There were a number of reasons why I decided to ride Rod Hollands' Malvern Hills/Elgar Route. It was reasonably local, only an hour and a half from home. It would allow me to get a 200 km RM event under my belt nice and early, with PBP qualification in mind. Last but not least, it promised scenery. Just under half an AAA point's worth, according to John Miller.

Even so, I might have ridden the Sunday's South Coast 200 instead. But in the course of the delicate domestic negotiations that precede any ride it emerged that Saturday was as good (or as bad) as Sunday, so Chepstow it was.

I stumbled out of bed just after 5 am, telling myself that the sleep deprivation was excellent training, though at that precise moment I couldn't quite think for what. In the kitchen I discovered yet again that eating a couple of slices of toast, like making a couple of phone calls, takes rather more time in the real world than it does in my head, and consequently I was a few minutes late by the time I arrived to collect Panos and bike for the drive westward. Between us we managed to hoist his bike onto the roof rack (I think his frame must be made of lead. There'll be no holding him if he ever gets a bike weighing under 40 pounds) and headed for the M4.

The weather improved steadily as we approached Wales, and the (free!) car park by Chepstow castle was bathed in sunshine and full of randonneurs when we arrived. It was disconcerting to find that the castle was more or less at river level, rather than on high ground. As for the randonneurs, most of the usual suspects seemed to have been rounded up. There were more trikes and tandem trikes than usual. Tandem trikies seem so irrepressibly cheerful I'm sometimes tempted to have a go myself, on the off-chance that the machine inspires incurable optimism, rather than incurable optimism inspiring a feeling that a tandem trike is a reasonable machine to ride an audax on.

The forecast had not been all that favourable, so, instead of the Longstaff, I had decided to ride the Black Death, which leads a twilight existence as my commuter and hack bike. I'd scraped the worst of the grot off and plied the crunchier bits of the transmission with oil and WD 40.

After an End-to-End last year which had included a leg from Monmouth to Cheddar via Chepstow, I knew that the first few miles were going to be mostly uphill. But, in contrast to last year's ride, the weather was clear and the sweeping views over the Severn valley were more than enough compensation for the effort. Though we were following B-roads rather than lanes, as we would continue to do for much of the route, traffic was remarkably light. We were climbing most of the way to Coleford. I couldn't tell how far that was since my computer had stopped working. But I didn't mind-the sun was shining and I felt good. Good enough to honk instead of twiddle.

After Coleford we swooped exhilaratingly down through the Forest of Dean. As we hit Mach 2 or 45 mph (whichever is the lower), an oncoming car flashed its lights. I was distracted for just long enough to hit...I don't know what-after all, I wasn't looking-but there was an almighty bang and the Black Death was doing the Hippy Hippy Shake. For as much as five milliseconds I thought I'd got away with it-I was still on the bike, wasn't I-but then I bumped to a standstill. "Looks like you get today's booby prize," our chairman remarked as he and the rest of the bunch shot past. He spoke more truly than he knew.

After a winter's practice, my puncture routine is well oiled (the same cannot be said of the Black Death), and I had a new tube in place inside five minutes. I was still congratulating myself on the ease with which I'd slipped the Hutchinson kevlar back onto the rim-none of the usual ten-minute all-in wrestling bout, you don't know your own strength, Marshall-when I discovered the reason why: The whatever-it-had-been (on reflection, probably a cunning Gloucestershire rock, doubtless a relation of the one that ambushed Liz Creese) had redesigned my back wheel. It didn't seem that rotation was a strong point of the new version.

Randonneurs were continuing to rocket by, with many a cheerful query of "Okay?" (and one grinning comment that "That's what you get for doing 53 miles an hour downhill," which was a bit pot-and-kettle-ish from someone on a tandem trike). By this stage my cheery response was becoming slightly glazed, and the bleating of the sheep grazing in the forest was taking on a mocking note. A farmer emerged from behind a Land Rover parked nearby. "Some sort of race going on, is there?" he asked. I explained. "How far you going?" "About a hundred and twenty-five miles." "Where you start from?" "Chepstow." "Where you say you're going?" "Chepstow." On hearing this he retreated hastily to his Land Rover....

