2004 Berkshire

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Total distance: 137 miles (219.2 kilometres)

Our second ride, in 2004 was Berkshire. This is a two day ride, starting and stopping in Maidenhead at my brother's house, with an overnight near Hungerford. It's actually quite a short ride for two full days, so the quicker among you may decide to do the whole thing in one go. All I will say to that is, "Good luck to you."

There's a section along the towpath beside the river Thames in Reading where one of our team took a dive to avoid an old lady walking her dog. He finished up in Reading A&E with a badly split lip, requiring 50 stitches. He joined us at the overnight though, cycling 15 miles to get there, and was all ready to continue with us the next day, but over breakfast complained that his forearm was also hurting a bit.

Further investigation led to the discovery that his fall had actually broken it, and he was eventually persuaded that completing the ride with us was impossible. He went back to the hospital by car and got himself sorted out properly second time around.

Please note that the last section of the route is on the Jubilee River pathway, which MapMyRide refused to recognise when the route was input. The alternative is to stay on the roads through the suburbs of Maidenhead, but that's fairly boring and you'd miss trying to get your bike through all the crush gates designed to stop horse riders but allow everything else through....