To be honest, it all felt a bit unreal… until we started cycling! I met up with Malcolm at his house and we completed some last minute rationalization to our packing: what we have is fine for when Martyn is supporting us with his car but we need to strip everything down to its bare minimum for Lancaster onwards when we will have no support. We probably should have given this more thought by now.
Arriving at Fishbourne Roman Palace on our bicycles, we were greeted by Roman soldiers, citizens and high status individuals who might have been wealthy merchants or senators. It was great to see and really striking to see. There were also members of the charities there, the local MP and the Mayor, as well as a couple of members of the family of the Duke of Richmond, as the family had been firm supporters of the cause since Stonepillow started. It was a great atmosphere of support and good humour. I was gifted a ‘Roman’ coin by a Roman soldier and now see it as a token of good luck.
After a speech by the Chairman of the District Council and many, many photographs – family, dignitaries, charity organizers, Roman citizens, Roman soldiery, etc, we set off about 15 minutes later than we had intended, joined by Adrian, Dorothy and Richard.
Cycling past Bosham, I suddenly spotted my step-sister, Kate, waiting by the side of the road – she didn’t recognize me at first and then by Chidham I was greeted by a small party including my father and step-mother. It was lovely to have the support, unfortunately, the other cyclists in the group hadn’t realized I had stopped and moved on. As lovely as it was to have their company, gradually, the cyclists were whittled to Malcolm and myself just outside Havant.
Portsdown Hill was our first climb and we got were treated to some amazing views of the harbour, Hayling Island and Portsmouth, as well as filming some pieces for the vlog, which rapidly descended into nonsense. Then we put in some serious miles, losing the countryside to the urban areas around Southampton and Chandler’s Ford, with the sky threatening rain but never really delivering.
Then we encountered the first issue.
Whilst cycling behind Malcolm, I saw one of the bike rack connector arms seem to tear itself apart and send parts scattering across the road and pavement. We managed to rescue most of the parts but failed to find one of the attachments. Then a man called Graeme/Graham asked if he could help and by great good fortune, he happened to live in the house opposite. Graeme/Graham and his lovely wide George(gina) were so helpful and generous and fortune seemed to be smiling on us, as Graeme/Graham just happened to have a screw that fitted perfectly. After a Good Samaritan picture, we ventured on, finding some beautiful cycle paths and quiet roads with stunning villages. Finally, unable to hold back the rain any longer, we got doused but found shelter beneath a tree, which allowed us to test out wet weather gear – it seemed to work
We used a system called Garmin for our JogChi 2018 adventure. This time we have Komoot and when she works, she is an absolute dream and sends us down quiet little roads that we would never find. However, she is not always so biddable and sometimes changes her mind… several times on a hill we were in the middle of climbing, suggesting we do a U-turn. Towards the end of the day, she even made us do a U-turn on a hill, only to make us reclaim it again. We are using her but have a healthy dose of skepticism for some of her suggestions.
After having lunch in a quiet village called West Dean that has a loud sawmill we made for Salisbury. It was heaving but we decided to risk going against Komoot’s advice and made our way across the Cathedral – such an attractive city. Komoot came up trumps for us in finding quite lower roads and then we had the long winding country lanes heading towards Warminster, which seemed to take forever. Malcolm seemed okay but my legs were seriously drained. However, a little refueling in Warminster and a bit of a historical piece to camera about our first Roman Road, Portway, and we were on our last leg to Bath.
Malcolm has started counting down the mileage to me but I swear to God, he was sometimes going backward. Bath just didn’t seem to exist, only valleys, glorious downhills and the most punishing uphills we have ever encountered greeted us… and then Kamoot seem to be switched into sadistic mode: go up this steep hill – no, hang on, go back and take an alternative steep hill instead – my mistake, you know that original hill, you know the one where you almost reached nirvana with the exquisite stress and pain in your legs, yep that one, yeah, you need to go back up it… We resorted to asking locals for information and finally reached Bath in the darkness.
We were greeted by Martyn and felled up on food. Sleep and leg rest
Rogues of the Roman Roads 