So, this was it. The last one. The end of a season’s hard work.

Unfortunately, this coincided with the day my tenancy ended, so for the first and only time, I was not only leaving from a slightly different start point, but I was also totally unprepared, with my cycling gear scattered across several bags and boxes in three different houses. My new place wasn’t, shall we say, comfortable just yet, and my old place had been pretty much stripped bare. So I was at Noel’s house in Wimbledon, annoying him intensely by waking him up in a complete flap because I couldn’t find anything I needed. I had no cycling kit, no cereal bars, no shoes, and very little else, and half the stuff I needed was at my old house. I threw things around the room, gibbering with terror, until Noel told me to shut up and get on with it, which was an excellent idea even if it did make me even more cross. So I did, not very happily, in non-sporty trainers instead of proper cycling shoes. This does make quite a difference, especially if the shoes you have to wear instead have very soft, flexible soles. Proper cycling shoes have rigid soles because they’re far more energy efficient. With these ones, I was going to be wasting a lot of energy, a bit like having under-pressure tyres, and it would seem much harder than usual.

This was bad enough – I was late, unprepared and wearing the wrong shoes and socks (the socks are more psychological than anything else, although proper cycling socks are much better at channelling sweat away from your feet than normal ones – but when I left, I discovered that an intense and fierce wind was blowing in the exact opposite direction to where I needed to go. You couldn’t have drawn a straighter line from Billericay to here, than the one the wind was drawing. I still had that awful cough, and it was not helpful. This was going to be another rough ride.

For nearly all my trips, I had two basic routes, which were extended in various directions after a certain point. I think of them as the “Kent route,” which involves meeting the A232 at Carshalton and taking that in a south-easterly direction, and the “Essex route,” which involves cycling up the A24 and A3 past Clapham, Kennington and Aldgate, where I work. There were only about 5 or 6 exceptions to this: most of the London clubs, and Horsham. Needless to say, I preferred the Kent route to the Essex route, because it didn’t involve doing the same horrible schlep through central London that I now do every single working day. So it was a shame to finish on an Essex one, in a way. I’d have nothing to say goodbye to.

The route was slightly different from normal due to the different start point, but soon it was business as usual. It was another sunny day, but not so warm due to the strong wind. I would rather have overheated any day. This was the worst wind I had had to cycle in yet, and what with that and my lack of proper footwear and feeling a bit grotty anyway, it felt like I was trying to pedal a ten-ton lorry down the road. My eyes were soon sore and itchy due to particles of dried vegetation and dust that the wind was blowing precisely in the direction of my face, so strongly that they were being forced underneath my sunglasses. At Clapham Common, I found myself spitting out bits of something fluffy that had come off the trees, and I appeared to be having a minor allergic reaction to something airborne. And I had nobody to whinge to. (Until now, of course. That’s what you are there for.)

However, I knew I had to keep going, and I didn’t stop until I’d passed Seven Kings station. Feeling like I was being made to work unreasonably hard, and then suddenly remembering that I had been in such a flap before leaving that I had completely forgotten to eat breakfast, which would explain a lot, I found a little park to rest in for a few minutes and eat some cereal bars and chocolate to give me a nice sugar boost. I also phoned Noel to apologise for throwing a paddy; he acknowledged this and apologised for telling me to shut up, and we were bestest friends again.

For some reason the GPS wasn’t working, so I’d got Noel to pinpoint my exact location on a map, and was pleased to hear that I was just outside Romford town centre. It subsequently turned out that we’d got the wrong park, and I probably shouldn’t have been so annoyed that I was actually about three miles from there. But cycling against such a strong wind was really very exhausting, and I wasn’t enjoying it at all; three miles felt more like ten miles would in a fair wind. Even after Romford, when I got to leave the main roads and London, it was still a real drag. From Harold Wood onwards, you are going up some pretty hefty slopes, and if you have a ferocious wind trying to blow you back down again, you are going to suffer. Even if you have an awesome bike like Guinevere, it really isn’t easy to get yourself up Shepherd’s Hill on a bike in this weather. I needed some more chocolate. I had what had started life as a bag of chocolate buttons, but (it had turned out to be a rather warm day now) was now a solid brown mass, albeit still as tasty as ever. Hooray for deformed chocolate buttons.

I knew this road, as I’d gone this way en route to both Lowestoft and Bury, and I knew there was worse to come. Brentwood is a horrible place to cycle to if the wind is blowing you back down the hill. I had to tell myself over and over again that it would be nonsense to think about giving up on the last leg of the challenge, as I would hate myself forever. (As I’d said to Noel when he felt like quitting halfway through his Tour de France trip: what would you tell your grandchildren?) So far, this is probably my most negative blog entry: there was really not much positive to write about, as I don’t think I ever enjoyed a bike ride less. What a way to end!

Billericay is only five or six miles from Brentwood, but it felt like forever. I knew that once these few miles were covered, I would have succeeded in completing a task that, at first, some had doubted my ability to finish. Not unkindly, but in the sense that it was a flipping crazy idea and they’d have doubted anyone who hadn’t just won the Tour de France, or wasn’t Noel.

I tried to stay positive by thinking of my cycling highlights of the season. Finally arriving at Concord’s ground after a complete disaster of a trip and truly believing that I’d never get there. The feeling of achievement after cycling all the way to Ipswich in one day. Having a REALLY good shower and the biggest plate of meat in the world in Bury St Edmunds – you get to appreciate the simple things in life when you do this sort of thing. Arriving at Margate and finally getting out of the rain. Standing at the top of a hill in north Essex on a glorious sunny day, looking at beautiful scenery without another human being visible for miles around. The amazingly warm welcome I’d received at Hastings, the incredible generosity of the Lowestoft fans and too many others to list. And every time anyone had said “well done” or offered encouragement or pledged money.

Finally, the turning for Billericay’s ground arrived. I had cycled a total of 957.5 miles for the FDP. If I’d cycled back from, say, Concord’s ground, it would have just tipped the total over a thousand. But it was close enough. The longest trip was Lowestoft at 131 miles; the shortest was Tooting & Mitcham at just under four miles, and the average journey length was 45.6 miles. I’d fought through horrible weather, dodgy gear changers, illness and excruciatingly painful knees. I’d had one puncture. Just one in nearly a thousand miles – that is pretty darned lucky. I’d cycled to seven games and back home again, with the furthest of these being Hornchurch. 2,327 people have asked me if I will be cycling to Truro next season, I have received 75 separate pledges, and the current total is £3,644.89 and counting – money is still coming in! These pledges have come from fans of many clubs – several clubs wouldn’t let me pay to get in, thus adding a tenner to the pot. And to think that at the beginning I thought I’d be lucky to get a few hundred…that’ll teach me to underestimate the generosity of my fellow non-league fans.

I’d do it all again next season, but there is beer to be drunk. Plus, it seems like less of an achievement if you can do it twice, and nobody would give me any money as I’ve already bled you all dry. And I simply wouldn’t have the time. It would take about four days to get to Truro, so I’d be in trouble if we played them on a Monday! I’d chosen this season to do it because I was so sure that we’d finally get promoted and I’d thereafter lack the opportunity to fulfil this strange urge. And I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to complete an achievement to be so proud of in the same season Sutton won the championship.

It seemed fitting that as I reached the end of the driveway at Billericay’s ground, one of my best Sutton friends just happened to be there, on his way in. This was quite a moment, and the best thing would have been to come up with some profound and clever words that I could later add to my blog as a finishing flourish. “Oi! Andy!” I yelled, “are we wearing white or yellow today?” “Er…I dunno. White, I think.” Sometimes these things just don’t quite work out as they ought to.

This one was shaping up a little like that “Good News, Bad News” game they used to play on I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Clue. Good news: We were going to the seaside! For our first game as Champions! Bad news: I had been ill all week, and didn’t feel up to cycling. I had an awful cough and hugely reduced lung capacity, so hadn’t been able to do any training. Good news: The game was on Easter Saturday, so I could go at a leisurely pace on Good Friday, and stay over without taking time off work. I’d found a cycle-friendly B&B that was only costing me £25 for the night, and it looked like a really nice route. Bad news: My housemate had taken my bed away (OK, technically it was his; he’d moved out), leaving me to sleep on the floor and wake with achey limbs. Good news: The weather was absolutely glorious. Bad news: It was also unseasonably hot, making it necessary to carry extra water and be very careful not to get sunburnt, faint, etc., which is particularly important when you are already unwell. Good news: To make sure I didn’t die of sunstroke and lie in a ditch undiscovered for three days, Noel was coming with me again. Bad news: This meant he’d have to sleep on the floor too, and wake early. He doesn’t like this. Good news: Bacon sandwiches for breakfast. Hooray!

On balance, this seemed OK: the bacon sandwiches swung it. I just really didn’t feel up to cycling. Noel’s enthusiasm for it may have been a good motivator, but on the other hand, it’s less than motivating to do something you’re struggling with alongside someone who seems to find it effortless. But I had to do it, so we covered each other in sun cream and went.

We took the A232 to Locksbottom, which meant negotiating one of my least favourite hills, Coney Hill. Amazingly, I managed to do this without too much effort and in one of my fastest times ever. I still felt awful and devoid of energy, even downhill, so have no idea how this happened. The morning sun projected striking shafts of light through the trees, and I thought this was rather beautiful until I realised that the effect was caused by a heavy smog hanging over London that morning.

Soon afterwards, it was time to switch to quieter roads. This is where the going gets seriously hilly, but this is OK when you are in good company and full of bacon. Nevertheless, there was a moment when I insisted that I was too ill and wouldn’t be able to make it. Noel knows me better, however, and said all the right things and produced a giant chewy cookie for me. It would have been plain silly to give up with just two away games left. Our efforts were rewarded once we’d traversed the M25 and hit what can only be described as a “hurtle” into the Darent Valley. Although it wasn’t brilliant, the road surface was fortunately sound enough not to kill either of us by throwing us into the trees at a heck of a speed. We turned south at the village of Shoreham because it was the right way and to avoid an arduous climb up the other side of the valley.

Following the road around the edge of the Kent Downs seemed relatively straightforward. I’d been on this road before, after all. This was where I stopped with a puncture on the way to the Maidstone game – amazingly, the only puncture I’ve had in 20 away trips. However, one road that looked like a straight-on on the map turned out to be a left turn, and I’d therefore neglected to mention it in my directions (which were at best sketchy: unavoidable demands at work and home had inconveniently blocked any attempts to spend more than a few minutes plotting my route), having told myself simply to follow the road to the A20 at Wrotham, which you can’t miss. Annoyingly, I did slow down to look at the signpost at this left turn, having seen it indicate that direction for Wrotham and wondering if we should actually go down there. I even stopped for a drink while trying to decide, and also to annoy Noel, because he’d gone streaking off into the distance, and I’d no idea where he was and wasn’t about to go looking. He took so long to come back (finally having realised that I wasn’t with him, presumably) that I was slightly peeved. Unfortunately, he too was a little annoyed, having ridden quite a long way before turning back, even when I explained that I was trying to decide whether we were on the right road. “Well, are we or aren’t we?” he asked impatiently. Even more impatiently, I replied, “All right, yes, we are” without checking. This was eminently stupid. Especially as we had a GPS at our disposal.

The upshot was that, instead of continuing to head due east as we should have done, we ended up turning south. It wasn’t until we reached the bottom of the hill a couple of miles later and it turned west, exactly the opposite way from where we should have been heading, that I realised my error. We stopped to recalculate our route, which Noel referred to as “a catastrophic wrong turn” with his charming Scottish hyperbole. Retracing our way back to the turning would have been counterproductive, and the only thing for it was over an annoyingly big hill and then the A25 up to the road we were supposed to be on. I hadn’t planned to use main roads until we had to, so this was a slight irritation. I’d specifically planned the route to avoid the biggest hills due to my less-than-100% health and my poor knee, which was already aching. It wasn’t so bad, though: we just had to get to Maidstone, which was easy enough, and we could pick up our original route from there.

As it happened, however, the easiest way there turned out to be the A20 anyway, joining at Wrotham Heath. A sign at this junction indicated a left turn for Maidstone, so we took this without really thinking about it. It was very hot now, and the topography was challenging if not too exhausting. Stopping at a roadside burger van to top up our water supply and have a quick snack, we agreed that it wasn’t going too badly after all. Then, after whizzing down the other side of the hill, we arrived at the M26 junction and signs telling us it was straight on for London. Something was wrong here. A rudimentary cartographical investigation revealed immediately that the previously indicated left turn for Maidstone had actually meant “turn left, join the motorway and pop down a few junctions for Maidstone,” and not “Maidstone is actually this way.” Because it wasn’t, it was the very opposite way. Here is a lesson: sometimes you have to put route planning first, even if you are very busy and important. It would have been nice if the sign had been more specific, e.g.“Maidstone (M26)” though, which would have helped. After a bit of a struggle, we managed to cross the road and turn back. I had a grumble about why people would extend their journey by several miles in order to take the motorway to Maidstone, rather than staying on a perfectly decent A-road. The answer came when we passed through a succession of largish villages: Ryarsh, Ditton, Aylesford…and there were more traffic lights on this road than I would have thought possible.

Eventually, we reached Maidstone, which is at the bottom of a sort of giant ditch in the Kent Downs and therefore a lot easier to cycle into than out of. It was only just coming up to midday, so we decided to have a bit of a chilling session by the river Medway and a wander around town before fortifying ourselves with lunch. We found a nice café with outside tables, where I had a rather good jacket potato with chilli, which Noel kept trying to steal bits off when I wasn’t looking. He only had a cheese and ham toastie, so it was his fault really.

The sun was still shining with reckless abandon, so it was time for a sun lotion top-up. Of course, this didn’t prevent me from having a ridiculous cyclist’s tan afterwards that makes me look like I’m wearing white shorts, socks and gloves even when I’m not. That will be fun when I go on holiday and put my bikini on.

We found our way back to the A20, and set off for Ashford. This was probably the most boring bit of the route, so we stopped every now and then for a bit of shade, a drink and a chat. The sun was so hot by now that we had to keep resting in the shade for fear of sunstroke or other nasties and pop into shops for bottled water. Sometimes when cycling, you don’t realise how hot the sun is because of the wind on your skin, and the effect of sweat evaporating.

Ashford is rubbish, quite frankly. Apologies to anyone who lives there or has any emotional attachment with the place (although I fail to see how you can do so), but unless you are there with the sole purpose of shopping in their (dull) shopping centres or catching an exotic train from Ashford International to Brussels, Paris or Ramsgate, there is absolutely nothing to indicate which way you need to go, nor to stimulate any interest whatsoever. The A292 shortcut through town and back onto the A20 looks straightforward on the map, but in real life consists of a number of roads going off in different directions and all claiming to be the same one. No signposts. This time, rather than getting annoyed with each other, Noel and I wholeheartedly agreed that it was all Ashford’s fault.

Back on the A20 and its myriad roundabouts, I hit a major snag. Having stopped briefly for drinks and shade, I tried to get going again only to find that my troublesome and already painful left knee had completely seized up, meaning that I had to hurl myself out of the road, screaming in agony, because I couldn’t bend it or move it at all. This was the worst pain I have ever had while cycling, so I will spare you the details of how it felt. I panicked a bit – was I going to make it to Folkestone at all? Less than 10 miles, but a very long walk. Fortunately, after a few minutes of cooling with not-cold-enough water and trying gingerly to bend it, I was just about mobile again, although rather slow. This must have been rather frustrating for my speedy partner. At the next roundabout, where you had to go round, double back on yourself and then turn off for Folkestone, I saw him blocking the way of a car that was trying to pass him on the roundabout, presumably because it had tried to cut him up. As it was behind him, he hadn’t noticed that it was a police car. Oops.

At last, we arrived in Folkestone, earlier than I’d told the B&B we would, but later than we’d thought we would. We had a nice shower each, then wandered into town for some traditional fish ‘n’ chips. Yum yum. In the morning, Noel left when I left: me to join the other Suttons for a pub crawl, and him to CYCLE ALL THE WAY HOME AGAIN. I don’t know why he does this, so don’t ask me.

My heels were covered in the most appalling blisters, bigger than 50p coins, and I wished I’d been able to carry comfortable shoes with me. This wasn’t ideal for a pub crawl, so after dropping Guinevere at the football ground, I dashed into town and bought a pair of flip-flops. All set!

Back at the ground, we discovered exactly how fantastic the Folkestone fans were. Despite them being already relegated, there was a party atmosphere on both sides (I suppose the pressure was off them!) and they were definitely the best fans I’ve met this season! The best bit was the sing-off, which ended with both sets of fans singing about how much we loved each other. The result really didn’t matter, but we won 2-0. Afterwards, a few of us (from both sides!) piled onto the pitch for a cheeky kickabout, and once we were told off and chased away, went to have a nice refreshing drink outside. We promised Folkestone that we’d beat Dover for them next season – it was the least we could do in return for such hospitality.

