Weon

As a joint attempt to save money, help the environment and gain some semblance of fitness I am planning to cycle to work four days a week. Its about eight or nine miles to my office, taking in a reasonably nasty climb on the way, so it's no mean feat for a man of my waistline. I took Sin:Dee out for a test run yesterday.

I have worked out my route across the 'Nam, taking in the cycle paths that the council has kindly put in place to cut out the 14 sets of traffic lights (excluding pedestrian crossings) I would have to ride through. Once on the A40 heading towards Oxford there is actually a footpath I can ride on until I get to the turning for Dowdeswell. Turning right there means I have a harder climb than if I stayed on the main road but I reckon the fact that I won't have people driving past me at 70mph is a suitable trade off.

Coming back I ride up through Andoversford village, parallel with the A40, and then hop out onto a path that runs along the side of the main road. I then hang a right into Whittington and ride towards Ham and down the pant-fillingly steep Ham Hill into Charlton Kings. From here I can pick up my route back across the 'Nam and home.

Heading out took me about 45 minutes and coming back was about 40. Once my body has got used to the regular riding I'm hoping to get it down to half an hour which would only be about ten minutes longer than driving (that gives you some idea of how long it takes to drive across town through all those traffic lights).

I have also bought myself the brightest Endura waterproof in the world that makes me look like a lightbulb on a bike and will no doubt raise a few smiles and inspire a few sarcastic comments from fellow riders!

Tomorrow is the first 8am start so we'll see how I get on…

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 24th, 2006 at 4:26 pm and is filed under Bike, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.