Riding Sustrans Route 21

Last night's ride home from work was interesting. I've been wracking my brains as to how to avoid White Hill Lane, a huge, steep hill on the return journey and it's always a trade-off. It can be avoided if I take lesser but still arduous climbs, but it also means more traffic elsewhere or a dangerous roundabout to circumnavigate. So, I'm on my way home last night, resigned to the fact that hills are coming and I see a sign for Route 21, a Sustrans route and it's heading to where I'm going. Why not? I decided to bite the bullet and give it a try.

Gravel pathways, surrounded on either side by trees and bushes, stretches of trails with sand dune sand sending the bike's rear wheel all over the place, gravel tracks causing the tyres to slip and slide and rooted pathways through dense woods, up hills and down, making life on the saddle very challenging. There were short stretches of country lane - and I mean short - because before I knew it I was back off-road and wondering when it was all going to end. At one point I found myself in the middle of a wooded area with paths to the left and right and one straight ahead of me. Instinctively, almost, I opted for the latter and miraculously I managed to stay on Route 21 throughout. There were places where there were no signs and I had to gamble, but every time I gambled correctly and sooner or later another Route 21 sign would appear. At one stage I met a couple of walkers and they assured me I was on the right track. I called Andy and he later confirmed that I was heading in the right direction. Tupwood Lane. I remembered that name from reading a map book a few days ago, it looked as if I was heading into Caterham, but even when I reached the suburbs, which I assumed were lurking somewhere, the route suddenly plunged me into the deepest countryside again (or so it seemed). Towards the end of the ride (and wow, what a ride!) I found myself within the grounds of the very grand Woldingham School, which was alive with school sports. A road that dissected the school grounds went on forever, but eventually I emerged close to a golf club on the outskirts of Warlingham and turned left, following the road towards Slines Oak Road, an old and familiar friend. At this stage in the ride I noticed another cyclist who, I'm guessing, was more familiar with Route 21 than I was. When we reached the golf club he veered off left and headed for the hills. I followed him, but when I saw the hill ahead of me and realised that the gravel path would mean dismounting, I turned back and stuck to the road, eventually climbing Slines Oak, as I had done over the weekend, and riding along the 269 towards home.

My journey time had been doubled and the mileage had increased from the expected 24.67 miles to just over 31 miles. Not bad, and in a way I'm glad that I got some extra miles under my belt, but I doubt I'll be riding home that way again, it was far too much of an ordeal for a ride home from work. My aim had been to avoid White Hill Lane and Tithepit Shaw Lane, but at what cost? The White Hill Lane route is a short, sharp shock, three punishing hills in total and a ride time of just over an hour. Yes, it's hard, very hard (on the return journey); so hard that I find it very daunting as I ride along Springbottom Lane anticipating the climb ahead of me. But once it's over, it's plain sailing and it never takes more than one hour and 10 minutes. I reach home invigorated and ready to stuff my face with anything that's available. Last night, I was amazed to get home at all - I was reminded of The Footpath to Dunton Green - and still stuffed my face like there was no tomorrow, but the journey time had doubled and I must have walked through the door around one hour after I would have returned had I braved the hills. So a lesson has been learnt: the hills home are bad, but they're doable (should that word be hyphenated?) and for that reason alone I shouldn't seek out longer, more complicated routes, like Sustrans Route 21. That said, I was amazed that I could get home from Redhill all the way virtually off-road. Even now as I write this thinking back to being in the middle of the woods, reliant only on a small sign with the words 'Route 21' written on it, I'm thinking how incredible it was to be 'out there' like that, no roads, no cars, no people. Incredible how these routes exist and that, by and large, they work. Perhaps not ideal for the commute home, but for a weekend ride? Perfect. I must tell Andy.

Non-stop to Botley then back to the Village Café

The Village Café, Warlingham Green.

The plan was simple: ride to Merstham, the long way, and then sit down to a full English at the Hunger's End café, but, as happens now and then, there was a problem. My wife wanted to check out a bathroom store, but the place closed at noon. Why? Why does a shop have to close at noon? Anyway, being the nice guy that I am, I figured I go cycling most weekends and hit home around 11am so I better get back earlier so we can go look at bathrooms. Yes, I know, very boring, but if you saw our bathroom, you'd have second thoughts; it's the bath that came with the house, so to speak. In other words, it's been there since the mid-60s when JFK was president, when the Beatles were still in the charts and before, long before, Armstrong set foot on the moon. It has to be replaced. Hell, I was only a kid and living at home when our current bathroom was new.

Then Andy was delayed by a possible puncture, which turned out to be just a flat, but that Tioga spells punctures to me (remember, it was my rear tyre when I first bought the Kona, but I had so many punctures back then it was unbelievable and eventually I took them off and replaced them with Holy Rollers from Maxxis). Anyway, you've heard that story so I won't go on anymore.

Andy's Kona Blast with new rear Tioga tyre; it makes the
bike look better but will it mean more punctures?

We decided to ride to Botley, the fast way, turn round at the roundabout and cycle back to the Village Café on Warlingham Green; it's a good caff and I've been there before (normally when soaked after a longer cycle). Today, however, we were dry and we'd only cycled about 10 miles, but that didn't stop us from ordering our tea and toast.

The topic of conversation today revolved mainly around how the media is keen to roll out the stereotypes now that the World Cup is in full swing: the usual rubbish about how all men are football crazy and all women are rolling their eyes affectionately as their footy-mad husbands sit in front of the box with a beer and a pizza shouting things like, "Where's your fucking specs, ref?"

Andy and I both hate football. Try as we might (well, I've tried) to enjoy 'the beautiful game' (a contradiction in terms) it's impossible. Even yesterday, as I sat in a working men's club in Hayes, Middlesex, near Heathrow airport, watching the opening game between South Africa and Mexico (a 1-1 draw) I was bored shitless. Mind you, tonight it's USA versus England and that could be fun, especially if England fans go on the on rampage after the game!

The problem is passion, I guess, and the fact that we don't have any – or I don't. I mean passion for something, like footy or cars. I just don't care about football and I'm not one of those people who pine for a Ferrari either.

As we sat munching on our toast and sipping from our mugs of tea, Andy said that when he was working for a company called Albion (a computer business) he had to service the computers of Jonathan Ross, Stephen Fry and Anna Ford (the former BBC newsreader) – and that got us started on celebrities and how we'd never go mad if we saw one in the street and start asking for their autographs. Back to that lack of passion. Anyway, must sign off; I haven't got the passion to write anymore.

Oh, incidentally, it's 1052hrs and we still haven't gone to the bathroom shop, meaning that I could have gone to Merstham after all. Jon went and had breakfast there alone. Sorry, Bon.

The plan tomorrow is to go to Chipstead lake in Kent, quite a long one.