Friday night Harvey said there was no rain forecast for Saturday and the wind was blowing from the South.

“Maybe I should do it” I thought. Finally made it home that night and fumbled around with google maps trying to cut out some A roads from the Ealing to Nottingham journey. I prepped the Soma for the ride after speaking to Mal about coming up for the weekend. She was keen so it was go!

Mal suggested I take the Ribble road bike rather than the Soma. I’m not sure why but I think she doubted I’d make it if I rode fixed – maybe she was paying attention to my detailed report of the evil that was Dunwich on the fixed Soma and the associated pain? Got to bed around 1am after getting bored writing out map directions.

5.30am and I was up. Toast and coffee while packing and kitting up. Bag with warmers and windvest options, some food and tools. The usual. I re-jigged the map again to drop some more of the ‘A’ roads and swap them for ‘B’ roads. Out the door around 7am.

The last minute re-jigging of maps messed up my written directions so within 20 minutes I was lost! One hour later, after going past the White Hart round-a-bout three times, I was finally in Harrow.. all of 7k away! Fsck.. great start.. no wonder I never do rides that rely on my own navigation! :S

Around 10am I was hungry and I still hadn’t woken up – I was literally dozing off on the bike! Pulled into a service station and bought a chicken salad sandwich an iced coffee and a chocolate bar to throw in the bag. A short while later I punctured somewhere around Hemel Hempstead.

Stopped on the A4146 at Pedley Hill near Dagnall for a photo of the lovely fields. Phone cam, no justice, etc.

I was using A roads quite a bit but these were mostly quiet (helps clearing London early). I jumped onto B roads when I noticed them heading in the right direction on the map.

Not having a lock with me meant I was forced to have lunch at a chippie (no, really, my arm was twisted!) so I could watch the bike. This was around 2pm, after Kettering in a town called Market Harborough. Chips and a chicken & mushroom pie. Well needed!

There were some interesting buildings here..

On from here it was getting a hillier. I’d be crawl up at 10kph and fly down at 70kph. Good fun. I’d also stopped reading from google turn sheet and was just picking appropriate A or B roads that headed in the right direction. I’m totally in the market for a good cycling GPS! Through Melton Mowbray I didn’t see any pork pies.

Coming in to Nottingham it was raining and the traffic was a lot heavier than for most of the ride. I was really moving rapidly as Mal was close to arriving at the Igloo hostel. In town, after a stack of directions and wrong turns I finally made it to the hostel (certainly not the Hilton but very nice staff and cool vibe here, btw!) after 11.5 hours, 8.5 hours riding and 230k on the clock! The biggest solo ride I’ve ever done. The staff and some of the residents at the hostel were very impressed (and so was Mal). I cleaned up and we went out for some exploration.

Nottingham was partying hard tonight – I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many short-skirted, boob-tubed drunk women going mental in one place. It’s true what they say about Nottingham having all of England’s hot girls. Perve factor was very high. Mal was annoyed she didn’t bring prettier clothes 🙂 I was happy we were both warm. We couldn’t get into the one place mentioned in Lonely Planet so we ended up having a huge feed in Pizza Express. It was pretty nice. The tiramisu was huge!

Sunday I was trashed. We left the hostel early to find coffee but it was after we found everything closed we remembered that daylight savings ended the night before. Some more wandering around – the city was very different without the semi-clad lasses everywhere.

We spent the rest of the day doing some touristy stuff and trying to take photos for Sharon.

As an ex-competitive archer, I had to visit the Robin Hood statue!

We explored the castle grounds and the museum..

Lunch was in Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalum, one of the contenders for the oldest pub in England..

Into the caves located under the Broadmarsh Shopping Centre!!

Click here for all our London to Nottingham Cycle Pictures

Here’s the Google Maps – London Nottingham route though it’s not really the one I followed.