was her favourite. We took our boxes carefully outside and ate the cakes reverently in the town square in the cold with bright blue skies overhead.
So this is the nice part of Kettering. It was lovely.
We took the bikes downstairs and swept the rooms and the house. I certainly removed more dirt from the room than I'd brought in with the bike. I'm always super-careful to leave the rooms clean when I travel with the bike as I don't want to give anyone any reasons to not have cyclists stay again.
While we were sweeping, we found the thermostat. On a ceiling rafter 8ft up in the air in the kitchen. I had thought it was rather generous (and uncharacteristic) of a landlord to say “thermostat in kitchen adjust as you want'. But they were safe knowing full well it was inaccessible without a ladder.
The house instructions were to empty the bins but there were 6 wheelie bins outside which were overflowing with old, old rubbish and the front garden was entirely full of mouldering bin bags with rubbish spilling out of them. At least we can say we left the house in a better condition than we found it.
I realised my bike had a puncture so decided to sort it before we started. We returned the house keys to the key box and found a nice low wall to sit on in the sun.
I took the tyre off and found the thorn straightaway. It took a bit of time to remove it as it was firmly stuck in. Abi suggested I check for any more just in case and I found another one so long I initially thought it was part of a hypodermic needle. Spiked my finger on it so glad it wasn’t.
We got going again and we had blue skies. I always feel better when I'm out under clear skies and cycling early in the morning, with a full day ahead of us to just ride is a lovely feeling.
We had some pretty routes today and as it was a Sunday, we saw a few other cyclists out and about too. One was stopped with his bike, looking concerned. I was no use. My idea of fixing my bike is to ask someone who looks as though they know about things like that and hand over all responsibility to them. Luckily Abi had done a few courses on this sort of thing (fixing bikes, not just looking like someone who can) and she was able to diagnose the problem and give him a working solution to get his bike home. Win!
We had a bit of confusion about the route across a field. The map seemed to suggest one way and the signpost another way and the field was not only too lumpy and hilly to be able to see all the way across, it was also full of cows. Cows with calves. Big cows.
Not good. We had to be super-cautious around them in case they got over-protective so we wanted to give them lots of room. It was problematic though as we
but couldn't work out what was footpath and what was a cow trail. The map wasn't a lot of help and footpath sign no help whatsoever as it had been used as a leaning post by the cows so could have been originally pointing in any direction.
However, I did find a really cool toadstool which looked like a toad with a pink stalk.
We had to make a decision so went cross country in the direction we thought the path might exit the field and as we walked along the field edge we found a footpath sign. Phew. It was an ENORMOUS field so could have taken a while if we'd gambled on the wrong direction.
We followed the trail which wound up a rutted hill and under some trees. The ruts were awful and at some points, it was a case of having to hop off the bike and walk it over them as they were so deep and crossed each other. It was hard going and quite demoralising as just a few miles took ages. It was difficult to get into a rhythm and the brief sections which were hard trail were few and far between.
We finally came to a gate and onto the road. This wound us into a village and we passed a group of off-road motorcyclists covered in mud, clearly having had a good morning out. They were leaning against the war memorial and having a good old catch up. Well that explained the deep rutted tracks on the trails.
We cycled on past, climbing up the tarmac hill through the village, winding further and further up and onto a trail at the top of the road, sandy and pretty.
This led us into a picturesque village with a veritable horde of walkers in the middle of the road. They had their walking poles ready and trousers tucked into boots. Clearly serious about walking. Even on tarmac. We crossed a pretty stone bridge and there was a stork in the middle of the river. It was unusual to see a stork and so close too. We stopped and watched it for a few moments until it flew away.
We cycled up a hill lined with trees and when the hedges lowered, we had a pretty view down into the village of Brigstock below. A distinctive building stood out with high windows and shaped like a matchbox stood on its end. We stopped to take some photographs of it as it was so unusual and got chatting to a young couple walking past who told us it was an old clothing factory from the 19th century.
Past the factory and up onto the trails and onto the roads of a country estate. There were multiple signs warning people that it was private and that cars were not welcome. It was a bit daunting so we checked the maps but it was definitely a public right of way. We didn't want to get chased off by a gamekeeper.
We went past the stone walls and signs and onto grassy tracks. There was a bench and a stone commemorating the Bocase Oak which had blown down, so we decided to have a snack and look up what the Bocase Oak was about. Apparently it had been an enormous tree which had been a meeting place and had several legends around it, one of which told that Robin Hood had hidden his bow and arrows here when he had been betrayed by a local minister.
We packed our snacks away and carried on down the trails. These were mostly tracks now and alternated between field edges and tree covered tracks. It was quite hilly and the grassy field edges were quite hard going as they were lumpy and uneven. It was tough riding after a couple of days in the saddle.
We passed a farmhouse which had a strange metal sculpture that looked like a hand on top of a metal contraption. We couldn't quite work out whether it was art or functional. It was pretty cool either way.
We saw a few groups of teenagers walking with rucksacks bigger than they were. We assumed they were doing their Duke of Edinburgh awards although the size of their rucksacks suggested they planned to be out for several weeks. Or were dumping bodies.
The path led us down some well mown grass by the side of a property and we spotted a crocodile by a pond. Yes really.
A crocodile.
It may have been plastic. It didn't eat us.
The trail popped us back out onto tarmac and we were back into the pretty villages. We were getting pretty peckish now so had a chat to some people loading their dogs into the car to ask about pubs for dinner. They recommended one to us about five miles further down the road in the direction we were going. This sounded great, but our trail took us off that road. Bother.
About five miles from end of the day, I realised my back tyre was soft. I found a thorn well stuck in and it seemed to be sealing the hole, so I pumped the tyre up and hoped for the best. I didn't want to have to change the tube so close to the end if I didn't have to. Better to do it when I was clean and fed.
The road dropped us into a village and I recognised the pretty stone bridge and realised we were close to the end of our adventure. The bridge was decorative and the village of Wansford was picturesque in the sunshine. It was made even better by spotting Abi's car parked up and a pub within spitting distance.
An enormous meal of a Korean chicken burger at the Paper Mill pub surrounded by enthusiastic rugby fans. I had a cheese board afterwards but couldn't finish it so I had a lovely picky box full of cheese. Crackers and grapes.
And then I got back to my car, wet and muddy to discover I had left the lights on 2 days previous. Dammit. Wet, cold and muddy and with a 12hr wait for the RAC overnight.
At least I had a box of cheese.