It turns out that the most difficult place in the universe to plan a cycling route to from the Sutton area is Aveley Football Club. It seemed that it would probably have been easier to plan a cycling route to the outer reaches of the Crab Nebula. This, despite the obvious drawbacks of death by asphyxiation, loss of atmospheric pressure and burning up without the benefit of the Earth’s atmosphere (not to mention downright impossibility), at least would not have given me a stark choice between three-lane carriageways obviously unsuitable for cycling, or rabbit-warren estates that just beg you to get hopelessly lost in them. And Google Maps doesn’t help when you want to go down a certain road and it flatly refuses to acknowledge that this road even exists (it does, and I did end up cycling on it), instead automatically re-routing your painstakingly planned itinerary via a ridiculous 3-mile detour. I discovered this a few days before the match, rather later than I would normally have done my planning on account of all sorts of other stuff going on in my life. This is a mistake: I should not have even thought about having a life until all this was over. Non-league football fans are not supposed to have lives. This is why they do things like read my blog instead of going to parties 24 hours a day.

With all issues eventually resolved, and Saturday having arrived, it looked to be rather pleasant cycling weather: sunny, but not cloudless, with a light wind blowing in the same direction I would be heading. I replaced the “intense glare” lenses with the “partly cloudy” ones on my nifty sunglasses and dressed in warm-weather cycling clothes. It is, of course, important when cycling to dress about five times less warmly than you would if you were walking under the same conditions, particularly if you are always too hot, like me.

Once again, the Saturday shoppers and gormless drivers were out in full force as I made my (frustrating) way first to Elephant & Castle and then northeast over Tower Bridge, where shoppers were abruptly replaced by hordes of tourists. You know the kind. They stand on busy road bridges in groups of thirty, while their grinning accomplice steps backwards into the road in front of you with his attention entirely distracted by the camera he is holding and the apparent need to take eighteen shots at six different angles, each time with his subjects standing in slightly different positions. Camera Idiot is fully immersed in his task and his cronies, and might just notice the arrival of a double-decker bus, but your humble cyclist goes unobserved until she is on top of him in a tangled heap following his unexpected transfer from the pavement to the road. He will then shout blue murder, transferring the blame completely onto the cyclist. “For ****s sake you ****ing idiot can’t you look where you’re ****ing going?” sounds the same in any language, in case you were wondering. And so does “Yeah? You were the idiot who stepped into the blooming road without looking!”

Fortunately, some of the above is an exaggeration and I didn’t actually hit this rather cantankerous fellow, merely swerved violently to avoid him, which rather startled the poor darling.

I turned right down East Smithfield, which you are not allowed to do, so this involved getting off and using a pedestrian crossing. I am used to this crossing from walking to work from London Bridge, and it is no easier when you are pushing a bicycle. This obstacle overcome, I joined the A13 at Limehouse and puttered down that for a while. It’s not a bad road to cycle on at this point as it has bus lanes until you get to Canning Town. At this point, it morphs into a furious three-lane flyover/dual carriageway, which is not cycle-friendly at all. This was the point at which I wanted to leave and take a slip road off the flyover for an alternative route; this was what Google Maps would not allow me to do and had therefore prevented me from calculating my mileage. When I got there, I thought I’d figured out why. The road I took no longer existed.

It started OK, but soon I seemed to be sinking into the depths of an industrial estate. Not particularly promising or pleasant, but better than the main road. Then I turned a corner and saw that the road was blocked by…stuff. There was a portacabin, a massive metal container and a giant pile of bricks blocking not only the road, but the pavement, and I couldn’t even see what was behind it. So what now? I couldn’t really cycle on the dual carriageway and hadn’t seen any sort of pedestrian path. There was no alternative route from here, other than retracing my steps and looping around via an approximately 6-mile detour. This was not something I particularly fancied doing.

I made sweary noises in my head and paced up and down for a while, trying to think of a solution. At this point, I noticed a set of steps leading up to the flyover. Reasoning that these would not be here if nobody was allowed to walk up there, I swung Guinevere over my shoulder and went to investigate. Lo and behold, not only was there a miraculous cycle lane by the side of the flyover that meant it possible to cycle about a third of its length, but it was soon revealed that the point at which it ended was the slip road that I was supposed to have taken in the first place. Oops.

Reassured to discover that I had not become too good at this as I had once feared, I continued to Barking and took some interesting suburban back streets through to Dagenham. No, I lied: they weren’t interesting, although they were not without their fair share of dangers caused by errant dogs and kids on BMXs.

The main road I had to join after this was the last one of my journey, and boy was it long. Not only this, but due to recent weather it was very, very dry and dusty. It seemed to be covered in some sort of sand. All the other traffic on the road was of the motorized variety, and drivers probably did not notice the vast clouds of fine dust that they were generating. Fortunately, my sunglasses protected my eyes, but I had to take care to keep my mouth shut for fear of choking on the stuff – I could already feel it clogging up my nose and had nothing to protect my respiratory system.

After a very long time, I turned down the appropriately named Sandy Lane – the football club was in the next road. I was covered in dust from head to foot. When I arrived, there were a few Sutton fans turning up, but – shock! – the bar was closed. Disaster! Fortunately, I have a very nice acquaintance who supports Aveley and is quite involved with the club (i.e. works behind the bar!) and who also happened to be one of the first people I told about my mad cycling plans last summer. And fortunately, he is nice enough to have been waiting for me when I arrived, and to be in a position to get hold of keys and a nice secure storeroom big enough for a bike. Oh, and to supply a pint of nice beer once I’d got myself cleaned up. I am spoiled, sometimes.

The match was rather less exciting than the pint of beer, but at least we were able to dispel my Aveley friend’s fears about his team being thrashed as both sides walked away with a point.

Afterwards, I was feeling very tired and not at all like cycling home. Cunningly, I accidentally on purpose altered my route to pass by Purfleet railway station; when I arrived I was fortunate enough to be one minute away from boarding a train to London. Cycling to Waterloo was easy, and sometimes getting the train home isn’t cheating after all.

It was an utterly glorious day with not a cloud in sight, and I had to cycle to blooming Upminster.

Actually, to be fair, this wasn’t as bad as it sounds. I had done my usual route-checking, and had concluded that as I only needed to remember two roads beyond my usual route past where I work, I didn’t need to take any written directions with me. So, today’s challenge was to get to Hornchurch’s ground without looking anything up on the way (although the GPS came too, of course, just in case) and back again – this was likely to be the longest “round trip” I would do.

Luckily, considering today’s weather, I had been in receipt of a lovely pair of flash cycling sunglasses for my birthday. These are awesome and come with 4 different interchangeable sets of lenses for different conditions, and of course they make me look like a pro. Well obviously, I do anyway.

Hornchurch’s club secretary had emailed me the previous day to offer secure accommodation for Guinevere and I had said I would be arriving around lunchtime. So I set out around 11am, when the sun was high in the sky and would have half blinded me if I didn’t have my flashy shades. It seemed that spring had arrived, because I was far too hot before I’d even started, despite having shed my winter cycling gear.

There was a lot of traffic on the roads this Saturday morning, and as expected, the further I travelled into town, the heavier it became. Apparently, it was Attempt to Knock Sarah Off Her Bike Day, a date which I had carelessly neglected to mark in my diary, but my fellow road users clearly had not. I lost count of the number of cars and buses pulling out sharply in front of me, failing to indicate when turning left and cutting me up on roundabouts. Saturday shoppers are vicious. I am allowed to make this sweeping statement because football always takes precedence for me on a Saturday. Car doors were opened on me, people were driving and parking in the cycle lanes and the roads seemed to have sprouted a crop of enormous, deep potholes, making the A24 and A3 look rather like the surface of the Moon with a bad case of acne. But, seemingly like whoever is in charge of Wandsworth and Lambeth’s roads, I do like a challenge.

And evidently, so do others. Sometimes, a female cyclist such as myself will encounter a gentleman on a bicycle who becomes very upset when he is Overtaken By A Girl. Now, I was clearly in more of a hurry than this particular fellow on Clapham Common, judging by his (lack of) pace. Once I’d overtaken him, however, he got his speed right up but still couldn’t catch me (and I would attribute this to his bike, rather than any physical superiority on my part). He soon found a solution to this problem when we reached a set of red traffic lights, where I stopped. A few moments later, he sailed merrily past. Grr! Cyclists who Jump the Lights give the rest of us a bad name. My attempts to get back up to my normal speed were foiled by my new friend, who had now decided to cycle on the very outside edge of the cycle lane, perilously close to the constant passing traffic. This was, I am sure, purely for the purpose of Not Being Overtaken By A Girl, as he had made this impossible and continued to do so all the way to London Bridge. This was extremely annoying on the lovely fast hill down to Clapham North, which became a lovely slow hands-on-brakes hill. CURSE HIM.

After I’d crossed the river, the wind seemed to intensify, so it became rather more difficult for me to pick up the speed I’d lost. Suddenly, cycling seemed a lot more difficult. And the A11 was a long, long stretch of red lights and bendy buses. Yeuch. If only a non-main road route had been possible, but it wasn’t really. Once I’d picked up the A118 and reached Stratford, I became aware that Guinevere was making a bit of a fuss about something – it sounded as if one of the brake blocks was rubbing on the front wheel. No wonder it seemed harder than usual.

I stopped to have a look, but found nothing. I spun the wheel a few times, looked at every moving part and even took my hex keys out and straightened the front brakes despite having checked that there was no contact, but when I got going again, the problem was still there. And to make things worse, my knee was starting to hurt again. Oh, joy! But soon I found out that the only real problem was that I was stupid. I was out the other side of Ilford and halfway from there to Dagenham before I realised that it was only the wind making it sound as if the problem was with the front wheel, and it was actually the back one all along – as I’d suspected, the brakes were misaligned and one of the blocks was rubbing on the wheel rim. Problem solved, but my knee was getting worse and there were a few medium-sized hills starting to crop up.

Fortunately, I had nearly reached my destination. All I needed to do was whizz (well, half whizz and half crawl painfully) down the A124 and I was there. Hornchurch’s ground is at the bottom of a short but steep driveway with those evil speed bumps that rattle your car at 5mph, and there was no way I was going to risk hitting one of those at speed on a bike that doesn’t do bumps. I like my head the shape it is and don’t particularly want it remodelled in tarmac. But the Hornchurch folk all seemed to know I was coming, and they had other ideas…

“Oi! That’s cheating! You can’t walk, you have to cycle all the way!”

“But I only have to cycle to the ground. The gate is part of the ground, isn’t it?”

“Not good enough! Go back and ride it!”

They’d kindly arranged a locked storage area for Guinevere to rest while I took in the game, and were all very welcoming and hospitable. One gentleman went the extra mile by coming up and addressing me about fifteen centimetres from my face.

“How long have YOU been a Sutton fan?” he demanded. “Er…fifteen and a half years?”

“Hmph. And when have Sutton ever won the league?” “Um…1999? 1986? 1985? I was only three then…”

“All right, I’ll let you off,” he said, and vanished before I could go any further back in time. I suppose that, given our current league position, he was checking that I wasn’t some sort of Jenny-come-lately (no offence to our own Jenny). Two kids came tumbling out of the clubhouse, yelling and screaming. “Oi!” reprimanded their dad, “don’t cheer like that or people will think West Ham have scored!”

“Not to worry,” I reassured him. “No-one would think that.”

After I’d cleaned myself up and got changed, some very nice people bought me drinks and I was invited to come outside and be interviewed for Hornchurch’s website. Unfortunately, this occurred a moment after I’d spotted some bar snacks lying around for all, and having spied the pork pie and thought “PROTEIN! NEED PROTEIN!”I had shoved most of a slice into my mouth in one go. Hastily attempting to get rid of what was in there en route to the camera, I failed to notice that it had pulled out my filling, which I then swallowed. Oops…

The game itself was rather frustrating, and I’m frankly glad I don’t have to write a match report. Leroy Griffiths’ goal in the 86th minute was SURELY the winner…until Hornchurch equalised with an injury-time penalty. I think I may have uttered a swear word.

For all their welcoming attitudes, the Hornchurchers seemed rather eager to get rid of me – to be fair, I think they just wanted Guinevere out the way so they could lock up and go home. So I was straight back on the road again, into the setting sun. By the time I had reached Ilford, my knee was horribly painful and I had a splitting headache. Not sure why – maybe it was the pork pie. I retraced my route back through the East End and decided to get a train home at the next available opportunity. I’d cycled to the ground, thus fulfilling my duties, and nobody ever said I had to cycle home again especially if it hurt this much. I had arranged to have dinner cooked for me (excellent) and the only station I’d pass that could get me directly to my destination was Elephant & Castle. And trying to change trains with a bike is no fun, so direct it would have to be.

Having followed what seemed like a hundred signs to get through the network of subways and out to the right side for the mainline station, I was forced to lug Guinevere up a big flight of steps (lucky she’s not heavy) and came face-to-face with that ghastly shopping centre. Having asked a couple where the station was, I was informed that I would have to pass through said shopping centre in order to reach it. “I don’t know how you’ll do that with your bike, though,” the lady added apologetically. “I’ll manage,” I said resolutely and found the automatic door. People were looking at me funny. I was, after all, pushing a bike through a shopping centre, and had just found out that I needed to go up an escalator. After a fruitless search for some sort of lift, I slung Guinevere over my shoulder and braved the escalator. At the top, I breathed a sigh of relief only to look up and see a sign for the station pointing up ANOTHER escalator. For goodness’ sake, I thought, they don’t make this easy.

At the top of the second escalator, I found myself in…wait…hang on, this wasn’t the station. This was a bingo hall. Now I really was getting funny looks. And no wonder. Just picture it…

It turned out that the “straight ahead” sign for the train station, despite pointing up the escalator, actually meant “ignore the escalator, walk around it, THEN go straight on.” So I did this, struggling badly to get down the escalator – it was a lot harder than going up – and eventually, triumphantly, found my way into the station. Here, there was a lovely informative sign up on the wall. “CROSS LONDON ROUTE CLOSED TODAY,” it said; the platforms were roped off. PANTS, I thought. Looks like I’m cycling all the way home after all.

By the time I got to Tooting Bec, my knee was hurting so much I thought I was going to pass out. I told myself to stop being a drama queen, and tried to distract myself by having a daydream. After a few minutes of this, it began to dawn on me that I’d been sitting at these traffic lights an awfully long time. It was only when a bus chugged past me, through the red light and round the corner, that I realised that something was amiss. I was sat at a crossroads, and the phasing of the lights appeared to be: 1) allow the traffic on the road perpendicular to me to go; 2) allow the traffic on the same road to turn right; 3) green man for pedestrians for about 3 minutes, then back to 1). I watched this in fascination for a few cycles; a couple of minutes into the pedestrians bit, a car or two would edge past through the red light in a rather furtive manner.

“I think the lights are broken,” suggested the cyclist behind me. They had been fine that morning. Just then, the green man went up again and stayed there for what seemed like hours.

“See. That’s not normal. I’m just going to go,” said my cycling colleague, and went for it.

“Good plan,” I said, following him and feeling guilty, having been very cross with another cyclist for running the lights that very morning. At least I had an excuse.

Apart from the knee, my objectives had been achieved for the day. Not a single reference to a map or directions. If only I could do that every time…

“Come to the pub, come to the pub!” pleaded my colleague. The office was full of Friday afternoon cheer, and my brain had turned to mush so productivity was almost non-existent. I was tempted. However…

“I can’t,” I said, reluctantly. “I have to cycle tomorrow. Can’t be drinking. And if I go to the pub, it will be so tempting to have one of those lovely cheap beers, so don’t even ask me to stay teetotal.” “Oh come on! One can’t hurt! We need to get you a birthday pint! Just one! Go on!” Et cetera. Of course, I gave in. They were right: just one wouldn’t do much harm, especially as the ground was only 18.5 miles from my house. Little short journey. No worries. So one pint of fine ale it was. Unfortunately, one pint swiftly turned into two pints of fine ale. And a glass of wine. And another pint of fine ale. And two more glasses of wine. Bad idea all round.

Fortunately, I don’t do hangovers. But I do do tiredness. Getting out of bed on Saturday morning, the 113th birthday of Sutton United FC, was a real chore. Today’s challenge was to complete the route from within the confines of an alcohol-induced blanket of sluggishness. Bleurgh. Don’t try this at home. It wasn’t likely to take much more than an hour and a half even at alcohol-pace, but I had said I’d meet our people in the pub at lunchtime.

The first thing I realised was that I’d completely forgotten to buy any energy bars. I wouldn’t normally need them for this sort of journey, but I certainly felt like I needed some today. Wednesday had been my birthday, and rather than spending the day in bed eating chocolates as someone had thoughtfully suggested, I had elected to take my bike to the Isle of Wight and spend the day tackling a 50-mile assault course of monster hills and clifftops. And to make it even tougher, I had taken Noel with me, who is a much stronger cyclist than I am and likes to go uphill fast, making me work even harder. It had been a lovely day, but some of those hills were worse than the ones I had to conquer en route to Hastings, and I had done my knee in pretty badly again. So I strapped my knee up nice and tight, and ate lots of sausages for breakfast.

