Inspired by our Henley Highwayman road sportive, we wanted to bring a CX event to the Chiltern Hills above that venerable Thames-side town. As we know from our now well established Wildwood CX, the Chilterns are a near perfect mix of roads tracks and trails for CX/gravel riding, and spinning out a route a little further up the chain allows us to explore some of the darker, grittier folds of this deceptively demanding range of hills.
While Henley-on-Thames might enjoy a genteel reputation today, it’s hidden history recalls it as a hotspot of dashing villainy, and for awhile at least, the dark hills north of the town were justifiably known as the badlands. Henley was the last stop on the Thames for trading vessels, and as the boats unloaded their valuable cargo, Highwayman and robbers watched from the overlooking hills to make their crooked plans. The truth of these robberies usually far from the romantic image of the gentleman robbers we have today, making this part of the country a forbidding proposition for tradesmen and travellers.
And the very things that made this area perfect for highway robbery, make it ideal for CX riding today. The densely folded and wooded hills conceal a network of lanes, tracks and trails the wind and climb and fall continuously. It’s a surprisingly harsh corner of the home counties; where the crumbling tarmac on the back roads can prove perilous for skinny road bikes, but where CX or gravel bikes come into their own. 29ers and 27.5in hardtails will eat up the miles on the dirt, and the constantly switching surface provides an entertaining ride and acts as a great leveller between the variety of bikes on the route.
68, 50 & 35km course options.
No doubt his lawyer advised him that being a total brainless scumbag is not a defence in law?
I sometimes wonder if this sort of resoonse is because someone in the Police feels this person is bombarding them with too many videos and they are...
Turn your Java script off.
Best politician dissonance quote of the day "...I'm keen to change the way the Combined Authority works ... to focus on delivery ... and that takes...
Added to the liberal use of "theoritically", the repeated reference to non bike use has this tagged as one of the poorest reviews I've read.
I too watch from flag to flag but I can only do that because as a freelance writer working from home I can have it on whilst I work, I appreciate...
The freezing of fuel duty doesn't help poor people: genuinely poor people cannot afford to run a vehicle, so the freezeing of fuel duty is no...
The idiot I saw today cycling whilst looking at his phone and not using his handlebars could do with a bit of Japanese law!
It's warmer up here than it was on the Whitehaven to Sunderland C2C a month ago!
There has not been much real world thought been put into the electromagnetic pedals. The idea they can just unclip after a certain cadence is...