Let me paint a picture of us nutters signing up for the 45 mile ride from Buckingham Palace to Windsor Castle:
- “Fuck it let’s go” ~ Olivander (never cycled more than 5k)
- “I am already regretting this” ~ Uncle Roger (the sensible one)
- “Should we sign up for the hilly 90 mile route??” ~ Tsunami (on a single speed)
In the end my crazy won: Uncle and I were gonna cycle it on a tandem.
Welcome to Wobbleton
My sleep deprived self cycled halfway across London to Uncle’s place for an early 7:15 start. After a quick snack we tackled the first challenge of the day: getting the tandem out of his flat through the tiny corridor in a timely manner.
This proved easier than we thought, so instead what slowed us down was getting to the end of his street. If you’ve never ridden a tandem before, the start is the hardest part as both parties need to pedal at the same time. Otherwise, you wobble violently until one of you gives up and you both fall.
What makes pedaling at the same time hard is that, unless you both have the same crotch height, only one will have their feet planted on the floor, leaving the other to lose balance.
Once we figured out the start, the ride to Buckingham Palace proved easy and relaxing. It seemed that the ridiculousness of riding a tandem in Central London had eased the nerves of the drivers, who only an hour earlier were trying their best to kill me on my Santy D1 bike.
London and its Outskirts
The morning started strong with a few bike fixes: we pumped Olivander’s bike up using my mini pump, and then had our front derailleur adjusted by one of the mechanics to enable shifting into the biggest ring.
Despite the added speed, we decided to leave last – and I mean really last. We were the last of the last wave. We wanted some time to make sure we were comfortable with the start/stop without endangering the lives of our fellow riders.
Olivander chilled with us for some time but, understandably, decided to go on at his own pace… considerably faster than ours.
But we weren’t alone.
Ruggero, a friend who we ran into at the event (also participating in it) stayed with us like a guardian angel. We joked that he must be bored of going as slow as we were2, but we really appreciated him being there. Many times we got stuck behind traffic, and we’d find him waiting for us to catch up. A truly gentle and kind soul, if there ever was one.
We cycled westwards into Richmond Park, where we had our first pitstop at Roehampton Gate. This took Uncle and I back to the day we rented a tandem from Parkcycle to practice for this event. On that day, we’d managed to overcome Broomfield Hill without any issues. I wondered if our route was going to go through it again? Surely the organizers would find a more… gentle start to the 45 miles?
Boy was I wrong, and I felt bad for those unaware… at a gradient of around 15%, it’s not easy climb without the right gearing.
That said, Uncle and I did lose balance this time so we had to stop and start in the middle, around the bit with the steepest gradient. To me this was excellent practice: we managed fine and continued smoothly.
As we were exiting London, we had our only accidents: the first occurred because we tried to cheat and cycle through the road works cones… the handlebars at the back are longer than that at the front so we knocked down the sign indicating the diversion. I went back and took a good 30 seconds to correct it… hoping that I pointed it to the right direction.
The second occurred at a traffic light. We weren’t in sync on the pedal so stopped in the middle of the road. We immediately got back into it, and made it to the second pitstop with no issues.
We topped up on fuel and made way for the halfway point.
Halfway There
The journey to the halfway pitstop was not particularly beautiful. We were mostly on busy roads, and the few country ones we went through had very little to show.
Pace wise, we were doing doing better than expected. At first we were worried of missing the cutoffs for the pitstops but we had managed to make each one, and we’d overtaken a tonne of other cyclists. Somehow the tandem was protecting us from the toxic eyes of the ones we passed, instead bestowing us with “excellent job guys”.
At the halfway point, we swapped. I was now to sit at the front, and with absolute junk flowing through my veins like cocaine, my toxic legs were ready to overtake more cyclists.
Kill Me Please
The second half of the ride was a massive blur, for all I had in mind was to get home.
You see, I was suffering from a few things: a hungry stomach filled with empty calories, a numb penis from a bad bike fit, and a bruised ass from an uncomfortable saddle (and – my fault – a heavy backpack!).
I was thinking to myself: “fuck Windsor. The moment we get there I’m stuffing myself with food and cycling back alone another 20 miles to return the bike!”
My mood improved as soon as I saw the sign indicating that we were 35 miles in: “only a commute to work left” I thought to myself.
But my confusion took over when I saw another sign, some 3 miles further, that said: “10 miles to go!”.
In life I’ve learnt the hard way to assume the worst case in many situations, but here I decided to cling onto hope. So when we got to Windsor and cycled towards the castle, I was thinking: “YES WE MADE IT”… but the route kept going… and going… and going… and going…
Those last few miles lasted 20 minutes but every second was felt, and it was excruciating.
At some point we lost Ruggero, but Uncle and I assumed we’ll just see him at the event village… we were so close!
We didn’t see him until about an hour later. It turned out he had cycled over a massive nail that tore right through his wheel. I felt bad for not waiting for him or going back to check in on him… but our decision to continue to Windsor proved to be what saved us for the route back.
We had some food, and I changed into something warmer… and readied my ass for another haemorrhaging the 20 miles back.
Cruising Along the Thames
The cycle back was the best part of the trip. Our route took us along the Thames through Staines, and then onto Kingston before finally arriving at New Malden. We’d done the 45 miles in around 6 hours, and we needed to do some 20 more before sunset. We left Windsor at 4:16, so were really cutting it close.
It didn’t help that we had a haphazard method of navigating: route directions through my ears and the occasional double checking by Uncle at the back.
However, the sporadic wrong turns just added to the sense of adventure.
And so did these gates that seemed to be designed to cause pain!
Our sense of adventure heightened near sunset. We didn’t have any lights and needed to go through some parks. Luckily, the reflections on the river gave us the minimal lighting we needed.
On the train back, I reflected on the experience, but mostly wondered if my penis would work again! Overall though, I was very satisfied. Cycling on a tandem isn’t as liberating or thrilling as cycling alone, but the teamwork adds a charm that can’t be replicated otherwise. In a strange way I’m also very glad for the mishaps on the ride back… and as someone I hold quite dear told me, in words more beautiful than I could ever write:
With this outlook, life will always be great. Every mishap is an adventure.
Amen to that!
Tsunami's Hungry 
Leave a comment