The second thing I realised was that I didn’t have a pump to take with me, because I hadn’t replaced my broken one. Last time, I’d borrowed Noel’s, but he had since joined a cycling club so really did not need me to be borrowing it and forgetting to give it back (again). So I made sure my tyres were nice and hard before leaving, and hoped for the best. The route was mostly on urban main roads, so presumably I wasn’t likely to get a puncture unless I was really careless.

So, I carelessly made my way towards Kingston and crossed the river into Hampton Wick, where I took a main road through Teddington and all the way to Twickenham. This was, despite my fuzzy head and manky knee, an exceptionally easy route along the relatively flat Thames valley. In fact, I didn’t change into a lower set of gears at all until I reached Isleworth, where I left the main road, turned northwest and headed up the side of the valley, and even that was just the once. Here, I had sort of vaguely arranged to meet up with a friend whose house was actually on my route – he’d said to come in for a cuppa – but I’d texted to check he was in and he didn’t get it until too late. Never mind – a cup of tea might not have been the best idea anyway. Caffeine always makes me go a bit funny, and I’d had a caffeine-based energy drink before leaving. Although, having said that, something that made me go a bit funny would at least have provided some more entertaining stuff to write about.

I crossed the A4 and then the M4, wondering what people must have thought when the latter was slapped right across the middle of Osterley Park, one of the biggest open spaces in west London, although it is clearly trumped by Kew Gardens and Richmond Park. It certainly doesn’t do the place any favours. But the bike ride through the park is still quite nice. This bit led to an unexciting suburban trek through Southall and Greenford and over the delightful A40. I was in Ruislip now, and only had to follow the main road for a couple of miles before arriving at the ground. It was about 1pm, so I had plenty of time to wander back down the road for a beverage. This had been far, far too easy considering the state of me in the morning. I felt a little guilty that I’d got off so lightly. And worried that I might be getting too good at this. This was worrying indeed: I wouldn’t want my blogs to get boring. I resolved to screw up spectacularly on my next trip, to Hornchurch, just to make it interesting, because it looks like the world’s most boring route and one I’ve done a million times before.

I looked around for someone official-looking to ask permission to stow Guinevere somewhere safe, but all I could see was a harassed-looking gentleman in a steward’s jacket, who was directing a knot of his youthful colleagues in moving a large picnic table. They looked rather too busy to help, so I watched them, which turned out to be far more entertaining than the journey had been. When they’d finished, I had a nice chat with the steward chap, who at first seemed puzzled as to why I wanted to leave my bike in their ground, but once we’d established that I was actually going to watch the game, he was very helpful.

Having popped into a local pub for a couple of beverages, we walked back to the ground to watch what turned out to be Wealdstone’s revenge for our last-gasp winner at our place after we had drawn level at 3-3. This time, they did exactly the same to us at 1-1, scoring a winner in the dying minutes to make it 2-1. We couldn’t really complain after last time.

A good friend gave me and Guinevere a lift as far as Hampton, so we only had the remaining 6 or 7 miles to cover. I suppose I ought to be grateful that I never needed that pump, but even so, next time I shall be better prepared. Just in case.

For several years, I had been attempting to make progress on my desired career path by applying repeatedly to a three-year doctoral course. With several hundred applicants per place in some course centres, this had so far resulted in nothing but rejections. But I am a stubborn type – otherwise, I think this cycling lark might have died a death on the first day – and at last, my mulishness seemed to have paid off. I had received an email notifying me that I had made the initial shortlist, and inviting me to sit a written entry test. My heart leapt, and then immediately sank as I saw the date. 19th February. Tonbridge away. A clear conflict between two of my stubbornly-adhered-to commitments. I couldn’t break my pledge to cycle to all of Sutton’s away matches and help my club any more than I could throw away this potential opening to my dream career.

Hoping for some sort of miracle, I opened the attachment where the details were set out. Maybe they’d made a mistake with the date, or the exam would be so early in the morning that cycling to Tonbridge would still be possible. And lo, the miracle was there, in black and white. The 45-minute test ran from 12:30 to 1:15…in “Southborough, near Tonbridge,” less than 5 miles from the football ground.

Well I never. The only things I was really worried about were mistiming the difficult journey over the Weald and arriving late (argh!) or so early I wouldn’t know what to do with myself other than wander around in a frenzied panic, and not having anywhere to wash and change so I’d have to sit the exam all sweaty and flustered. When he heard of this, my ever-loving boyfriend was his usual supportive self, and told me not to worry as he’d book me a hotel room. “Why don’t you take the Friday off work so you can relax, do some studying and be fresh in the morning?” he suggested, adding that he’d take anything I didn’t need for the journey down there in his car.

This would have been an excellent plan, except that taking the day off was not possible as I’d already agreed to lead a review on that day. Here was the second stroke of luck: my work takes me all over the country, but on this occasion I was to be in Croydon, which is rather nearer to Tonbridge than my home is. The only potential difficulty was that I’d have to cycle to Tonbridge mostly in the dark. Thus, the trip began with a dull-as-ditchwater ride to Croydon on largely familiar roads – although I did somehow manage to take a wrong turn in Morden (don’t ask me how; it was early in the morning) – followed by an exciting day of work. I was out of there by 4:45 and off in the direction of Addiscombe and Shirley, where I joined the A232 for another thrilling rollercoaster ride à la Cray Wanderers. On the way, I encountered two separate incidents of people opening their car doors on me so I had to swerve out of the way. This had happened on exactly the same bit of road where someone had nearly wiped me out on the way home from the Cray game; I remembered Noel behind me in a bad mood saying “if that had been a man, I’d have punched him one!”

It might have been the cold, windy weather, or more likely the weight I was carrying, but this seemed like much, much harder work than Wednesday evening’s trip to Wembley. Although Noel had taken all the stuff I needed for the following day as promised, I still had to carry the clothes and shoes I’d been wearing at work, plus all the paperwork from the day, my usual tools and spares, bike lock, water and a shedload of energy bars and gels because I knew this was going to be one tough ride. Ironically, the energy stuff I’d brought to help make things easier was badly weighing me down. The handlebar bag was stretching my gear cable, which made changing into the higher gears very difficult again, despite the recent repairs.

Things got no easier once I’d joined the A21 and followed it to the beautifully named Pratt’s Bottom, where the worst was yet to come. Leaving the main road for Rushmore Hill, I was heading for a fun time on dark country lanes. The sun had set now, and I was having some difficulty seeing where I was going, despite having three front lights – none of these was bright enough or angled conveniently to illuminate the road ahead. Rushmore Hill was pretty tough, and reached its peak at Knockholt Pound. After this, a couple of warning signs offered me the exciting combination of a 10% gradient and hairpin bends, not to mention a return to national speed limit for the drivers around me. Consider the fact that night had now fallen and even if there were any vestiges of daylight, the overhanging trees would have completely blocked it out on this unlit lane, and the fact that the road was flanked by high kerbs at the bottom of steep, muddy slopes from which spiky vegetation protruded into the road, and you will see that I was in for a pretty exhilarating time. It was so dark that I could see neither the kerbs nor the line at the centre of the road; occasionally, a car would come up behind me and its headlights would reveal that I was about to hit the kerb and be catapulted into the path of the approaching vehicle, or career headlong into a blind bend in the middle of the road with traffic approaching from the other direction. If there had been any sort of pavement or footpath, I’d have dismounted and used that. As it was, I had to keep up a reasonable speed because of all the sharp bends; any traffic approaching from behind wouldn’t be able to see me around corners and might slam straight into my behind if I wasn’t going fast enough. I was pretty relieved when I heard the ocean-like roar of the M25 and M26 in the distance; as soon as I reached these, I’d be able to join the A224, which I assumed would have some sort of lighting. In fact, it turned out that the main road was not much better lit, relying largely on cats’ eyes, which are worse than useless to cyclists as you run the risk of hitting them at funny angles at speed, but at least there was more traffic to show me the way. The road was lit from Riverhead, and now I just had to get over a nasty big hill with Sevenoaks at the top. This was tiresome, but I got there in the end, passed through the town and joined the Tonbridge road. It was a long trek, but I got to go nice and fast at the end.

It was very cold by now, and I really wanted a nice hot shower. But the hotel room was booked in Noel’s name, and he wasn’t here yet – unfortunately, our Kentish jaunt clashed with a leaving do at his work. “I’m not really allowed to let you into the room,” the receptionist said ruefully. “Are you OK just to chill out for a while?” But she was a good sport, and when I said I could really do with a shower after cycling from London, she let me in on condition that I didn’t tell anyone. I can tell you, of course: you won’t tell anyone, either. They also let me leave Guinevere safely in a nice warm function room, so that was one less worry and when Noel arrived, we went out for a nice meal in a rather lovely Italian restaurant.

I woke up the next morning in a state of nervous terror. I had been studying for my exam but had not had nearly as much time as I would have liked. Breakfast was rather overpriced at the hotel, so we tried Wetherspoons down the road. This was no use, however. There was a big queue at the bar and a 30-minute wait for breakfast. I didn’t have that sort of time, so we drove to Southborough with Guinevere in the boot, in search of a decent café. This was not cheating, you understand: I would cycle from the university campus to the ground, and would actually pass the hotel again on the way back. After a hefty fry-up at a rather nice not-for-profit community café, I went to sit my test. Eeek. I wouldn’t like to speculate on my performance, but it seemed to go all right.

When I finished, Noel had gone home, securing Guinevere in the bike rack for me. “Oh pants,” I said to myself, “I forgot to take my energy gel out of the bag I gave him to take home.” It may have been less than 5 miles to the ground, but I would have to retrace the route we’d taken in the car back to Tonbridge, and I’d already seen that there were some HUGE hills. However, when I went into the bike shed, Noel had thoughtfully left said energy gel tucked into my saddle, as well as an encouraging note. Everybody needs a Noel.

Although I did have to negotiate some beastly climbs, most of the way into Tonbridge was downhill, which suited me fine, as it was raining now and I wanted to get it over and done with. Soon, I was soaking wet, splattered with mud and getting grumpy. I was cheered up by some lovely stewards at Tonbridge’s ground, who refused point blank to allow me to pay to get in. This is another tenner for the FDP pot – thank you, Tonbridge. And in sharp contrast to Wednesday’s rather disorganized affair, the match was an absolute belter – fast flowing, competitive and hugely entertaining. We just shaded a close-fought game, and went home with a 1-0 win and all three points in the bag. Great stuff.

A day off work (supposedly for studying , but it turned out to be errand-running in the way these things do) provided me with the perfect opportunity to give Guinevere a well-earned treat. I was taking her to the bike shop, but instead of going to a central London shop as I normally would due to where I work, I was going to Pearson’s in Sutton. Pearson’s is an excellent shop, and is, according to its website, the oldest cycle shop in the world, having been run by the same family on the same site in Sutton for over 150 years. (If you are interested in local history, the heritage section of their website is well worth a look.) Mentions of this legendary place have brought about noises of recognition from several of my friends and acquaintances who have never had any reason to be within many miles of Sutton otherwise. This, among other things, means that not only do they know exactly what they are doing in there, but unlike the bigger chain stores, they will not subject you to snotty, rude staff who will botch a job and then horrendously overcharge you due to being paid commission.

“Help!” I said to the friendly young man in the workshop. “My bike’s not well. She needs a bike doctor.”

Chuckling amiably, he popped out to have a look. I explained the gears problem and that no matter how often I have the bike serviced and supposedly fixed, it will work like a dream for about half an hour and then start slipping back to its apparent default state of not allowing me access to the higher gears.

“Common problem,” he said. “Did you get it serviced here?”

“Wish I could,” I replied, “but no, I work in central London so can’t usually get here.”

“Ah, that’ll be why, then!” he said, grinning. “Leave it with me and pop back around 5.”

This I did, and he triumphantly proclaimed that he’d not only sorted the problem and made a few tweaks here and there, but had also replaced the cable, which was getting a bit frayed. I wasn’t surprised, given the amount of work Guinevere had done in the last six months.

“I’ve charged you as little as I could,” said he, with an apologetic face on, and showed me the slip where he’d written the breakdown of costs with “£10” scribbled in red at the bottom. A tenner! The London shop would have tried to charge me three times that, and I would have had a vicious argument with them and still got away with no less than a £20 bill. I love Pearson’s, which is why my blog has turned into a shameless advertisement.

Minutes later, as I climbed Rose Hill, it became apparent that the chap in the shop had done a sterling job. Everything worked perfectly and even the steep part of the hill felt almost effortless. Excellent.

Despite the rush-hour traffic, it made most sense to stick to the main roads through South Wimbledon and Wandsworth, over Putney Bridge and down Fulham Palace Road to Hammersmith. I never did like central Hammersmith, and aggressive drivers made it no more appealing this evening. I was therefore pleased to leave the main roads for a while, cutting through the back streets towards the A40. You can’t cycle on the main road here, but there is a shared pedestrian/cycle path, which was annoying because people were walking three or four abreast across the cycle path so I had to keep slowing down to shout “Excuse me mate!” and watch people amusingly leap out of the way with looks of terror on their sweet little faces. Tee hee.

I followed the road for a couple of miles until I reached the Hanger Lane gyratory, which I have since vowed to avoid at all costs, because it is a living nightmare. There’s no cycling on this either, and even if there were, I’d have been loath to do so. Instead, it must be laboriously negotiated via a ridiculously confusing subway network. There are maps, but several are missing the rather important “you are here” indicator. There are two parts to Hanger Lane off the gyratory. One is the North Circular, the A406, which I certainly did not want. The other is the A4005, road I needed towards Sudbury. But being geared towards pedestrians, the maps did not make this explicit. After taking a wrong turn and suddenly finding myself cycling into the ticket office of Hanger Lane tube station – a most unnerving experience – I surfaced on completely the wrong side of the gyratory. This, given the complete absence of signs to tell me the names of any of the roads around me, required the use of the trusty GPS to tell me where I really needed to be. So I nipped back underground and checked the map by the exit I thought I wanted. Just as I had finally confirmed that I was in the right place, someone asked me if I was lost and I explained that I had been until now. When he asked where I was heading and I told him Wembley FC, he agreed I was going the right way. “Ah, you’re off to Vale Farm,” he said. It turned out that he was an occasional Wembley fan. What are the chances…

The subway had deposited me on the wrong side of the road, which was a bit of a challenge to overcome. Eventually, I grabbed Guinevere and ran, dodging the heavy traffic to get myself on the correct side. It was easy enough from here, particularly after joining the Harrow Road where I’d done this part of the journey before when visiting Harrow Borough. I didn’t get lost until actually reaching Vale Farm, where I somehow completely missed the entrance to the actual football ground and ended up wandering around car parks and alleyways for ten minutes before finding it.

I had now completed eight of the shortest nine journeys with just Wealdstone remaining, and seven of the longest eight with the exception being Folkestone, so I had just those two and the four middle ones to do now, one of which would be Tonbridge on Saturday.

The Hendon fans were their usual friendly, welcoming and utterly pessimistic selves. “You’ll thrash us,” they said “We’ve got key players missing, you always beat us…” So it would presumably have come as a pleasant surprise to them when they won a rather scrappy game 1-0. Not the finest match of the season by any means. Several regulars were absent from the Sutton crowd, and I think they definitely chose the right game to miss.

It was just coming up to noon, and I was very cross.

I was supposed to be at the ground for 1pm, because Laurence, a very nice student journalist, was going to be interviewing me on camera for his university project. Not exactly world news, but even so I didn’t particularly want to keep him waiting or be late and flustered on camera. I had intended to leave at 11:30 so I could get there and freshen up before meeting him, but everything was going pear-shaped. I hoped the Harlow Town fans who’d decided to copy me and cycle to their match at Sudbury Town, just over 50 miles, were doing better than I was. (I later found out that they had had a tough time but had made it with no problems.)

“Bring some friends to be interviewed,” Laurence had said. “Is your boyfriend coming? Bring him too.”

So, I’d asked Noel if he wanted to come on a nice bike ride with me, and he had accepted. But he had to take his bike in for a quick repair job first, which is exactly what I ought to have done with mine.

 “Blooming gears!” I muttered to myself (or possibly something a bit stronger), as I grappled with a stubborn front derailleur in my back garden, “and where the heck has Himself got to?” I’d cut myself and was vividly decorated with blood, oil and dirt from giving Guinevere her bath prior to appearing in front of the camera, so she would be nice and sparkly while I looked as if I’d just crawled out of a collapsed building, covered in scrapes and bloodstains, my hair all over the shop and black smudges all over myself and my clothing. The day was not going brilliantly. Just at that moment, I got a text message from Noel saying he was ready to go and had been trying to call me but for some reason my phone wasn’t accepting calls from him. It would take him at least 25 minutes to get to my house, I only had seven usable gears, and I was already half an hour behind schedule. My front tyre was nowhere near up to the required pressure: I’d had a puncture on the way to work a few days previously (not that I can complain about that as it was only my second puncture in well over 1000 miles) and my nifty high-pressure pump had exploded and fallen to bits in my hands as I pumped it up after replacing the tube. Because I am a wimp, I wasn’t strong enough to get it back up to the required 115-125psi with the track pump at home. It was not enough to get me safely to Bromley, so I had no choice but to wait half an hour in a freezing wind for my knight in shining Lycra to arrive on his expensive black charger.