Strong measures were called for; I got out the spoke key. Normally the sight of me advancing purposefully with a spoke key in my hand is enough to scare a wheel back into shape, but this rim was made of sterner stuff. After twenty minutes of trial and error (mostly error, as usual), once I had loosened off the back brake cable, I had a wheel that still wasn't round, but at least went round, sort of. Another minute or two to inflate the tyre and I would be back on the road. It was now that my pump seized its opportunity. As the air pressure in the tube reached the giddy heights of 40 psi, it blew apart.

I panted up the 17-percent hill (did I forget to mention the hill?) on my spongy back tyre to discover Rod Hollands manning the first, secret control. A couple of late randonneurs were having a banana break at the control, so I borrowed a pump and got my tyre up to a reasonable pressure. Things were looking up.

After following very quiet and scenic B roads across the Forest of Dean, the route skirted Gloucester on lanes and headed for Upton. With pothole sensors on maximum alert (another hit and I'd be walking back to Chepstow), I tried to forget the rhythmic squeak of the back wheel hitting the brake blocks and began to appreciate the sunlit countryside. The gentler terrain was welcome after the hills of the forest, but the Malverns were already lowering (or should that be towering?) on the horizon.

By the time I reached Upton, a couple of close shaves at downhill junctions had persuaded me that I'd settle for a bit more in the way of a back brake even at the expense of having to work harder the rest of the time, so instead of coffee and teacakes I had another fiddle with the brake cable. Time to head for the hills....

The Malverns are remarkably abrupt, seeming to arise out of nothing. At first the road was similarly direct and headed straight up the escarpment, but then, just as I was cursing the Biopace-chainrings-gone-mad effect of my redesigned wheel, it began to contour round. A couple of tandem trikies had broken a chain two-thirds of the way up (they were still smiling-they were tandem trikies!). I began to feel I too was going to break something, probably a lung, then the worst of the climb was over as I turned along the ridge. Ahead a knot of people by the roadside were filling trays of bottles from a spring: Malvern water, of course. The views over the surrounding lowlands were stupendous.

Once I got back down there, the lowlands proved to be distinctly undulating, verging on the lumpy. There were half-timbered cottages with half-timbered bird tables in the garden, but I was definitely beginning to flag. Help was at hand in the shape of the lunchtime control, where service was both quick and friendly. There were several common themes to the pub banter, most notably: "Where are the AAA points for this route? Even the flat bits are hilly." Panos arrived: He'd been enjoying himself so much he'd thrown in an extra loop at Bromyard (he wasn't the only rider to be misled by an ambiguous instruction in a generally clear route sheet).

As ever, the afternoon's hills seemed harder than the mornings. On the outskirts of Ledbury I encountered a rider from Bristol on his first randonnee. "Is it far to the next control? I seems to be just one hill after another," he said-clearly having already grasped the essential principle of audax route planning. It wasn't far. At the cafe Dave Lewis was supergluing bits of bike back together again. He'd had an encounter with an absent-minded driver: Astra 1, Bike 0. Dave himself was OK, but not so his frame.

Awash with tea, a motley group set off on the last 40 km. A spectacular sunset took our minds off the long drag out of Cinderford, then it was back to the forest, with politically incorrect jokes about sheep. The Bristolian first-timer now said he was riding one-legged-goodness knows how fast he'd have climbed with two! From Coleford it was downhill almost all the way, but it was now quite dark and I was fretting about potholes, so I descended at a snail-like pace. The temperature plummeted as darkness fell, and I was even happier than usual to reach the finish at Nik Peregrine's place: tea, pizza, and a roaring fire.

An excellent day, guerrilla rocks apart, and the Malvern Hills/Elgar Route is already in my calendar again for next year. But where are those AAA points?

Home | Tall Stories | Low Tales | Trike Links | Top