Day 21 Tring to Claygate

76km, 320m climb.

 Once more it was raining when we woke up!

The forecast implied that it would gradually get worse through the day, so we reluctantly left home comforts behind and got on the road soon after 9.00. 

It seemed strange having so little luggage, but even so the initial climb from Tring to Wiggington still seemed pretty steep! The rain gradually eased and we continued to be quite lucky with the weather, staying dry until we were nearly home. 

We have tried several different ways to cycle to or from Tring over the years and this one proved to be the best. We’ve always used the same route on pleasant, quiet lanes through the Chilterns until after the M40. This time we opted to go just east of Slough through Black Park and Langley Country Park - all off-road and excellent. 

Picnic lunch stop in Langley Country Park

We carried on through this improbably quiet countryside on the outskirts of Slough, now on NCN 61 which became very "rural" before a short stretch along the Slough Arm of the Grand Union Canal which was built in 1882 to carry bricks being used for the rapid expansion of London. We then passed through Langley itself on a purpose-built paved cycle path.

NCN 61 near Langley

Near Poyle the route was on the road, but not too busy, before taking a neat little track around junction 14 of the M25 - off road, but rather grotty (I certainly wouldn't have liked to be alone round here), then a cycle route over Stanwell Moor alongside the M25 - not a highlight of the trip, but only a kilometre or two! This brought us into Staines where we met up with our outbound route from three weeks ago.

River Thames at Staines

From here it was a quick run along the river to Walton, then back to Claygate just as it started to rain again.

It's been hard work, but we have cycled 1107km and climbed over 6000m, seen lots of interesting parts of the UK, enjoyed our socialising en route and had great fun. 

We are pretty exhausted though....