“This wind is FIERCE!” he said, jumping off his bike and brandishing a pump. “No, this tyre is nowhere near hard enough. I’ll sort you out.” Meanwhile, I rang Laurence, who was pretty cool about me being late. “That’s OK,” he said, “just rock up around 2 and we’ll have the camera set up.” So that was all my worries dealt with, apart from the usual issue with the gears, which I have vowed to sort out once and for all before the trip to Tonbridge, which almost qualifies as “mountainous.

” Noel was not wrong. It was, as Winnie-the-Pooh would have put it, a blustery day, and this made it hard going, although as Noel had also pointed out, the wind was behind us. We went through Sutton, past my parents’ house, keeping a look out for my mum in case she told us off for cycling in dangerous weather, and up the big hill to The Place that Shall Not Be Named (oh all right, Carshalton). Noel was doing his speedy whiz thing, and I was getting frustrated because the wind stopped me going fast uphill and my lack of high gears was doing the same downhill.

From here, it was a simple matter of following the A232 all the way to West Wickham, which wasn’t as bad as it sounds once we had got on the other side of Croydon. There was a lot of traffic, but nothing too worrying. But it was something of a battle with some great big hills, especially once we’d left the main road. “That’s a beast!” I gasped, on seeing a particularly imposing one just off the main road. Hard work, but we were soon at the ground, windblown and rather thirsty. I was rather proud of myself for covering an entire journey without using any maps or directions at all, even though it was pretty much one road all the way there.

After we were both interviewed (apparently, I suffer from violent mood swings when we lose!), we went off to get changed and stuff burgers down our throats. Very nice they were too. The match was rather scrappy with the opposition and the referee seemingly conspiring to prevent us playing football, and I think it’s fair to say we deserved our 2-0 win.

Then it was time to go home again. Noel pointed out that he hadn’t cycled since November, and his speedy whiz antics seemed to have tired him somewhat, so I got to go in front for a change, into the wind…ouch. Later that evening, he complained of aches all over, whereas I felt fine. It’s normally the other way round. Serve him right for being a show-off.

Although I’d been looking forward to this – I do enjoy the longer trips – I had trouble sleeping the night before. I often get nervous before big ones, not to mention the match itself, a top-of-the-table clash that was vitally important for both sides.

The alarm was set for 4:30, to make sure I got out of bed in time for a 6:00 start. This was unpleasant. Strictly speaking, I didn’t need to leave so early. It was Friday, and I had the whole day to reach my guesthouse as I had said I would be arriving around teatime. But I was in the mood to take it easy, rather than race the clock for 85 miles. Still, I regretted this decision as I dragged myself to the shed with an armful of energy bars. These are not kept there any more, not after the slugs and mice incident. Even so, when I went in and opened my bag, a mouse shot out and disappeared into the gloom. I shouted at it – involuntarily, I have to admit: it gave me a bit of a start in the dark and I wasn’t properly awake – and went about my usual checks. Guinevere had had a good clean the night before and was looking shiny.

The first part of the journey was the usual, boring route that I take to work, in order to join the A11 at Aldgate. Although the London rush “hour” seems to begin earlier every day, I was nonetheless surprised at the amount of traffic on the road. Cycling through London in early morning traffic is no more pleasant when it’s still dark.

After a couple of hours, I reached Leytonstone, like I had on the way to Canvey Island, the difference being that this time I was actually supposed to go this way. Despite my decision to take the trip at a relaxed pace, I was a little disappointed that it had taken me so long. I’d felt sluggish (referring to slugs without energy bars) all the way, and couldn’t figure out whether it was me (fitness, nutrition, general health or tiredness), Guinevere (she might just have been in a ratty mood, or perhaps mousy, due to the presence of vermin in her boudoir) or something else, such as the heavy bag I had to carry, or the weather. It was a bitterly cold morning and there was an annoying wind. Normally, I hardly feel the cold at all (we non-league football fans would be in trouble if we did) but today was a real bone-chiller.

As my journey continued into Essex on quieter roads through Wanstead and Woodford Green, the temperature seemed to drop even more as the route took on a distinctly villagey flavour. The wind was getting stronger and the ground hillier. After a big one between Woodford Bridge and Chigwell Row (Grange Hill, I think, but where on earth was all my energy?), my face was rendered completely numb, as if a sadistic dentist had been at it with blithe abandon. My lips were sore and chapped again, and my eyes and nose were running like mad. Like Guinevere, I was in a bit of a grumpy mood. At least I had invested in winter cycling gear. But whenever I removed my gloves to get something out of my bag or check my progress with the GPS, my fingers would get so cold that they’d tingle sharply and unpleasantly for a while afterwards; my legs were red raw on the exposed skin that my leggings weren’t quite long enough to cover. It wasn’t very nice. This, I realised, was what people had meant back when I’d started doing this and they’d said “I’ll be impressed if you can keep this going through the winter.” I’ve always preferred cycling in cold weather to hot as you warm yourself up substantially, but not this. We’re lucky I’m such a stubborn old mare. Once I decide to do something, I will do it, come hell or high water.

Fortunately for my ailing fingers, I didn’t really need the GPS. This time, instead of plotting my route and letting Google Maps give me directions, I’d taken time to write it myself, using Google Street View to pick out landmarks at difficult junctions. When you’re cycling, it’s a lot harder to take the correct turning at a complicated roundabout than if you’re driving, because there is much more time between seeing the signpost and actually getting to the turning, and it’s harder to memorise it when you’re grappling with three lanes of unsympathetic traffic. “Right lane signposted Snoring Yawnborough, turn off by red phone box” is a much better visual cue than “4th exit” when you can’t remember how many exits you’ve already passed. Anyway, my directions made perfect sense to me, and I didn’t once have to stop to check or recalculate my route, although I did look every now and then to see how I was doing.

A few miles after crossing the M25, I elected to make a strategic stop. This was something new I was trialling. Instead of stopping at a pub for a big meal, I would skip lunch entirely in favour of frequent snack stops. This, I reasoned, would keep my energy supply regular and avoid that post-lunch tiredness I always get after battling to force a big meal into a stomach that doesn’t seem to want it. It is never easy to get up and go back to work after an hour in a warm, welcoming pub, but leaving the roadside after an energy bar, a few gulps of water and a handful of Jelly Babies is never so difficult. There was a large supermarket in Chipping Ongar with a nice bike rack and toilet facilities, so I stopped and bought a pack of cereal bars, a bottle of water (I hate buying water, but you can’t drink too much of it when cycling) and some lip balm. The checkout lady asked where I was off to. When I told her, she said “That’s a long way!” which was a good sign; at least she hadn’t said “Where’s that?” like people back home had done. Somehow, this made it seem a lot closer, despite what she’d actually said. I’d covered a third of the route, although it had taken me an unimpressive four hours to do so.

The next stage was rather tiring with the freezing wind, but the road was very pleasant indeed, a quiet B-road that meandered through a succession of cosy villages with square Saxon churches and all the features of an honest, hardworking rural lifestyle. There were a lot of Rodings: Abbess Roding, Beauchamp Roding, Berners Roding, and about five others. In fact, I’ve just checked and there are indeed five others; the Rodings were an Anglo-Saxon sub-kingdom and now boast the biggest community of British villages with a shared name, and I bet you didn’t know that. After High Roding was a little place called Bacon End, which made me hungry, so I ate another cereal bar when I arrived in Great Dunmow shortly afterwards.

Setting off down a pleasantly undulating road that went on for miles, I began to fully appreciate what a glorious day it was to be in such a place. This road twisted and turned, and soon I was in the middle of nowhere on nameless lanes without signposts. One tiny road, little more than a dirt track, took me over a big hill and between some fields, where I stopped for a while, merely because the view from here was outstandingly beautiful over miles of rolling hills and sleepy villages, and there was not a single cloud to be seen in the big Essex sky. This, I told myself, was exactly how to spend an afternoon off work. However, my whole body soon began to protest at the cold, so I left thinking: what a waste of this view on such a day, with nobody here to appreciate it. I hadn’t seen another human being in what seemed like hours.

The next few hours were a real pleasure if hard work. Great Bardfield, Finchingfield, Stambourne, Ridgewell, Ashen, Clare: all lovely villages, and I made more stops to admire the wonderful landscape. A huge hill took me into Poslingford, possibly the most beautiful village I’d visited today. Somewhere between Ashen and Clare, I knew I had passed into Suffolk, although I did not know exactly when, as the roads I was using were too minor for county boundary signs.

The upward inclines were getting ever steeper as I climbed out of the Stour Valley, and I was becoming a little tired. A few villages later, signposts for Bury St Edmunds began to crop up, as the sun began its long, lazy process of setting among the hills. I regretted the fact that as I was heading northeast, I would miss out on what might have been a spectacular sunset.

By the time I arrived in Bury, it was dark, although it was only about 4:30. I had booked into a large guest house, which turned out to be the best I’ve stayed at on my travels. The lady at reception, Karen, was most welcoming and helpful, offering me a choice of secure accommodation for Guinevere (including a motorcycle cover to keep her warm and dry) and a local pub recommendation for dinner. She was chatty and friendly, and when the purpose of my trip came up in conversation, it turned out that she was a Bury Town fan and quite excited at the prospect of a top-of-the-table clash. “I’ll get my partner to come along,” she said. My room was excellent, and a special mention must to go the ferocious, hot power shower that was the best I could have hoped for after all the dirt of London and the muddy country roads. Bliss.

I was so tired I could have slept there and then, but I kept in mind the advice I’d been given: after a long, hard trip, you must get as much protein inside you as possible. So I sauntered into town and into the King’s Arms, where I ordered a pint of St Edmunds ale and one of their mixed grills. This dish is not for the faint-hearted and contains enough meat to make a vegetarian cry (sorry, Susie): a rump steak, a gammon steak, two sausages, a whole chicken breast, two fried eggs, chips, peas, grilled tomatoes and onion rings. A chat with the barman revealed that he, too, was a follower of Bury Town. Although the club is relatively isolated in terms of being over ten miles from the next major towns and 20 from the nearest football clubs at a higher level (Cambridge and Ipswich), I couldn’t help wishing that the general public of Sutton were similarly inclined to follow their local team.

After a surprisingly unsettled night – usually I sleep like the dead after a long ride, but this time I had a weird dream that I woke during a minor earthquake and spent the rest of the night wondering if there had been one or if I had indeed dreamed it – I breakfasted hugely amid conversation with some jocular Scots, and headed for the football club, where I tethered Guinevere prior to visiting local pubs. At the Rose and Crown, the landlady overheard conversation about my project and generously gave me a fiver towards “whatever you’re collecting for.” She knew all about Bury Town, too!

It seemed a pity that after such an epic journey, Sutton had to go and lose the match 2-1 and Francis Quarm to a red card, especially after scoring first. But our boys didn’t play at all badly. Bury Town are definitely a team to watch out for.

As this game had been rearranged from a Saturday so we could go gallivanting in the FA Trophy, this meant a lovely evening rush-hour journey through East London and Essex – what joys lay ahead of me this dull, grey Tuesday, I thought as I reattached the bag to Guinevere’s handlebars, having purged it of all slug-related matter. (In doing this, I had discovered that mice had been in there too and left me some thoughtful gifts…how on earth did they get in?!)

As I work in the East End, it made sense to cycle to work as part of the route and then continue from there when I finished; this would not add a significant amount to my overall journey. I’d been going into work early every morning and doing extra hours, so my boss could hardly refuse my cheeky request to leave early today.

Unfortunately, “early” didn’t seem to be on everyone else’s agenda for the morning. Most of the traffic was just slow-moving because there was so much of it, but I seemed to spend most of the journey stuck behind very slow cyclists whose sole concern seemed to be getting from A to B some time in the future and not about how quickly this happened. I was already feeling fitter than I had for a long time due to my rigorous post-Christmas training programme, and could have gone dead fast otherwise, so this was quite frustrating. And every single traffic light, of which there are fourteen million, three hundred and twenty-six thousand, six hundred and nineteen on my route to work, was either red or turned red as I approached. Apart from one, which turned green the moment I disengaged my foot from the pedal and reached for my water bottle. By the time I arrived in my office at Aldgate, I was suffering from acute road rage.

I calmed myself down with a nice day of work (no, not really) and sneaked out at 3:30pm to begin the real journey. It looked pretty boring, mostly on A-roads. I started on the A11 through Whitechapel and Bow, joining the A118 at Stratford. Here it went horribly wrong, because the A118 is a horrendous road and very poorly signposted, if at all. It appears that I ended up on another branch of the A11, and I had arrived at the A12 junction in Leytonstone – where the next signpost was, nearly three miles north of where I should have been – before realizing that anything was wrong. I didn’t have the GPS with me, so I took advantage of my lovely boyfriend’s offer to provide help if anything like this happened. I gave him a call and he got straight on the case and directed me back onto the A118 via the A114, which was actually much nicer than the A11, even if it did add on a few miles and waste a lot of time. After an insipid trek through Chadwell Heath and Ilford, this took me to a nice big junction at Romford, where I could finally leave the boring A-roads, albeit briefly.

I took a few side roads through Gidea Park, where a complete idiot in a BMW nearly killed me by cutting in so quickly while overtaking me that he came shockingly close to crushing me against a parked van. Fortunately, I am awesome and have ninja reflexes, so got away with myself and Guinevere unscathed. Then it was back to the big roads as I joined the A127, the Southend road, which is a massive dual carriageway and completely unsuitable for cycling on. Luckily for me, it is accompanied by a footpath/cycle path, but this path is of poor quality, unlit and regularly punctuated with side turnings and exits to other main roads. I had to go reasonably slowly anyway, just in case any pedestrians were using the path, but in the 12 miles or thereabouts that I spent on this road, I actually did not see a single person who wasn’t inside a vehicle. This made it rather dull, but also implied that I was the only person brave or stupid enough to be out there in the dark. Sometimes, I would come across a fallen branch or pothole at speed, not see it until I was almost on top of it, and would have to brake sharply to avoid it. Every time there is a side road or junction, the footpath stops between the exit from the A127 and the end of the slip road for traffic joining it. This meant that I had to leave the main road at every exit, cycle around the roundabout at the top, and then down the entry slip road back onto the A127, adding quite a bit extra to my journey. Unfortunately, at each junction the footpath would recommence very suddenly halfway down the slip road, and several times I missed it in the dark, meaning that I had to stop and lift my bike up the kerb to leave the road before being sucked into the dual carriageway. This often meant stopping on slip roads with heavy traffic behind me, which wasn’t very pleasant. One time, a driver failed to see me entering one of the roundabouts, and I didn’t see them either, until I heard a horn blaring behind me. Maybe that one was my fault, I can’t be sure.

Eventually, I reached Basildon, where I made a brief stop to check my route and shove an energy bar into my face. I also had to remove giant clogs of mud from my brakes, where they’d been deposited by the wheels and were dragging on them and slowing me down. This was one filthy bike.

I made my way through town and down a nondescript B-road into Pitsea, getting back onto the main roads at Sadlers Farm Roundabout, the junction between the A13 and the A130 into Canvey. As there is only one road onto the island from the London side, anyone who has driven there this way will be familiar with this nightmarish junction comprising five largish roundabouts arranged in a sort of irregular pentagon to form one super-roundabout. Fortunately, the signposting to Canvey Island is perfectly adequate, so it wasn’t really a problem once I was actually on there – just a bit scary. This was where I’d got hopelessly lost trying to get to Concord Rangers on the first day of the season, and now it was quite clear why: on a smaller scale map, the entire thing just looks like one big roundabout, so I would have taken the Google Maps directions at face value, assumed that I should turn right at the first one I came to and therefore made a colossal error. I was now several months older and wiser, however, and they won’t catch me out with that one again.

The road onto the island smells very odd and not entirely pleasant. But I stepped up my speed on the flat road and soon I was in the town itself, following directions to what must be the best-signposted club in the Ryman League: one sign even told me that the club was 3 miles away, which meant that the island was quite a bit bigger than I thought. After a rather dull ride across the island, I reached the ground just as some kids had asked the turnstile operator for a side gate to be opened so that they could get their bikes in, so I followed them through the gate and was advised to leave Guinevere behind the big terrace. I found a handy hiding place underneath the terrace behind a shed. I could probably have sneaked through without paying too, but I am too nice and had to try and get into the turnstile backwards in order to do so. This was harder than it sounds, as some other people actually wanted to see this game and were trying to come in the other way.

