Day 6: Amble to London by bike (final day)

Waterbeach to Forest Gate on 13 July 2023

I started early - took my bike. Navigationally speaking, it looks complicated, which is a shame because I don’t speak fluent navigation so it’s a grouchy morning with a slight hangover, lines I can’t quite remember from Emily Dickinson, an irritatingly stoical bike, a lost waterproof coat and no real idea where to go after Cambridge. 

Despite my grumbling, as soon as I start riding I feel better in the way that I always feel better when I ride my bike. I surprise myself by easily finding the route back to Cambridge alongside the River Cam. Lots of cyclists heading to work: they’re  lithe, committed, purposeful and youthful. I’m an old bloke on his last leg(s) as they zoom past with easy pedal strokes.  

I reluctantly pass the luxury Greggs as I cross the station square but I’ve got places to go and people to see. All that purposeful endeavour is catching. I look for the best route on Google, which points me towards the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway. No sign of the bus, which must have been guided elsewhere but there’s a flat and well maintained cycle path that runs alongside it. As luck would have it, this is also NCN Route 11, which I can follow almost all the way to Bishop’s Stortford if I keep my wits about me. 

Eventually I find myself on Francis Crick Avenue and then join the Shelford DNA Path. There’s a lot of genetics in the air around here but I don’t have time to explore it any further except to read the sign that says the DNA path is decorated with precisely 10,257 colourful stripes representing the four nucleotides of the breast cancer gene, discovered at the nearby Sanger Institute.The same path marks the 10,000th mile of the National Cycle Network and both numbers are displayed on the route.

Once at Shelford, the signposts lead to the delightfully named Mingle Lane but I’m on a mission so any potential mingling is going to have to wait. I carry on through Sawston, Pampisford, cross over the M11 at Ickleton until Stansted Mountfitchet, which is just three miles north of Bishop’s Stortford where it starts to rain and I wish I hadn’t left my waterproof jacket in Bourne. 

It rains for the next hour so I get my head down and ride through it. Finally, it stops and I spot a golf course with a cafe so go in to dry off and charge my phone. I buy a cup of tea and a Twix then sit down near a socket. There’s a group of blokes on another table who have just finished a round of golf. They’re full of bonhomie, badinage and banter - all at the top of their voices. They’re so loud their voices resound off the walls like someone hitting you over the head with a mashie niblick. 

This is a kind of blokeishness I’ve never really been part of, in which everybody seems to have an opinion - firmly held and loudly declaimed without any second thoughts or doubts. ‘Listen mate,’ one of them says, ‘it is what it is. No two ways about it!’ I hold the unpopular view that there may actually be more than two ways about it and it might not even be what it is. Naturally, I keep such anarchic ideas to myself while steaming gently in the corner. These are, I think, blokes from the B roads; their beemers and jags are purring in the car park where I’ve left the bike. He knows, quietly and certainly, that he would fit right in. 

The next stage to Waltham Abbey passes without much incident on surprisingly quiet roads. This is commuter land so I guess everyone’s at work. My plan is to join the towpath alongside the River Lee, which in theory I can follow all the way to East London. Once there it’s only about 15 miles to Forest Gate. Things are getting a bit exciting now! After some unintentional wandering around the delights of Waltham Abbey I find the towpath and all I have to do is stay on this until I recognise places like Walthamstow and then I’ll know where to go. Sounds easy but life and towpaths aren’t as simple as they seem.

I have a few carefree miles in the weak sunshine, enjoying the river, leafy glades and general dappledness. But then it gradually dawns on me how many others are also enjoying life on the towpath: walkers, strollers, pushchairs, dogs etc and I keep having to slow down, ring my bell and do last minute avoidance manoeuvres of kamikaze dogs. It’s all very unreasonable since I’m almost certain I ordered this stretch of towpath for personal use. I start having an idea that perhaps it would be quicker by road.

So it is that at Chingford I make the decision to join the A110 and then turn right on the A112 to Walthamstow. This is a bad move. It’s Carmageddon out there and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, it’s also Lorrymageddon, Busmageddon and any other forms of Transportmageddon you can imagine. Just as I join this lunacy, it starts to rain again - gently at first but picking up speed and rhythm, unlike myself. After half an hour I escape at Walthamstow and unexpectedly encounter their lovely Town Hall where I realise, for almost the first time in six days, I know where I am!

The rain stops and it’s an easy ride along Leyton High Road, through Maryland, to Forest Gate. The only surprise is an absence of cheering crowds lining the streets with tickertape but inside my head I’m ringing with delight, achievement, exhaustion and anticipation. I can’t stop smiling. I turn into Cass and Holly’s place to discover bunting, family, welcome, cold beer, love and the fulfilment of a journey.

The soundtrack is Days by The Kinks.

‘I won’t forget a single day, believe me.’

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It’s the end of this journey but there are plenty more adventures to reflect on and write about. I hope you’ll continue to subscribe (or decide to subscribe) and find out, with me, what else happens. All the best for the festive season!