Tour de Kent

It started with using the Tom Tom to plan a route around Kent for a weekend training session. This soon turned to messing about with the bicycle option to see how long it would take to cycle from Marco's to Edinburgh.

Then we noticed that although it's 70 miles by car from Northwood to Aylesford, the more direct bicycle route took us through the centre of London, therefore reducing the distance to 51 miles door to door. (3hrs 50mins said the Tom Tom!) Being M25 lovers, none of us have ever taken the scenic route to the Garden of England, so we had no idea where we were going. Our only option was to gaffer tape the sat nav to the handlebars and hope the 3hr battery would somehow last the duration!

The only thing that could ruin our trip would be bad weather or punctures, but as it hadn't rained for weeks and equipped with new super solid road tyres, this wasn't really worrying us too much. Saturday morning arrived and a lycra clad Marco emerged from his sister's car like a retired Mr Incredible.

After a quick visit to the local greasy spoon in our padded shorts to stock up on protein, the time had come. Unfortunately, so did the rain! So off we set, sat nav wrapped in cling film and with our supposedly waterproof jackets on. We headed for Wembley which unfortunately took us through Harrow and up the steepest hill on the planet. The rain was coming down and after 25 miles so was Kris's back tyre. Luckily for us, 50 yards from a garage. Out came Marco's puncture repair kit and within half an hour the inner tube was patched and we were back on two wheels.

Unfortunately we were having a Hadsi moment and forgot to take the sharp stone out of the tyre so within 20 seconds we were fixing our second puncture. Half way there and so far, so good. Now the rain and wind were both picking up and the low battery indicator on the sat nav was already flashing. By this point we had lost the cling film, so to conserve the battery and to protect it from the rain it was switched off and put away - we were now using the Force!!

The second half of the trip was by far harder than the first, the wind and rain was now bitter, we were now water logged and had lost the feeling in our hands and feet. You would think travelling down the country would mean downhill but it seemed like it was 80% uphill. 10 miles to go and had just passed Brands hatch, Marco was leading but the sound of Louise’s laughter made him look back to see Kris walking his bike back to the garage we had just passed to fix his third puncture of the day. This was the most miserable part of the trip. We were freezing and hungry and the last thing we wanted to do was stop for 20 mins!

We’d been riding for over 5 hours now and the sat nav was dead but the sign posts were spurring us on. We were head to toe in dirt and scratches but the hills had warmed us up and we knew we were close.

6.5 hours after we left we arrived.

Tired and Proud!

Marco, Louise and Kris.