A little later, I felt the need to replace all the energy I’d burned up, so I ventured to the tea bar to purchase the biggest, fattest burger on offer. “A half-pounder with bacon and cheese, please,” I said boldly. The lady chuckled and said, “All of your lot seem to be ordering these.”

“Yeah,” I replied, “but THEY didn’t cycle here!”

“And you did?”

“Yes, I’m cycling to all our away matches as a fundraiser this season.”

“What, you cycled here from Sutton?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” I admitted.

“SHUT UP!” Charming! But all in jest.

The burger was the nicest I’d sampled at any ground this season despite the amazing quantities of dribbly grease, and I even managed to eat most of it. It certainly hit the spot, and helped to alleviate the discomfort of standing in one of the coldest football grounds in the entire world on a dark January evening. So did the 3-1 win, even if our first two goals did come from penalties; yet another wonder strike from Bradley Woods-Garness for the third made it all worth it.

I’d been looking forward to this one for a while. I’d cycled to Horsham before, and it’s quite a nice ride if you’re into that sort of thing. Which I obviously am, or you wouldn’t be reading this. So I got up nice and early on the morning; I’d planned to meet a friend who lives near Horsham for lunch before the game, so needed to be down there early. And I’d done a bit of extra training by cycling to and from our Surrey Senior Cup match at Molesey, doing the 30-mile round trip to work three times in the week, and cycling anywhere else I happened to be going during the past week.

But then I looked out of the window and groaned. The trees were shivering and shaking in a very stiff wind. This is the worst cycling weather – well, it’s worse if it’s also raining so hard that visibility is poor, but in general wind is a lot worse than rain. If it’s windy, sometimes even if the wind is behind you, it feels like you are going uphill even when you’re not. I don’t like hard work; I’m only doing this for the kudos. Ha, just kidding.

I hadn’t used the handlebar bag for quite a while as I tend to use it only for the longer trips where I need maps and extra spares. In fact, I don’t think I’d used it since Margate. I hadn’t cleared it out from last time, but I knew I had a fairly decent supply of energy bars and gels, which are dead useful for giving you a quick boost when the terrain is demanding, and although I knew this route wouldn’t be too dramatic, the Surrey Hills can be hard work at times. So before leaving, I had a root around in there to get rid of old maps, snack wrappers and general detritus. “But why are my hands all sticky?” I asked myself. Further investigation revealed that some wretched minibeasts – they turned out to be tiny slugs – had somehow, mysteriously, found their way into this 100% waterproof bag and through several layers of plastic and foil, and had practically scoffed the lot. All my lovely (and very expensive) chewy bars were half-eaten or nibbled around the edges, and the gels had been tapped into and leaked out. All they’d left – for reasons best known to themselves – was one energy bar (perhaps they didn’t fancy the banana flavoured one) and a solitary, out-of-date Nutri-Grain cereal bar. What a delightful start to the day, and if I happen to see any hyperactive slugs racing around my garden at 20mph, then boy will they be in trouble. I decided to take the bag anyway, but only to use for my directions as it has a map pocket on the top to make them easy to read. Usually, I wouldn’t need directions to get to Horsham. However, for the first time, I had allowed someone else to plan my route for me. I wouldn’t normally do this, but our very own Dave Farebrother lives just outside Horsham himself and had very kindly sent me the route he takes to and from Sutton, as it’s both direct and scenic. Having verified on Google Maps that this added only a couple of miles to the quickest and most boring route, straight down the A24, I decided that this was the obvious choice.

To start off this route, I had to get to the Dorking road, Pebblecombe Hill. From where I live in Worcester Park, this meant taking my bag of slugs and cycling through Cheam Village, joining the A217 from there. Between my house and Cheam there are two hills that are so steep that buses struggle to climb them at times, so with a strong headwind this was tough work. That portion of the A217 is also a steady upward climb. I’d never cycled on this bit before, so hadn’t noticed that, and by the time I reached Pebblecombe Hill, I was already feeling a little sorry for myself, somewhat jaded by the uphill struggle against the wind and unpleasantly damp from the sheets of spray thrown up from the wet roads by every passing vehicle. This made me doubly glad that I hadn’t opted to face the heavy traffic on the A24, and from here there was going to be a lot of downhill fun.

I whizzed happily down the hill and up the other side, crossing a level crossing I’d crossed many times before in a car. This route was already bringing back pleasant childhood memories of leisurely Sunday afternoon car journeys with my family in the Surrey countryside, and these would strengthen later on. I passed through gently and not-so-gently meandering hills, realizing that I was actually daring to enjoy myself now. Just outside Brockham, I was passed by a friendly cycling club. “Morning!” they all chorused, and I greeted them in return; the leader joshingly added “Jump on the back!” But I didn’t, because riding in someone else’s slipstream is cheating (it massively reduces air resistance and makes it a lot easier to cycle, the opposite of what a headwind does). The only less than pleasant part of this was the cold wind stinging my face and the morning sun (it was around 9:45am) shining right into my eyes, so for large parts of the journey I had to blink rapidly to protect my eyes. I think I shall ask for some sunglasses for my birthday.

I crossed the A25, where dense woodland gave way to rolling fields, and crossed more hills, up and down. Soon I entered the village of Newdigate, which I remembered as a rather charming place, and it was. Apart from the floodwater I had to cycle through on my way in, getting horribly wet feet. Wet feet are really nasty when you’re cycling, especially if you can’t afford to carry as much extra weight as spare shoes would give you. Unfortunately, my gears were playing up again, despite being repeatedly adjusted and fixed in a bike shop. This was quite worrying, as it is supposed to be very good equipment. But it was gradually getting harder and harder to change up to higher gears, until the lever refused to do anything at all, unless I stopped, got off the bike tugged the lever with both hands; then it would change when I started riding again. But this can’t be good for a bike, and it was slowing me down hugely: I had to either keep stopping, or not be able to use my five or six highest gears and therefore couldn’t go as fast as I like to go. After a short spell in some quite steep hills, I got sick of this and stopped for a break. I took out the only energy bar that hadn’t been interfered with, brushed off a couple of minuscule slugs, double-checked that the wrapper had no holes or evidence of invertebrate tampering at all, and scoffed it, although I declined the option of added protein from the slugs themselves. A couple more cycling clubs passed me, and asked if I was OK, as they are wont to do when they see a stationary cyclist. I replied that I was fine, just hungry, but didn’t tell them about the slugs. That wouldn’t have been fair: they might have wanted some too, and I only had two left.

The route passed through Rusper (very nice) and Faygate (also very nice) and the village of Colgate, where, surprisingly, no toothpaste was in evidence. Then through Roffey, the only British town to be named after a former Sutton hero (tee hee), and into Horsham. It had actually taken me nearly two and a half hours to get here, but it didn’t feel like it and somehow seemed an awfully short journey; I briefly wondered if Guinevere had suddenly developed teleportation abilities. I hoped that this was indeed the case, as there were some bits of the following Tuesday’s route that I didn’t fancy at all.

By the time I reached the ground, I was horribly damp, aching from fighting against the wind and had itchy eyes and very sore, chapped lips from the cold wind. Next time, I am using lip balm. I bet Canvey Island is ten times as windy as Surrey. So I was relieved and grateful when Horsham FC’s club safety officer, Tim, came to meet me at the entrance and offered a secure, locked storeroom for Guinevere to stay in during the game and for me to get changed in. Our away-match opponents really have been outstanding this season in terms of this sort of thing. It was about 11:45, and I felt I’d earned myself a pint, so I got myself washed and changed, and wandered into town to meet my friend for lunch and a spot of ale.

The less said about the match the better – we lost 3-1 – but by the time I got Guinevere out of the storeroom and myself to the station after the game, I had missed the hourly Sutton train by just over five minutes. I was originally intending to cycle to Dorking and then get a direct train home, but had subsequently realised that my front light was not adequate for the country lanes, and it would not be safe. I had also got hold of a free train ticket to Cheam, due to its owner having unexpectedly been offered a lift home. So, I traipsed back to the pub for a swift drink with the boys before the next one. If in doubt, have a beer, that’s what I say.

Hurrah! A lovely local derby for Christmas. Unfortunately, due to snow and persistent ice on the roads and me being surprisingly sensible sometimes with safety matters, I had not cycled for a month – since our visit to Harrow Borough, in fact. Don’t look at me like that: my mother would have murdered me if I’d cycled on icy roads and she’d found out. Hence “safety matters.” When she is angry, she can lift surprisingly heavy objects.

This, coupled with the whole Christmas thing and having sat around being spoiled rotten by Noel’s parents and their generous supply of food and drink and sugar-related gifts, meant that I was spectacularly unfit. Was? I mean, I AM spectacularly unfit. On the plus side, I had some really great new cycling gloves for Christmas – not only high-visibility, but also very warm and snuggly. I was looking forward to trying these out and not feeling as if my fingers would snap off when I changed gear, for a change.

I’d spent Christmas in Edinburgh, but that morning it seemed several degrees colder in Worcester Park than it had been there. Good thing I had my snuggly gloves, eh. It was such a short trip that I didn’t even bother dressing up in cycling gear – I was only going to end up in the pub anyway. I could have left earlier, but frankly I couldn’t be bothered. If I had, I would only have been forced to skip several rounds at the pub in order to be sober enough to cycle home. I waited until lunchtime, then went to my bike shed to greet my old friend Guinevere. She looked resentful, as if to say “why have you been neglecting me?” I checked the tyres: they were surprisingly firm, especially considering the slow puncture I’d thought I had in my rear tyre – turns out it was sound after all. I gave them a quick blast with the pump anyway, and set off for Sutton via North Cheam.

BLIMEY. Seriously, I know it had been a month since I last sat on a bike, but WHY was it this hard to negotiate a route that I usually do at least once a week? Blaming excessive quantities of quality shortbread and chocolate Santas, I grumbled internally and pressed on. There is one big hill and one very big one between my house and Carshalton. Sutton lies between the two, and I kept my head down as I cycled past my parents’ house, because I hadn’t bothered wearing a helmet and I didn’t want my mum to see me and murder me with miscellaneous household objects. I thought that if she didn’t kill me the big hill between Sutton and Carshalton might do the job, but fortunately it wasn’t as bad as I expected, although still hard work. I got to the ground pretty quickly after that (thank goodness for the complete lack of necessity for maps on this journey), my hands toasty warm from the awesome gloves, left Guinevere in the lovely bike rack and, shocked at my own lack of fitness and wishing to distract myself from the fact, headed straight for the pub down the road to get even more unfit.

My Sutton friends were just leaving for the next pub when I arrived, and they were all wonderfully jolly already. They told me tales of the stark naked, tattooed man who’d burst desperately into the pub having been locked out of his house. There were photographs. I did not wish to see them. Nick the Greek had made his usual vodka jelly, which was the next stop (and rather good as always). The next stop after that was beer, and then beer. We “crawled” to the ground, where we won 2-0. All was right with the world.

Please don’t tell my mother I cycled home, because I did. I felt completely sober by this point, but wouldn’t have passed a breathalyzer test. Don’t try this at home, kids.

“Aren’t you cold?” I heard a fellow cyclist yell at me for the sixteenth time. I only possess a short-sleeved cycling jersey, you see (because long sleeves are for pussies), and my leggings were in the wash so it was just shorts on the bottom half. OK, so the outside temperature was four degrees and I really ought to invest in some long-fingered gloves. I felt mostly fine, but my hands were already freezing as I left my office in Aldgate. This evening’s challenge was to cycle a route I’d never used to Harrow without any maps or even proper printed directions, just a few scribbles on a Post-it note. This was because I’d somehow lost a small elastic band on the way home from Margate. I’m sure you don’t yet see the connection, so I shall explain. I recently bought – for the Margate trip – an expensive front light on an elastic band that I could attach to my cycling helmet. The band had a small magnet on it, which cleverly activated the on/off switch when held against the light. Because I’d lost the band, I couldn’t use the light, so I had to use my “city lights,” which clip onto my handlebars. This meant that I couldn’t attach the bag (you might remember this bag from the Concord Rangers trip as it caused all sorts of hassle) that usually sits there and has a map holder on the top. But I’ve never yet managed to get properly lost in London, so I thought I’d risk it. You only live once.

The first part of the route went past the Gherkin, the Royal Exchange, Bank of England and St Paul’s. I could have done this bit with my eyes closed, but this would not have been advisable given the heavy traffic. Once I’d got past Holborn, it started sleeting, horrible freezing stuff that was cold enough to hurt but not too frozen to splatter nastily all over my face and trickle down the back of my neck. To make matters worse, I then had to cycle up Oxford Street. This is something I will never do again. I must have been in that road for twenty minutes thinking about how rubbish this year’s Christmas decorations were and wishing that there were fewer buses in the world. This, of course, is a very selfish thought and it was naughty to think it, but I literally couldn’t move for the things. They took up the whole road in both directions so they were impossible to overtake. And I was getting wet.

I’m used to nasty roundabouts in London – particularly Elephant & Castle – but nothing prepared me for Marble Arch in the evening rush hour. Oh, the horrors! Once again, I found myself forced irretrievably into the wrong lane, and because of more heavy traffic, and railings designed to keep pedestrians safe, I was halfway down Park Lane before I could turn back. How annoying. But never mind, it was simple from here. After cutting down the Edgware Road, I was able to pick up the Harrow Road with the Westway roaring like some sort of giant machine above my head. It is weird cycling down there with the A40 above you – every so often you are plunged into eerie, orange-tinted darkness as the road turns into a tunnel, and you have to hope that everyone behind you can see that you’re there. There are lots of nice big hills on this road, but they’re not steep, they’re the fun sort.

This road took me through Kensal Green and Harlesden, which I failed to appreciate in any way because I was still suffering from acute road rage and weather. I crossed the North Circular at Stonebridge Park and passed Wembley Stadium – this route had more than its fair share of famous landmarks. I decided that Sudbury was rubbish as I passed through the town centre, and left the A404 at a roundabout where the road I needed to take did not have the same name as it did on the map I’d looked at earlier but hadn’t bothered to bring with me. Fortunately, I’d also written “second exit” on my amazing (but rapidly disintegrating) Post-it note, and after a while that road changed its name to the one on the map, so that was all right. I couldn’t wait to get to a nice warm football ground now – my hands felt as if they were about to drop off with cold. I tried not to dwell on the fact that if only we were playing Hendon, I’d be there by now – I’d already passed a signpost for Wembley FC’s ground, where Hendon are playing at the moment.

However, there was not far to go. Once I’d got onto another main road, it was plain sailing and when I reached Northolt Park, I didn’t need any maps or Post-it notes because I’ve been to Harrow’s ground about a million times to see Sutton play. I waited for the car park steward to finish parking my friend John, which was quite amusing to watch, and was advised that Guinevere could pretty much go wherever she liked, so I chained her to the floodlight. “Aren’t you cold?” asked the man on the gate. Maybe I ought to get hold of something long-sleeved after all.

After that, all I needed was a nice big burger and chips and a 3-0 win. Oh well…0-0 is still a point.

For the first time on one of these trips, I had company. My rather lovely boyfriend, Noel, had decided to bring himself and his better-than-my-bike bike to Margate with me. On the plus side, this meant that the samey bits wouldn’t get tedious and that I had a very experienced and competent cyclist with me (Noel is a lot better than I am at this. He doesn’t show off about it, but he actually cycled the Tour de France route earlier this year). On the down side, however, this meant I had not one, but two reluctant carcasses to drag out of bed and feed come 5:30am on Friday. This proved even more difficult due to the fact that Noel wasn’t feeling 100% and wasn’t quite sure if he was going to come with me or not. But he agreed to start off and see how he got on, so we did that.

We were running a bit late by now. It was very cold, quite windy and rain was forecast, so I wanted to get to Margate as early as possible. You don’t hear many people say that these days. The route started off by going through Morden, Mitcham and Streatham, which always have the worst rush-hour traffic imaginable, but fortunately we were slightly too early for that. By now, Noel seemed to have decided he wasn’t too ill to cycle 85 miles, and looked rather perkier, so we carried on, joining the terribly exciting South Circular at West Dulwich. I had the directions, but Noel likes to go faster than me. A few times, I would see him take a wrong turn and disappear into the distance and I would have to shout at him to come back like a parent with a naughty child. This was probably my fault for being rubbish with the directions, but I found it quite funny. The chain fell off my bike and I got mucky hands putting it back on. This was quite funny too, but shouldn’t be happening on a bike like Guinevere, particularly one that’s less than three months old.

It was mainly A-roads, mostly the old pre-Roman road, Watling Street, and not a particularly inspiring route. We joined the A207 at Welling and headed east. I saw that Welling United were at home to Havant & Waterlooville, so I waved hello to their ground. It was a fast road and we were in Dartford before we knew it. There we had to get over some annoyingly large hills. Noel likes hills more than I do, because he is a masochist. At Northfleet, we passed Ebbsfleet United’s ground. It looked as if it were about to fall down, but I’ve been there to watch Sutton a few times, several years ago now, and it looked as if it were about to fall down then as well, so I assumed that it was OK really.

