Day 1 Chelmsford to Horsley

Posted by: Rob on 02/06/2013
Warm and sunny!
Banner showing view of lake at campsite

Stats

64.01 mi
02/06/2013 07:29 BST
Elevation Gain
Elevation Gain:
Up
2089.90 ft
Down
2053.81 ft
Elevation Range
Elevation Range:
Max.
436.88 ft
Min.
11.75 ft
64.01 mi
ShowMap
64.01 mi

Day 1

My journey today was pretty uneventful. All I had to do was head to London, ride through it and pop out the other side. I just had to keep heading in a west - south west direction and everything would be good.

I don't know London particularly well, but perhaps I know it better than I thought as I always seemed to recognise where I was. I suppose I'd been to all the parts I went through at one time or another, just never all in one go.

I was getting pretty hungry by the time I'd crossed the river and I eventually found a nice little snack bar in some random park. I only realised afterwards that it was actually Clapham Common.

After that I made some good progress along "Cycle Super Highway 7" - more commonly known as the A3! I was getting pretty annoyed with all the hipsters trying way too hard to be cool on their fixies, wearing terrible clothes and even worse beards. So I just blitzed past them all and soon enough I was into the more leafy suburbs of south west London.

The ride really started to drag here. I'm used to riding in open countryside rather than urban sprawl and I don't think I've ever ridden so far in a continuously built up area.

Things got a bit nicer once I was properly in Surrey and I stopped at a shop to get some supplies. It was at this point I realised I was only about 5 miles from my campsite. So I carried on and found it no problem. Quite unusual for me!

Annoyingly, I have managed to damage one of my tent poles. I think it will hold out for a bit, but I shall probably try and find a camping shop tomorrow to get a spare. Failing that I'll be buying one of Decathalon's finest cheapo tents when I get to France!

I've had a pretty busy evening cooking up some Ravioli and having a nice hot shower. Now I'm eating tons of chocolate.

I'll upload the pictures I took today when I can get me some WiFi - probably on the ferry tomorrow.

The bottom half of the internet

Currently 4 comments

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Aidan on 19/06/2013 19:23:21
Awesome start
Simon on 02/06/2013 23:46:10
Nice work, don't worry mate, they sell the worlds finest tinned ravioli in France...
Mum on 02/06/2013 20:45:20
We've been putting up tents with bent poles for ages!
Kirst on 02/06/2013 20:20:42
I hope you can get tinned ravioli in France!