{"id":58,"date":"2013-02-05T16:51:01","date_gmt":"2013-02-05T16:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lucyandtim.co.uk\/blog\/?p=58"},"modified":"2013-02-05T16:51:01","modified_gmt":"2013-02-05T16:51:01","slug":"28-miles-oxford-to-didcot-and-back-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lucyandtim.co.uk\/blog\/londontoparis\/2013\/02\/05\/28-miles-oxford-to-didcot-and-back-again\/","title":{"rendered":"28 miles: Oxford to Didcot (and back again)"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is Tuesday and we are still aching from Saturday’s ride to Didcot via Radley and Abingdon. \u00a0It was not so much the distance that was the problem but more the uneven road surfaces shaking our bones to pieces (and a certain amount of saddle related discomfort).<\/p>\n

Our route (mostly following the NCN 5<\/a>) took us down the Thames Path for part of the way and the first section was quite busy with families, dog walkers and runners. \u00a0This was good for improving our\u00a0manoeuvring skills but also fairly stressful. \u00a0It was not long however before the people disappeared and water became our biggest foe. \u00a0The first flooded section was quite shallow and cycling through an inch of water is quite good fun. \u00a0The second flooded section was deeper, longer and unfortunately we both decided to detour off the path into deep mud. \u00a0Not the best move. \u00a0Now we had wet, muddy, feet.<\/p>\n

The path then took us away from the river toward Radley and things started to look up. \u00a0We stopped for a banana at Radley Churchyard. \u00a0The sun was shining and our cold, wet, feet didn’t bother us so much.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>

I got those…<\/p><\/div>\n

\"...not<\/a>

…not so happy feet<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

From here to Abingdon the route was mostly on the road. \u00a0A welcome change from bumpy gravel tracks and cattle grids. \u00a0Just outside of Abingdon (back on another traffic free part of the Cycle Network) we encountered another flooded path. \u00a0This looked deeper than the other section and as the path curved away from us it appeared to go on forever. \u00a0Some cyclists ahead of us decided not to brave the water and at this point we were very tempted to turn back. \u00a0Just as we were dithering a couple of runners came along and refusing to be defeated by a bit of water (“let’s just put our shoes in the wash when we get back”) ran on through. \u00a0They helpfully called back to us that it didn’t in fact go on forever and was dry up ahead. \u00a0We continued on. \u00a0Feet now even wetter than before.<\/p>\n

\"There's<\/a>

There’s a path here somewhere<\/p><\/div>\n

Soon we could see Didcot Power Station up ahead. \u00a0One more wrong turn to go and we would be there. \u00a0This wrong turn was down a path that appeared to comprise mostly of water filled pot holes the size of craters finally becoming impassable with thick mud. \u00a0We turned back.<\/p>\n

\"P1030375\"<\/a>\"P1030378\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Thinking it was part of the cycle network we were going to write (to someone – not sure who) and complain about the state of the path before realising that the route actually continued on smooth tarmac to Didcot. \u00a0A few more turns and we were there. \u00a0Now we just had to go home!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is Tuesday and we are still aching from Saturday’s ride to Didcot via Radley and Abingdon. \u00a0It was not so much the distance that was the problem but more the uneven road surfaces shaking our bones to pieces (and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucyandtim.co.uk\/blog\/londontoparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucyandtim.co.uk\/blog\/londontoparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucyandtim.co.uk\/blog\/londontoparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucyandtim.co.uk\/blog\/londontoparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucyandtim.co.uk\/blog\/londontoparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lucyandtim.co.uk\/blog\/londontoparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucyandtim.co.uk\/blog\/londontoparis\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucyandtim.co.uk\/blog\/londontoparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucyandtim.co.uk\/blog\/londontoparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucyandtim.co.uk\/blog\/londontoparis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}