We picked up the A2 and passed through Rochester, where there was another socking great big hill and my knee gave up on me (why? It had been fine on the journey to Ashford. Never mind). Chatham was worse. Noel loved it. To his credit, he would always wait for me after he’d zipped over a massive steep hill in show-off mode. The only thing that frustrated me is that I used to be able to do this myself prior to the knee issues. And the fact that my chain came off again for no apparent reason.

We stopped at a petrol station on the outskirts of Sittingbourne for some snacks and drinks. This was most welcome, especially the big sausage rolls. It was still morning – just about – and we were over halfway to Margate, so we had done well.

When we got to Faversham, it was time to leave the main road. Good news. The quiet back roads are always the most fun. But first, lunch. We went into the nearest pub – The Ship Inn at Ospringe – where we ordered nice hot meals. I tucked into my bangers and mash, thinking that the hardest parts of these journeys are almost without exception the bits where you have to motivate yourself to get up and carry on after a big, cosy lunch. I felt really sleepy this time. And when we went back outside to where we’d left our bikes in the beer garden, it had started raining. But you’re not a proper cyclist until you can take every sort of weather, so we heroically ignored this. A man who was out the back having a smoke made a few encouraging comments.

“Where are you heading?” he asked.

“Margate.” He looked very impressed at this. “Really? That’s a long way in this weather. Where have you come from today?”

I told him “London,” and his eyes nearly popped out of his head in cartoonish fashion so I had to force myself not to giggle. “Bloody hellfire,” he said. People do get amusingly impressed by these things. Unfortunately, when I picked Guinevere up to take her up the steps, something immediately felt wrong. The back wheel wasn’t turning. Was the chain off yet again? I had a look. No, the chain wasn’t off. Worse. The wheel was off. How had this happened? Closer inspection revealed that it had been on fairly loosely, but if it was tightened, it would come to rest off-centre and would jam against the brake. No use whatsoever. Noel suggested that it was a good bike badly built, and I ought to have words with the shop I bought it from. This bike had only been bought brand-new less than three months ago, had had a full service within the last fortnight, and was already having problems with the gears, the wheels and just about everything.

We took a nondescript B-road into the depths of the Kent countryside, which became one of those fun roads, hilly and twisty. But when we stopped to check the sat-nav to make sure we were taking the right side roads, it turned out to completely disagree with Google Maps, and both tended to disagree with reality. Deciding not to take any unnecessary risks, we plotted another, more believable route into Canterbury. I was starting to get more tired, and the hills steeper. My knee gave up again on an improbably big hill, leaving me travelling at an embarrassingly snail-like speed while Noel disappeared joyfully into the distance. “What is it with him,” I muttered to myself, “I thought he was supposed to be ill.” Then I realised it was me that was the problem, not him being stupidly fast, as a little old lady cyclist whizzed past me. Granted, she was a fully Lycra-ed old lady on a very good racing bike, but she was still a little old lady and her cheerful and effortless “Hello!” didn’t improve matters as she passed. However, she seemed to have a French accent, and that helped. If you are French, you are allowed to be a better cyclist than me, even if you are a little old lady. It’s in the blood, or something.

By the time we arrived in Canterbury, the rain was torrential and we were both in a bit of a mood. But we are Proper Cyclists, so rain is nothing much. From here, it was a simple matter of taking the A28 right into Margate. It had begun to get dark, and there was a lot of standing water on the road; the road surface was very patchy in places and decidedly unfriendly for cyclists, particularly those with dodgy wheel bearings. As the natural light faded, there was nothing to see by apart from the headlights of passing traffic. Bicycle lights are designed to be seen, rather than to see by, and cats’ eyes are completely useless to cyclists. I got up to a pretty impressive speed by my standards (I even managed to go ten or so miles without Noel overtaking me: it was really bucketing down and I just wanted a hot shower and a nice meal) and a couple of times, I found myself hurtling through deep puddles that I hadn’t seen, with goodness-knows-what at the bottom of them. I almost lost the road and ended up in a ditch a few times, too. This is not a road I would recommend cycling in the dark when it is raining heavily.

As I passed a “Welcome to Margate” sign, I couldn’t help raising a triumphant arm in celebration, partly as a gesture of encouragement to Noel, who of course didn’t need it. We weren’t actually in Margate; I think it was actually Westgate-on-Sea, but there was only about a mile to go. When we finally arrived at our hotel, the lady who answered the door knew nothing about the email conversation where it was confirmed that we would be able to leave our bikes somewhere safe indoors. In fact, she claimed that there wasn’t room and that we’d have to leave our bikes in the street. Knowing that Noel would not have this – in fact, he’d probably jump on the first train home – I explained that I had only booked it because I had been assured that we could have secure bicycle accommodation and added, knowing that in Margate out of season it is not exactly difficult to find a room, that we would have to look elsewhere. That showed her, and she went to get “the gentleman,” who helped us get our bikes into the basement. Result.

After a shower and change into nice dry clothes, it was time to go out (in the rain again, unfortunately) to find some dinner. Weirdly, every single person we saw on the streets seemed to be heading to the Pavilion. We didn’t know what was on there, but judging by the movement of the local population, it was clearly better than anything the rest of Margate had to offer on a Friday night in November (sorry, Margate). Noel made me promise not to cycle anywhere until I’d had my bike fixed, and you will be pleased to know that this is now done. The match itself was entertaining, although unfortunately for us it was entertaining in the wrong direction and we lost 3-2. Still top though…and only two defeats by mid-November is not a bad thing at all.

I had this in my mind as one of the more difficult ones, one that with my knee in its current state I might have to do over two days. So I decided to do it in one go, on the day, just to make things more difficult. I am like that. This meant another early start, and I dragged myself out of bed at 5am. I didn’t think it would take that long, but you never know what might happen. Later, I was very glad that I’d done this.

There were still stars glittering in the sky when I left my house around six; it was pitch dark and freezing cold. But I knew what I’d signed up to when I first came up with this mad idea, so I turned on my lights and off I went through North Cheam and Sutton, past the house where I grew up and where, presumably, my parents were now in bed fast asleep, the lucky devils.

As thousands of people have doubtless said in the past, things started to go wrong when I reached Croydon. As I was crossing the Croydon Flyover, I needed to change to a higher gear. When I attempted to do so, however, nothing happened. Guinevere is a bike with attitude, and this was not the first time she had protested at an early start in this manner. But as she had so recently had a full service, I had expected better of her. I stopped by the Fairfield Halls and tightened up my gear cables, and it seemed OK after that. Well, for a few minutes, anyway. Shortly afterwards, the same thing happened again. In the end, I just stopped using the lower gears, because I am well hard.

The A232 through Shirley and West Wickham seemed to go on forever, and was really not terribly exciting. It was getting light now, at least. I briefly joined the A21 at Farnborough Common, then up a nice big hill where my gears stopped working again, and past Chelsfield. This took me down a narrow, winding but not unpleasant road, crossing the M25 at a place called Badgers Mount, for which I have failed to come up with an amusing enough joke.

The roads continued to be narrow and twisting, and last night’s heavy rain had not only rendered me completely mud-spattered from head to foot, but had also caused build-ups of grit and general detritus to be thrown to the edges of the roads. The consequences of this made themselves known at Shoreham, where I had to stop with a puncture. It was only about 9am, so I had made reasonably good time, but I had never had a puncture on this bike before – I love my tyres – and had been told that these slim, high-pressure road bike tyres were damned near impossible to get on and off. However, I had the right tools for the job, and the tyre was surprisingly easy to remove. Close inspection revealed that a number of small, sharp stones had become embedded therein. I removed these, fitted a new inner tube and replaced the outer tyre, which again was surprisingly easy to do. A group of cyclists on posh bikes – no doubt part of a cycling club – passed me and kindly slowed down to ask if I was OK. I thanked them and warned them about the sharp stones. While I was replacing my wheel (it would have to be the back one!) and pumping the tyre up, several more cyclists passed, and every single one of them slowed down and asked if I needed help. A passing motorist even stopped to tell me that he lived just down the road and had a track pump if I wanted to borrow it, but he was in the wrong direction and my high-pressure pump was just fine, so I politely declined. In fact (I hadn’t used this pump before), it was surprisingly good; I’d been worried beforehand that I wouldn’t be physically able to pump my tyres up to the recommended pressure of around 120psi. If this means nothing to you, most car tyres have a recommended pressure not far off 30psi, so mine need to be much firmer. I knew that if my tyres were too soft, they would not only slow me down considerably, make the going harder and waste a lot of energy, but would also put me at risk of further punctures caused by kinks in the inner tube. When I was satisfied that the tyre was firm enough, I pulled off the pump and the valve on the tube turned out to be faulty and just came apart in my hands. Of course, all the air then came rushing out, the tube was rendered unusable, and I had to dismantle Guinevere, take the tyre off again and start from scratch. Fortunately I had another spare inner tube, which was made by a reliable company – the same as the first one, in fact – and I didn’t suppose for one moment that they would both be faulty. But of course, they were. This one had a weird patch of thicker rubber near the valve and the tube was sticking to itself there, so when I pumped it up, no matter how many times I deflated it and smoothed it down, it would start bulging alarmingly in that spot and the outer tyre would pop off the rim.

I considered my options. There was only one. I would have to get out my puncture repair kit and repair the original tube, which was very risky but I had no choice. But at that moment, salvation arrived in the shape of another passing cyclist, who I think was Canadian (I am rubbish with any accents that aren’t British). He looked at my weirdly deformed inner tube. “This is extraordinary!” he announced. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” This didn’t help, but the fact that he had about a million spare inner tubes about his person, and the fact that they were exactly the same size as mine, certainly did. He kindly donated a couple of these, fitted one of them and even pumped it up for me. What a gentleman.

By the time I left Shoreham, I had wasted an hour and a half sitting by the roadside getting a wet bum. Having left so early allowed for this, but no further stops. I passed through Otford, Heaverham, Kemsing and Wrotham as quickly as I could, then joined the A20 towards Maidstone. I reflected that this route was very like my previous journey to Hastings, except that this time I occasionally got to go downhill. Maidstone is at the bottom of a big hill – both going in and out – so it was easy to get into town and hard to get out, which was compounded by a slightly weird one-way system of the sort that only old towns have. Leaving Maidstone on the A274 was highly satisfying, because that road was called Sutton Road. Hurrah!

I was getting slightly tired by now, and some time later found myself wishing that poor old Maidstone United had their own ground, because I’d be there by now. It was getting to lunchtime, and I was still only two-thirds of the way: there were over 20 miles left to do. After Sutton Road, the rest of the route was mainly country lanes avoiding the main roads, which would have made the journey considerably longer. These roads had funny names like Gravelly Bottom Road, which was indeed very gravelly.

The route I’d planned told me to go down an unnamed road, and I wasn’t quite sure whether I’d reached it or not, because there were a lot of unmarked roads around these parts. So I got out the satnav, worked out where it was and saw that there was actually a name given on there for the road, which was St Clere Estate. I thought this was an odd name for a road, but soon found out why. There was a sign at the end of the road, which read “St Clere Estate – Private – No Public Right of Way.”

Pants.

I got out the satnav again to re-route, but the way I’d gone had taken me miles out of the way of any other through route; all the other side roads were either dead ends or went off in completely the wrong direction. I simply didn’t have the time to re-route. Feeling slightly guilty, I hopped off (to cunningly avoid being classed as “traffic”) and went up there anyway. After a while, it became apparent that it was in fact a public footpath at the side of the road, so that was OK. I soon came face-to-face with another threatening sign. This one read, “WARNING! SATNAV ERROR! TURN BACK! LOCKED GATE AHEAD!” but I laughed in its general direction and carried on regardless. This was a good move, as the locked gate was easily circumvented on foot. But I was still secretly hoping I wouldn’t meet anyone from the estate on the way. And I didn’t.

It was pretty simple after this. Ashford Town’s ground was easy enough to find once you knew exactly where in the middle of nowhere it was, and I asked the car park steward where I could safely leave my bike. He looked puzzled and asked where I was trying to get to. I suppose I didn’t look much like a football fan, but once I’d assured him that I was, he said I could leave it by the supporters’ shop inside the ground. I heard the whistle blow for kick-off just as I entered the gate, which I suppose was the best I could have hoped for under the circumstances. I don’t think I have ever been so covered with filth in my life, however, and I would have to miss a few minutes of the game just to make myself a little more presentable.

The ladies who worked at the shop were wonderful, and promised to keep a watchful eye on Guinevere throughout the match. Normally, I’d have chained her up anyway, but they seemed offended at the very idea, as if I didn’t trust them. So I left it as it was. She was still there after the game, even though we’d won 3-0. Another good day, made better by the fact that a very nice Sutton fan even gave me and Guinevere a lift home afterwards.

“Ah, that’s a nice easy one for you,” most people seemed to be saying of my forthcoming trip to Croydon Athletic FC. I wasn’t quite so sure. Short, yes. Easy? That remained to be seen.

Before I had even planned my route, I could think of three things that might prevent this short journey from being a nice easy one for me. One, I would have to make the journey from Fleet Street – where I happened to be working that day – as I wouldn’t have time to go home first, and I confidently predicted that the traffic would be of the heavy and aggressive variety. Two, there was a Tube strike on that day, which would exacerbate this problem. And three, my knee had been aching on and off all week, and there were several largish hills on my route – going uphill seems to put a lot of strain on it, rather than going at speed. I had seen the Sutton United physiotherapy team, who very kindly let me come in for a session, and they didn’t seem to think it was my actual knee that was the problem…I’m not sure if I heard them wrong, but I am convinced they said it was my bottom. I was also told that something was rubbing against the back of my kneecap, which sounds hideous.

As I’d feared, the journey to Fleet Street in the morning practically crippled me, and I spent the rest of the day in pain, trying to avoid standing up and especially going down stairs. I was glad that the distance to Croydon Athletic’s ground from here was only ten or so miles, and merely involved crossing the river, finding the A23 and sticking with it. However, I also happened to be right about the traffic. The roads were full of motorists and cyclists who’d normally take the Tube and avoid the London streets like the plague. Hence, they were mostly bad-tempered, unsure of their routes or just plain daft. One cyclist, apparently thinking that he was The In Thing on his trendy single-speed bike (these are all the rage at the moment; even my boyfriend has bought himself one to go with his other thirty-eight million bikes), went crashing into the back of a van as it stopped at the traffic lights. Having ascertained that this chap was OK, I watched with amusement as he feebly protested to the van driver that he shouldn’t have stopped so quickly (Referee! Penalty!). However, I can tell you that the van driver stopped no more quickly than he ought to have done (He’s diving, ref!) and that the trendy cyclist was, in fact, not paying attention at the back of the class. I felt like pointing this out to him, and adding that if you are riding on busy city roads on a fixed-wheel bike without brakes as he was – meaning that the back wheel and pedals do not move independently of each other, so you can’t freewheel and you can only brake by stopping the pedals – you need to make sure you are doing three things. One, don’t build up so much speed and momentum that you don’t have the physical strength to stop the pedals and wheel from turning. Two, remember your stopping distance is therefore much greater unless you have legs of steel. And three, most importantly, don’t be a complete and utter numpty.

Doing my best not to be a numpty, I got out of central London as quickly as I could. This involved negotiating the cycling nightmare that is Elephant and Castle, but as this is on my normal route to work, I’m perfectly well used to it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t used to taking it from this particular angle. Finding myself in completely the wrong lane and betwixt two buses and a lorry, I was helpless to resist as the traffic swept me down the New Kent Road instead of the A3. I most certainly did not want to go this way, so stopped and bailed out onto the pavement as soon as I could. But there was nowhere to cross the road. “Bugger,” I muttered, causing a passing old lady to raise her eyebrows in a threatening manner. Fortunately, Guinevere is a very light bike, so I chucked her over my shoulder and carried her through the subway onto the road I should have been on in the first place.

Soon afterwards, I turned onto the A23, where I didn’t have to bother checking where I was any more because it was just the one road all the way to Thornton Heath. Here I learned that Brixton Hill looks a lot bigger when you are tired and your knee hurts, and that the traffic is always absolutely foul in Streatham. But I knew the latter from bitter experience anyway.

A rather uninspiring ride through Norbury and Thornton Heath saw me arrive at the ground about an hour and a half before kick-off. Maybe I could have gone home first, after all. I found myself a nice big burger and watched Sutton win two and a half-nil. All right, three-nil, but nobody seems sure about whether the first one crossed the line. For what it’s worth, I thought it had.

