I opened my trip with the short ride to Newport railway station. Early indications were positive when I (sat atop my six pannier, three wheeled bike) convincingly overtook two older gentlemen on road bikes as I ascended the hill past the rising sun pub. At the station I was pleased to find that I was still proficient with my bike-disassembly drill (a necessary step, as in its full road-ready configuration it won’t fit inside most standard lifts).
The train trip was not especially comfortable, but was mostly uneventful.
From Paddington I meandered over to Victoria, where Chris had arrived by train to meet me for the ride down to Epsom. As I cut across the parks towards Buckingham palace, I added to my overtake count by swooping past ‘Boris bikes’ and golf carts carrying the park staff about their duties.
After some, less than optimal, but good enough urban navigation I arrived at Victoria and soon found Chris. As we were ready to depart a heavy shower opened up on us, but we pressed on regardless heading for ‘any bridge at all’. Soon though the weather cleared, almost as it were bowing to our combined will. As we headed out of London Chris, on his high specification road racer, certainly put me through my paces as we headed out of the city. I mostly managed to hold his wheel (though I suspect he was setting a pace which was intended to be kind to me), but the on the sharper inclines the weight of my touring bike was too big a handicap. Even so with Chris acting as my ‘sprint train’ we managed to storm by many a Londoner who had ‘the bike’ but lacked ‘the legs’. Clearly though the effort was putting me into some sort of delirium, as I kept imagining the synthetic First Great Western announcer calling out ‘your sprint train is formed of Chris...Vyse’.
We stopped for a snack at the very same McDonalds restaurant where we had supped last time we had done this ride (at the end of my 2011 Tour de France trip). As we did so a very heavy down pour happened, though it had subsided by the time we had finished our food. Though Chris complained bitterly at the likely impact the spray off the now wet roads would have on his newly installed and tuned gears.
A quick stop at Maplin in Epsom for the last component I needed for my second attempt at constructing a USB dynamo charger. The curious looks at my three wheeled bike aside it was a relatively uneventful trip, of some 15 miles.
Once we were back in Epsom we had a meal of Quorn chilly and mash, strolled back to the commercial street for some ice cream and then took to a few last minute repairs on the bike. Though we managed to get the dynamo USB charger working, a new front tyre fitted and a new saddle position set we were unfortunately unable to get the pesky kickstand to cooperate. We put on some grease and left it overnight so I could try it in the morning.
We rounded out the evening by renting Alien from 4OD, a perfect film to watch before several nights of sleeping alone in a tent.
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