London to Oxford Century

Hi all,

I'm contemplating doing my first _imperial_ century going
from London to Oxford via the Thames Valley Route this
summer. A couple of questions at this exploratory stage:

1. What's the route like? Any thing I should beware of?

2. How good are train services from Oxford to London in the
evening o'er the weekend? I have no plans to hammer it
all the way - I'm hoping for a nice, relaxed ride so I
probably won't get to Oxford till late. (Now you know why
I will be doing this in the summer.)

I was debating about doing it by road going over Haddington
Hill, the highest point in the Chilterns, but the distance
wouldn't be anything near 100 miles.

Cheers,

--
Akin

aknak at aksoto dot idps dot co dot uk

 

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> Hi all,
>
> I'm contemplating doing my first _imperial_ century going
> from London to Oxford via the Thames Valley Route this
> summer. A couple of questions at this exploratory stage:
>
> 1. What's the route like? Any thing I should beware of?
>
> 2. How good are train services from Oxford to London in
> the evening o'er the weekend? I have no plans to hammer
> it all the way - I'm hoping for a nice, relaxed ride so
> I probably won't get to Oxford till late. (Now you know
> why I will be doing this in the summer.)
>
> I was debating about doing it by road going over
> Haddington Hill, the highest point in the Chilterns, but
> the distance wouldn't be anything near 100 miles.
>
> Cheers,
>
>
> --
> Akin
>
> aknak at aksoto dot idps dot co dot uk
>
>
>

I done this London to Oxford route last year, it's pretty
flat except for one steep climb about 2/3rds of the way
there. I rode back too, but took the wrong road and ended up
in Reading at 7.30pm with 125 miles under my belt. I got a
train to Waterloo and cycled home from there!

--
Mark (MSA) This post is packaged by intellectual weight, not
volume. Some settling of contents may have occurred during
transmission

 

"Sky Fly" <[email protected]> wrote:
( 2. How good are train services from Oxford to London in
) the evening o'er the weekend? I have no plans to
hammer it ( all the way - I'm hoping for a nice,
relaxed ride so I ) probably won't get to Oxford
till late.

The Thames Drains run about hourly until about eleven on
Saturday night, although some of them stop at every third
lamppost and take an hour and a half. (Until about eight
there are faster services twice an hour.) Sundays are a bit
unpredictable, with no trains at all when Jupiter is in
Conjunction with Mars and the hairy goat flies backwards
past the moon.

 

In article <[email protected]>,
Geraint Jones <[email protected]> wrote:
>"Sky Fly" <[email protected]> wrote:
> ( 2. How good are train services from Oxford to London in
> ) the evening o'er the weekend? I have no plans to
> hammer it ( all the way - I'm hoping for a nice,
> relaxed ride so I ) probably won't get to Oxford till
> late.
>
>The Thames Drains run about hourly until about eleven on
>Saturday night, although some of them stop at every third
>lamppost and take an hour and a half. (Until about eight
>there are faster services twice an hour.) Sundays are a bit
>unpredictable, with no trains at all when Jupiter is in
>Conjunction with Mars and the hairy goat flies backwards
>past the moon.

Might be worth checking whether one of the bus companies
will take bikes. The Oxford Bus Company runs big double
decker red buses which would probably have space for bikes
if the company allows.

They run buses every 20 minutes on Sundays IIRC, so possibly
a better bet than the train (certainly cheaper anyway).

Phil
--
http://www.kantaka.co.uk/ .oOo. public key:
http://www.kantaka.co.uk/gpg.txt

 

[email protected] (Philip Armstrong) wrote: ( Might be
worth checking whether one of the bus companies will take )
bikes. The Oxford Bus Company runs big double decker red
buses which ( would probably have space for bikes if the
company allows.

The Oxford Tube (Stageroacch), which is the red double-
decker bus, has a cupboard for carrying up to two bikes per
bus (at no cost). They make no guarantee that any particular
bus will carry any bikes though. I keep meaning to try this,
but I have not yet. They're five an hour during the day but
fall off to hourly in the early hours of the morning.

AFAIK the Oxford Bus Company (Go-Aheadless) bus, the blue
X90 ones which are turning green, don't take bikes. (They
run to more or less the same timetable, of course.)

 

On Tue, 9 Mar 2004 20:03:30 -0000, "Sky Fly" <[email protected]>
wrote in message <[email protected]>:

>I'm contemplating doing my first _imperial_ century
>going from London to Oxford via the Thames Valley Route
>this summer.
>1. What's the route like? Any thing I should beware of?

NCN5 is pretty fair if you're using that, it does tend to
split in two in places, so make sure you have some good
route notes. Wave as you go through Caversham ;-)

>2. How good are train services from Oxford to London in the
> evening o'er the weekend?

Frequent. Thames Trains have no bike restrictions. You
should have no worries on that score.

--
Guy
===
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University