If you are a professional cyclist taking part in, say, the Tour de France, then you are accompanied by a support car to ensure that you have adequate liquid and calorie intake and so on. But if you are cycling 131 miles without outside support, then you need to look after yourself. This means not doing anything stupid like attempting to cover that sort of distance in one day, because you will need to make regular stops to eat and drink. This prevents your body from eating itself to replace all the energy you are using. With this in mind, I allowed myself two days. However, I still wanted to cover as much ground as possible on the Friday, as I only had until 3pm on the Saturday. This involved an early start to escape central London before the morning rush-hour took its hold.

I left the house around 6am, my route taking me through central and east London. As I often cycle to work in Aldgate, the first leg was done on auto-pilot and apart from a nice chat with a fellow cyclist at the traffic lights about how unseasonably warm it was, I didn’t stop until Stratford. I reminded myself that I hadn’t had breakfast. This was naughty, but I couldn’t face eating at that time of the morning. Now it was nearly 7:30 and the world was starting to look friendlier, despite the increasingly heavy traffic and fog that meant I really had to have my wits about me. I stuffed a few cereal bars into my face, and idly fiddled with the mobile phone GPS gadget I’d borrowed. Despite me refreshing it many times, it absolutely insisted that I was in Epsom. This was unhelpful.

Thinking that at least I knew where I really was, I headed through the eerie mist into Ilford and Romford and over Harold Hill. There was absolutely nothing exciting about these places, so the highlight was crossing the M25, which is always satisfying. Signs still told me I was in the London Borough of Havering. I’d covered approximately 30 miles and was still in London after two hours. However, once I reached Brentwood, which was clearly not in London, it felt as if I’d made progress. I passed through Shenfield, Mountnessing and the first of two Heybridges, reflecting that the three worst things about these trips were the insects, the tedium and the roadkill. You don’t notice the roadkill much in a car, just the odd “ugh, is that a fox?” which you then promptly forget about. On a bike, however, you are much closer to the road and not only can you see these poor creatures’ mortal remains in much sharper focus, but you can also smell them. Which is, not to put too fine a point on it, absolutely foul. There was a lot of it. Foxes, rabbits, squirrels, hedgehogs, mice, frogs, all sorts of birds, a vole and once, some sort of mustelid (a stoat, perhaps). Not that I think you wish to know about this, you understand, but it affected a disturbingly large part of my journey. You really don’t want to run them over and risk bits of them catching in your mechanism.

Enough, I hear you cry. Fair enough, dearest readers. Onward!

Before I knew it, I arrived in Chelmsford. This was a nice enough place, and I spent a while mooching around as I was halfway to Ipswich already. Time for a mid-morning snack and a bit of a wander, to stretch my legs in a non-cycling way. After unsuccessfully searching for a Greggs (I really fancied something cheesy in pastry, for some reason) it was time to leave via a pleasant little B-road running parallel to the A12. I left this at Hatfield Peverel to cut across some tiny roads where there was barely room for a car to overtake a cyclist, and stopped at a quaint little place called Wickham Bishops, about a mile north of the other Heybridge, for lunch at a pub called the Mitre, which was apparently full of small children. On closer inspection, there turned out to be two kids, who appeared to belong to the landlady, plus a Garfield cartoon on the telly. I stood at the bar, and thirteen years later, a nice lady came bustling out of the kitchen and I ordered a fish pie (at which her face lit up and she said “good choice” so I knew I was onto something) and a refreshing pint of orange juice and lemonade. The pie, when it eventually arrived, was full of cod, cockles, prawns and mussels. Yum.

Aftewards, I carried on through Great Braxted and around the edge of Tiptree, where a young doe leapt out in front of me. Just as I realised I wouldn’t be able to stop in time, she shot backwards through the hedge. That, apart from passing near the exquisitely named Layer-de-la-Haye, was the most exciting thing that happened before I arrived in Colchester, which I instantly hated. Not because there was anything wrong with the place per se, but because it appeared to consist entirely of roundabouts that weren’t on my maps, and the GPS was convinced that I was still in Chelmsford. After cycling up the wrong hill (which was annoyingly steep and aggravated my knee injury so painfully that I had to stop to take ibuprofen), I managed to find the right route. And all that remained for the day was to follow the A137 into Ipswich, where I was spending the night. This was boring, so I shall spare you the details.

When I arrived at my guesthouse around 5:15pm, there was nobody there. This seemed odd, so I phoned the proprietor who apologised profusely and explained where he’d hidden my key. I locked Guinevere up in the car park, took a lovely hot shower, discovered why the room was cheap as a train thundered past rattling the teacups, and hit the town. Unfortunately, there isn’t much to hit in Ipswich, although I did find something rather delightful: an abandoned, overgrown single track railway line, complete with a rotting old-fashioned wooden level crossing gate, right in the middle of town. Sadly, I was too tired to explore and as I couldn’t drink alcohol, my half-hearted search for a not-too-temptingly-good pub where I could fulfil my desire for a huge steak and ale pie crashed and burned when I realised I was walking away from town, and that this here McDonald’s might be my last hope. So I went in and ordered a quarter pounder with cheese meal with potato wedges. “Do you want that medium or large?” asked the moronic youth behind the counter. “Well there’s only one size of wedges, so I’ll have a medium, please.” “Yeah, but do you want the meal medium or large?” “It says the medium meal can come with wedges for an extra 30p. And I want water to drink, and that’s only one size too. So medium, please.” “You what?” “Just make it medium.” I couldn’t be bothered to explain again. “And can I please have 6 nuggets as well,” I added, remembering that I needed to cram as many calories as possible inside myself. After handing over a surprisingly large amount of money, I watched as Brainbox put a bottle of water, a box of chicken nuggets, a quarter pounder and a large portion of fries on a tray. “I’ll bring the wedges over when they’re ready,” he said. “Thanks. Er, I didn’t order fries,” I pointed out. Much less a large portion. The eejit had obviously charged me for a large meal after all. And had probably charged me separately for the wedges, despite me saying I wanted them as part of the meal. “Yeah,” he grunted. “I’ll bring the wedges when they’re ready.” “That’s great, but I didn’t order fries at all.” “I know!” he snapped. “I’ll bring them when they’re ready, OK?” I was too tired to argue, and went to sit down. When Brainbox came out with the wedges, I amusedly watched him wandering around looking for me for a full three minutes. This was not a large McDonalds, and I concluded that he wouldn’t be able to locate his own posterior region with both hands if push came to shove. Then I wondered how on earth I was going to eat all this food. I am not a large person, and people were looking quizzically at me and my food, possibly wondering if my romantic McDonald’s dinner date had stood me up. I hate people watching me eat at the best of times, but this was most uncomfortable. And no, I couldn’t eat it all. I did try though, so please forgive me. I slept like someone drugged, roused myself at 6am, showered, then remembered that this guesthouse – curses! – didn’t serve breakfast until 8:30 at weekends. Torn between the need for nourishment and my desire to get away early, I gave in to the breakfast and went back to sleep with wet hair.

Annoyingly, when I arrived in the dining room at 8:25, there were already people eating. I ordered a big cooked breakfast, wondering if my Sutton-supporting colleagues had started drinking yet. Rumour has it that they had. I checked out, got myself out of Ipswich as quickly as I could and headed towards Woodbridge. My directions told me to turn left at The Street. Confusingly, I passed The Street on my left at Little Bealings, way earlier than I thought I would. Smelling a rat, I carried on regardless, and sure enough, the next left, two miles later at Martlesham, was also called The Street. And once I’d passed Woodbridge shortly afterwards, the A1152 at Eyke was called The Street as well. Honestly, you’d think people might talk to each other when they named roads. Or at least think of some slightly more original names for them.

This was where my journey got more challenging, because my route took me down narrow country lanes that branched and forked but were not marked, although they were named on the map. This was proper farming country, and the roads twisted and turned over hills and between fields that smelled overpoweringly of, er, organic fertiliser.

At a little place called Farnham, I finally joined the A12, with which I would stay until I reached Lowestoft. Thus began the most mind-numbingly, crashingly boring part of my journey. I cannot describe how dull it is to spend 25 miles – about two hours – on the same road when cycling. My dodgy knee was giving me grief, and I had little else to think about in the middle of the open countryside. At Saxmundham, the Sutton United supporters’ coach passed me, which cheered me up considerably, but I was really slowing down now. I wanted to be at the ground by 2pm in order to get cleaned up and a pint of nice beer inside me as a reward, but that wasn’t going to happen now and I wasn’t willing to risk further injuring myself for the sake of Orange Wheat Beer, much as I loved it.

Lowestoft didn’t seem to get any closer for a very long time, but finally, there it was. And the home fans were outstandingly welcoming, not to mention generous (people kept coming up to me with donations). Again, I was reminded of why I love non-league football. We drew a hard-fought game 0-0, and all in all it was a good day save for the very sad news that one of everybody’s favourite Sutton fans, Eileen Denyer, had passed away early that morning.

I was lucky enough to get myself and Guinevere a ride home on the coach. I gazed out of the window as we sped through the same 25 miles of the A12 I’d taken agonising hours to cross, in just under half an hour. If only it were that easy.

This was never going to be a thriller, but what with the knee injury I picked up on the way to Hastings, I was loath to set myself any interesting challenges like the 20-minute time limit I put on my journey to Tooting & Mitcham. Annoyingly, the knee had been fine since the Hastings trip until a couple of days previously, when I had been out with some colleagues. We were in Islington, and when we got off the Tube at Angel, they decided it would be fun to run all the way up the escalator. I had to stick with them, because I didn’t know the way to the place we were heading for.

“Guys,” I pleaded, “I can’t do this. I have a knee problem.”

“It’s OK,” they said, cackling evilly. “You’ll be fine.”

“But this is the longest escalator in Europe! It has 318 steps! Trust me, I’m a Tube geek!”

But they were having none of it, despite this rather nice piece of trivia I’d gifted them with, and by the time we got to the top, I had a funny feeling in both knees. I’d been good: I had gone to the doctor, and I’d done exactly what she’d told me. I hadn’t cycled at all since the Hastings trip (something I was worried I’d regret come our impending journey to Lowestoft); I’d done a lot of “gentle walking,” taken the odd ibuprofen and used a knee support. I was planning to use the Kingstonian trip as a gentle way of easing back into it. And the knee hadn’t troubled me in three weeks. But by the Saturday, two days before our next away match, not only was it throbbing like anything, but the other knee had gone dodgy as well.

However, one who has pledged to undertake a mission for her club is not entitled to wimp out of it. I was determined to keep going no matter what.

So, when Monday morning arrived, grey and dreary, I hauled myself out of bed with one purpose in mind. I had to start in the morning, you see, because I work 15 miles from where I live and would not have time to go home, get my bike and cycle to the ground after work. The ride into work was not an easy one, because both knees were screaming blue murder by the time I got there. But one has to grin and bear it, and I popped into the local Boots to buy a firmer support for my other knee. That helped.

When I eventually left that evening, it was getting worse, but I carried on regardless. Brave or foolhardy? Probably the latter. The traffic was appalling, as it had been in the morning. There was a Tube strike on, and the roads were completely clogged with motorists and cyclists. I had to stay in a low gear all the way, because anything else meant both knees shrieking blue murder at me. It was really frustrating when I couldn’t overtake slow people, because that’s usually the only thing that makes a London ride more fun. One point for old man on ancient rustheap; two for girl in skirt and unsuitable shoes on folding bike (or a Boris bike); three for determined-looking teenaged boy on a mountain bike; five for Lycra-clad show-off on racing bike (like me, I suppose), and so on. You lose points if anyone overtakes you, but in reverse: one for the show-off, five for the old man, and so forth. Thus, robbed of this simple pleasure, I negotiated my way through Kennington, Wandsworth and a million sets of roadworks to Kingston Hill. Which, surprisingly, didn’t present much of a problem as I stayed in the lowest gears. However, by the time I reached the ground with an hour to spare before kick-off, I was pretty achey. But at least I’d got there.

After a thrilling first half that we totally dominated, plus a less-thrilling second half that we were also pretty much on top for, we lost to a solitary 87th minute goal. But I suppose that’s football for you.

I’ve been told that it’s a good idea to stuff yourself with as much protein as possible when you’re doing this sort of thing, and was not likely to ignore this advice when it gave me a ready excuse to have a massive breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausages and beans. I wandered happily outside to get Guinevere ready for her first proper long-distance trip. This was when I discovered the first of the three fundamental errors I am allowed to make on long journeys. I had decided to fill my bottle with energy drinks instead of water as I knew this was going to be a tough one. And I had, somehow, mistakenly bought fizzy Lucozade instead of the flat stuff, and couldn’t possibly use it. To prove this, I filled the bottle anyway and gave it an experimental shake, whereupon it predictably exploded. Covered in sticky pink goo, I drank what was left and refilled with (slightly cherry-flavoured) water. The sky was a gorgeous clear blue, but I wasn’t fooled. I’d seen the weather forecast and all my spare clothes were inside plastic bags. This time, I’d made sure my maps were up to scratch. My route took me through Wallington and Purley, where it started to get really hilly as I approached the North Downs. Guinevere started to complain about me changing gear too often, eventually refusing to change upwards at all and going “RRRRRch-ch-ch!” instead. “Stop moaning,” I thought, “the worst is yet to come.” I hopped off, tightened the gears and remembered the other advice I’d been given, to take a good supply of sweets to keep my sugar levels up. I’d opted for the chewy variety rather than sucky ones, to reduce the obvious choking hazard. This was when I discovered my second fundamental error: these sweets were TOO chewy. I felt something scraping on my teeth. Blast it, I’d pulled my filling out. I hurriedly rinsed it and popped it back in (disgusting I know, but what else could I do?) and continued towards Warlingham. The gears, at least, worked fine now. But oh! the hills! I hadn’t expected the North Downs to be a picnic, but this was torture. I gritted what was left of my teeth as I heard distant thunder and the heavens opened on me. I didn’t mind getting wet especially as I’d employed my little trick of slipping a shower cap underneath my cycling helmet, but the hills were so steep that I was seriously worried about how my brakes would hold out on the wet roads when I eventually got to go downhill. But I needn’t have bothered. There was, it seemed, no downhill. It was up one huge hill, down a tiny bit, up another huge one, over and over. I wasn’t half looking forward to whizzing down the other side of this monstrosity, but it was nowhere to be found. “There must be a downhill somewhere,” I thought, “it’s the law. Surely.” And of course, there was in the end, at the delightfully named Titsey, but I was cruelly robbed of the pleasure (and compensation for the time taken in going uphill all the way) when what looked on the map to be a nice little lane turned out to be a deathly steep, narrow, twisting footpath made of slick mud and huge, jagged rocks. It would have been dangerous enough on a mountain bike. But Guinevere is a road bike, and it would be foolish to attempt the descent any way other than on foot. I consulted my map, but because I was about to traverse the M25, there was no other route that didn't involve a lengthy detour. The only option was to totter precariously downhill on foot for a mile or so, hanging on to Guinevere like grim death and dodging mud slicks and loose rocks. The moment I reached a surface I could safely ride on, the road soared back upwards in what looked like a near-vertical climb. No fair! And, more importantly, no momentum to start me off on the ascent. Soon afterwards, passing laboriously through a succession of pretty if topographically challenging villages, I discovered my third fundamental error. Now don’t laugh, but for some reason I’d thought that the expanse of land between the North Downs and their southern counterparts might contain a little bit of flat. I wasn’t expecting it to be plain sailing, but I did not expect this. There seemed to be a lot more uphill than downhill, and there was – I tell not one word of a lie – not a single bit of flat land on the entire route. As Hastings is 500ft above sea level, this isn’t entirely surprising, but even so. When I crossed the border into Kent, it became slightly easier on the legs, the rain eased up, and there was even a bit of downhill. Realising that I must have burnt a ridiculous amount of calories and that I was almost halfway, I stopped for lunch at a rather genteel-looking pub on the outskirts of Penshurst (although I wasn’t sure whether to pronounce it Penz-hurst or Pence-hurst). I secured Guinevere to some railings and, in doing so, noticed the state I was in. My legs were streaked with mud and black oily stuff, my clothes spattered with road grime, my shoes caked with filth and I was soaked with sweat. My hair, despite the precautions I’d taken, was in rats’ tails and had somehow got as wet and filthy as the rest of me, apart from one bizarre dry patch where I’d had the shower cap on. I brushed off the worst of it and, stamping my feet on the doormat, walked boldly through the door. The place was one of those pub/restaurants you get in the Home Counties countryside, and was packed with respectable-looking, well-dressed elderly people and their posh families eating a civilised lunch. Feeling a little self-conscious, I cleaned myself up as best I could in the ladies’ before approaching the bar to order fish and chips. I gazed longingly at the array of real ales on offer as I asked for a soft drink. I do like my beer. When the food came, it was superb, but I always find it hard to get food down me immediately after a long ride. You know you have to replace the calories, but feel awful if you try to force it. After nearly an hour, I gave up and set out once again. This was a difficult part of the journey: although the roads were very clearly marked on my map, they were not in the real world. Trying to decide which of several anonymous forks to take was good fun. Once, I took a wrong turn and crept agonisingly up a shocking gradient for a whole mile before realising (with the help of a passer-by) that I had chosen the wrong one and was facing completely the wrong direction with no other roads to get me back on track, so I was forced to retrace and cycle up the same hill again from another angle. The journey continued as tricky and gruelling as before as I passed through Rusthall and skirted the centre of Tunbridge Wells, then more villages, all named something Green. This was where my route joined the A21, and I could reasonably hope for better road surfaces. However, the hills were still gut-bustingly huge. After a while, and I’m afraid I must be candid here, I realised that I absolutely had to find a toilet or I would find myself in dire straits. Following a sign for a picnic area with WC, I turned right (with difficulty, as the road was busy with school-run traffic) down a little lane, only to find that the facility closed daily at 4pm. It was five past, and they were heavily padlocked. I pressed on, keeping my eyes peeled. Unfortunately, it was starting to hurt, and the steeper the hills, the worse it got. Fearing that I might suffer the ultimate embarrassment, I was forced to dismount and, making sure my lights were switched on, pushed Guinevere up and over the next hill. Just past Robertsbridge, I spotted a roadside café. But that was closed, too. I asked at the carwash next door, and they said there was a pub half a mile up the road. Result – I was thirsty as well and could do with a last rehydration stop. The pub, at a place called John’s Cross, was called the John’s Cross Inn, and was very pleasant indeed, making me wonder what this John was allegedly so irritated about. Being in an even worse state than before, I apologised to the barman for the 50 miles’ worth of dirt that covered me. Again, we had a nice chat about the purpose of my trip. It can get lonely on the road, and I would savour these little encounters. With less than ten miles left, I was nicely hydrated and feeling OK if a little jaded. What could possibly go wrong now? My left knee, that’s what. Soon after stopping at the pub, with the hills getting ever bigger, an old injury, which had been fine recently, began to niggle me. I put Guinevere into the lowest of her 27gears to ease the strain but it flared up agonisingly and I was forced to dismount again. It was a bit hairy walking up a bendy main road in heavy traffic with darkness descending, but I’d rather that than risk doing myself permanent damage. Passing a sign for Battle, my only thought was “damn right it is!” But I am determined not to use that already overused pun in any writing of mine, so we’ll say no more about it. Finally, painfully, I limped into Hastings. From this direction, the ground is halfway down another steep hill, so I could soar effortlessly to a triumphant stop at the gates, as if it had been that easy all the way. The wonderful Hastings stewards made me feel more than welcome, let me stash Guinevere in an out-of-use turnstile, and refused to let me pay the entrance fee to watch the game. I promised to put £10 in the pot on their behalf, and went to clean myself up and watch Sutton win an exciting game 3-2. I love non-league football.

On an ordinary day, there are few things less exciting than cycling from the Kingston end of Worcester Park to the St Helier end of Mitcham, even if it is a Bank Holiday. However, if you are doing so in order to watch the Mighty U’s, and if it is one more stage in your epic mission to conquer all 22 Ryman Premier League grounds by bicycle, I find that helps to make things a little more interesting. Go on, try it. No, only joking: don’t try it. I am probably insane and would not necessarily recommend this to anyone. Anyway, cycling to Tooting & Mitcham United’s ground on a pleasant, sunny Bank Holiday Monday is exactly what I was doing, and to make an unappealing journey more interesting, I had publicly (well, on the Sutton United forum) set myself a time limit of 20 minutes to traverse the almost-four-miles of suburbia. Easy peasy! I thought to myself: with my average suburban speed of 16mph (according to my little computer gadget), I should have no trouble at all with such a short route through familiar territory. What I completely forgot, of course, was that it was very much uphill nearly all the way. But I only had room for one fundamental error this week, as opposed to my quota of three on a longer trip, and this was it. The lack of cycling facilities at the ground was not my error, but it was worrying. I had phoned the club just as I was about to leave, and had informed Tooting and Mitcham that Guinevere, my bike, was my most treasured possession. “We don’t really have any cycle facilities,” said the girl on the other end. This surprised me, as the football club is part of a large leisure complex. Oh well: if they don’t have the demand, then I suppose they don’t need to supply. Not every club is as wonderful as Sutton United with its bicycle shed. Of course. But this meant I had no idea what I was going to do with the thing. “But it’s my bike,” I protested, and realising that the obvious answer to this was “so what?” I added, “it’s worth £800 and I’m a bit worried that somebody might want to have a go at it.” I almost heard her shrug. “I suppose you could chain it to a railing in the car park or something,” she suggested, apparently indifferent to the concept of an £800 bike, who happens to be named Guinevere (I did not tell her this). And who could blame her? A railing in the car park it would have to be. Not ideal. The weather, on the other hand, was perfect. Sunny but not glaringly so, warm but not hot, airy but not windy. I actually wished that I were on my way to somewhere more distant and exotic. Why do all the difficult trips have to be in midwinter? I shall be speaking sternly to the Ryman League about this, I thought. The first big hill, going out of Worcester Park, wasn’t bad at all because I am used to it. But the road towards Morden, Ridge Road, is a beast. This is the one I had forgotten about. No matter. I have a nice bike, she says: what a show-off. It was fine, but it did slow me down a bit. 12 minutes gone. OK – halfway there. As long as I could do the rest in good time, I was well on course to make my 20 minutes. Until, that is, I got stuck behind a Volvo estate car, whose sole occupant seemed intent on driving around the speed bumps, meaning that she was impossible to overtake. She was weaving in and out, doing less than 20mph, and I wanted to fly down the hill. No fair! I would have stamped my foot, but that’s quite hard when you’re cycling downhill with your hands hovering over the brakes. I think she was concentrating so hard on the speed bumps that she completely failed to see me. I shook the Volvo off at the next crossroads – so long, sucker! – and wondered whether my loss of approximately 4 minutes would put me over my 20 minute limit. I was taking this seriously, you see, after having missed the entire first half of last week’s match due to “teething troubles,” and not wishing everyone to think that I was Not Capable of Rising to the Challenge. I am, after all, rather stubborn at times. Tooting and Mitcham’s ground is at the bottom of another big hill, so once I was over that it was plain sailing. Where to put my bike was another matter, but in the end I walked all the way round the back of the ground, chained poor Guinevere to a sturdy drainpipe in a most undignified fashion, and checked the time. Had I made it in 20 minutes? You bet I had. My stopwatch read 19m53s. Ha! I had raced the clock, and I had won. I ambled off to the bogs to get changed, receiving one or two funny looks on the way. Time for a cheeky pint while nobody’s looking, as it’s such a short journey home (just one pint, mind). “Are you the one who’s cycling to all the away matches?” This came from a Tooting and Mitcham fan, who claims to hate Sutton with all his might. “That’s me,” I said. “Are you doing it to raise money for charity?” “Sort of,” I said, “it’s for a good cause, but it’s also for the club.” “Oh,” he said, clearly disappointed, “I would’ve given you a tenner if it were for charity, but not for Sutton.” “Well, it’s up to you. But it is for a good cause. I’m raising money for Sutton’s Football Development Plan. It’s not just to develop the club itself. We’re planning to build new community facilities at the ground and…” I briefly explained what we were all about, including the development of women's and girls' football facilities and those for disabled people. I could see the poor man struggling with this, obviously torn between his deep-seated hatred of Sutton United and his desire to help out for a good cause. Eventually, he compromised by pulling a crumpled fiver out of his pocket, grunting “Here” and walking off. I was so impressed with this love-thy-neighbour display of goodwill that I almost felt guilty about our 3-0 win later on. Almost.

On the morning of my first away trip of the season, I was feeling a strange mixture of nerves and excitement. I'd only bought my new bike a few days ago (my old one was a useless pile of junk), and I'd never had one as fast or light as this one before. In fact, I was wobbling all over the place the first time I'd ridden it. This did not bode well. However, a few rides to work and back had ensured that I'd bonded well with the thing, and by the first day of the season, it even had a name. It was Guinevere. But I was still nervous. People had been saying "you'll never make it" and had been worrying about my safety on the roads. I had slept badly the night before, and had almost left the house without my maps. A word about these maps, by the way. They were utter rubbish. I hadn't had time to sort out proper ones printed on a suitable scale, and this was my first fundamental error. The second was using a borrowed bag that clipped onto the front of the bike, instead of a rucksack, for the first time. I'd been told that carrying a rucksack such a long distance would impair my speed and cause back problems. OK, then... Despite my resolution to be out of the house by 8am, it was becoming clear that this was not going to happen. By the time I'd showered, pulled on my cycling gear, packed my bag and forced down a couple of Nutri-Grain bars in lieu of a proper breakfast, it was nearly nine. Fighting down a mild panic, I unlocked Guinevere from the shed and set off, feeling that anything could go wrong from this moment onwards. Seven minutes later, disaster struck. Halfway down a hill, I hit a speed bump and, with an almighty crunch, the bag took a nosedive and came to a rest on top of my front wheel. After a bit of a fight, I managed to heave it back into position, but from that moment onward, the slightest bump - and on a bike like Guinevere, a dead insect on the road is a bump - would send it crashing back down. There was no way I could cycle with a heavy bag rubbing against my front wheel. I had only got as far as North Cheam, about a mile from my house in Worcester Park. Eventually, I managed to fix it, but at quite a cost. It had taken me an hour to get to Streatham, a distance of seven miles. It was almost ten o'clock already, and I had over forty miles left to do. Deciding that things could only get better and that I would just have to go ahead and deal with the darned thing slipping every time I went over a bump, I headed eastwards, rather grumpily, having to stop every few minutes to sort the bag out. My maps were next to useless and kept sending me down roads that didn't exist, adding yet more wasted time to my journey. It was only as I cycled through Dulwich and Catford, sailing over some enormous hills that my old bike would never have coped with, that I began to relax. Other than having to stop with annoying frequency to consult the inadequately scaled maps - which otherwise I would have just been able to glance at through the plastic pocket on that pesky bag - this part of the journey was going pretty well, thank you very much. In no time at all, I was steaming down a lovely, straight and pleasingly familiar road, past Welling United's ground. Shortly afterwards, I suddenly realised I was in Dartford. There is nothing particularly extraordinary about this in itself, but in this case it was accompanied by a feeling of dread. I had been losing more and more time due to the infernal bag, heavy traffic and impossibly-scaled maps, it was gone midday, and now I saw that my journey planner was cheerfully telling me to go down the A282 towards Thurrock. The feeling of dread, therefore, was due to my sudden recollection that the A282 is in fact the Dartford crossing; I was being told to go that way despite having specified to the route planner than I was not in a motor vehicle, and I had absolutely no idea how to get myself and Guinevere across. Ah. I should have remembered that fundamental errors come in threes, and that I had only made two up until then. With a vague feeling that it would have seemed appropriate to bring my passport, I popped my head around the door of the Crossing Control hut (I was not leaving Guinevere unsupervised for one moment), and asked how a cyclist might make the crossing. The Crossing Control man's face lit up, as if shepherding cyclists was his raison d'etre. "Easy!" he beamed. "You pick up the phone outside, dial 204 and tell them you want a lift to Essex!" Excellent. I did as he said, feeling absurdly happy that it really was that easy. And a free phone call, too. "Yes," barked a tinny voice. "Hello," I said brightly, "I'm at the crossing with a bicycle, and was advised to ring you to get across." "Kent or Essex?" For some reason, I had to think about this. "Er...Kent," I stammered. Goodness. I had cycled to another county and wasn't even tired. He hung up immediately, leaving me with a vague fear that he might simply hate people from Kent and that I would be left standing here all afternoon while he sat, swinging around on a swivel chair in his Essex office and laughing maniacally. Fighting down the urge to ring back and blurt out, "Please help me, I'm from Surrey," and deciding that this might make matters worse, I simply stood by a sign that said "CYCLISTS WAIT HERE" for want of anything better to do. I looked at Guinevere. She looked more tired than I did, and was going to need a good clean. As was I. Minutes later, another jolly-faced Crossing Control man turned up in a 4x4 and waved me over. Clearly they were all happy people, except for the one who had answered the phone. Perhaps only the Kent ones were happy. Mr Crossing Control strapped my bike onto the back of the 4x4 while we chatted briefly about the purpose of my trip, and he seemed quite interested. "Hop in," said he. I did, and he started the engine and took me all of 10 metres before stopping and getting out. "It's not my turn," he explained. "The fella who's taking you is just on his break. Won't be a minute." With that, he disappeared, leaving me in an exciting Crossing Control vehicle all on my own. I heard a distant voice telling his colleague about my vague "I'm cycling to my football team's away trips this season" explanation, and caught the words, "Leyton Orient? West Ham?" floating through the air; I know not why. "Right!" said the replacement Crossing Control man, who was even jollier-faced than the others, probably because he'd just been on his break. "So, we're off. What's this I hear about you going to a football match? What team do you support?" "Not Leyton Orient," I replied, to his obvious disappointment, despite the fact that as they were at Southampton that day I would have clearly been going the wrong way. "My team is Sutton United, and we're playing Concord Rangers today." For the second time running, I received a look of complete incomprehension. "Sutton United?!" he said, in a puzzled tone. This is the standard response I receive on telling people who I support. It's either that, or a vague, "Didn't you beat someone big once in the FA Cup?" He didn't even mention Concord Rangers. I think that may have been a bridge too far. Having asking me where I wanted to be dropped off and taken a quick look at my directions, the replacement Crossing Control man left me in a lay-by, informing me with a vague gesture towards a complicated-looking junction that London Road was "that road over there." It could have been any one of five roads. And the map was no help whatsoever. The first two I chose were obviously wrong, but the third looked OK. I asked some burly men of the sort you find hanging around outside exhaust and tyre places (who were indeed hanging around outside an exhaust and tyre place), and after a bit of banter they assured me that I was going the right way. Excellent. I headed through West Thurrock towards Grays. This was going well. Until I got to Grays, that is, where I hit a snag of colossal proportions, right in the town centre. The roads on my map didn't exist in the real world. They had simply been obliterated. Where the road I would supposedly take used to be, there was what was assuredly and indubitably a Morrisons supermarket; one of its walls within the car park even bore a sign for London Road, the road I wanted, as if to deliberately mock me. Nah nah nah nah nah, this is where your road used to be, stick that in yer pipe and smoke it. I went around it three times looking for any road names that matched those on my pathetic maps, but roads were either not labelled at all or bore names that had nothing whatsoever to do with those on the maps. I realised that I had already wasted thirty-five precious minutes in this horrible place. So I did the only logical thing to do in the circumstances. I threw a tantrum. "Well, that's it!" I screamed down the phone at my poor, long-suffering boyfriend, while trying to negotiate my way on foot through a shopping-day pedestrian-only street that seemed to have replaced the one on the map. "I've FAILED! There is no way I'll get there now!" "You haven't failed," he replied calmly, but I was beyond reason. "I HATE THIS PLACE!" I shouted, not caring who heard me. "THIS IS STUPID. IT'S RIDICULOUS. THEY HAVE BUILT A SUPERMARKET ON TOP OF MY ROUTE, HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FIND THE WAY AND WHAT THE **** AM I SUPPOSED TO DO NOW? THIS IS RIDICULO...oh. Oh, here's the road I wanted. Thanks for your help. Bye." Finally! After stupidly getting confused by an identical one in Pitsea, I had reached the correct roundabout, where I could pick up the A130 to Canvey Island, and this I did without further ado. I had wasted so much time, I now realised, that the match had already kicked off. Only one wrong turn later (yes, I know: better maps next time) I found myself approaching a set of non-league-looking floodlights. I knew this was the right place, because I'd already passed the turning for Canvey Island FC. Hallelujah! I had made it! A swift check of the time showed that I'd even made it in time for the second half. Rolling my eyes at this, I tethered my precious bike to any old fence in the car park - I was too late to take any more sensible measures, plus I'd only be here for another 50 minutes - pulled a pair of leggings and Sutton away shirt over my cycling gear and slunk into the ground to watch the second half. But at least I'd got there, and I was reliably informed that I had missed absolutely nothing of note and that it was still 0-0. I settled myself onto the back of the terrace with some old friends, just as the second half kicked off. Then my phone rang. It was the Other Half. "You made it!" he said, proudly, presumably in response to the text message I'd sent him to tell him so. "Yes," I beamed happily. "You've left your keys in your bike lock," he told me. "Basic, basic error." "Oh my God," I yelled, hurtling towards the exit, before suddenly realising that himself is an extremely convincing wind-up merchant. "Ha ha," I said, "you almost had me there, well done." "No, I'm serious," he said, "you've left your keys in your lock. That's really bad, you know." "Oh yeah?" said I, "and how would you know if I had?" "'Cause I've got them in my hand," he replied patiently, "and I've brought you some sandwiches, because I know you haven't had lunch." And he had, too: he even gave me and Guinevere a lift home. The match finished 0-0, and almost nothing happened. I was told that missing the first half was fine as it had been exactly the same as the second half. That night, I fell sound asleep right in the middle of Match of the Day.