Day 1 Chichester to Bath

The first day of the Roman Roads challenge to cycle many of the ancient roads of England.

This video is the first day: Chichester to Bath

So, here we are. Fishborn Roman Palace. All these people just about to leave for the Roman roads challenge. Okay, Richard, thanks so much for joining us and uh thanks for helping us out with everything. Okay, day one of uh Roman roads challenge and here we are at Portstown Hill with Port behind us and Haley Island. How many miles that? 12.43. Yeah, 12.43. Few more 12.43s to go for uh remake bar today. Yeah, lovely crowd at Fishborn Rome Palace see us off. So uh hope we do proud as some Roman soldiers. But one gave gave us a coin for good luck as well. So did you get one as well? You did. Oh, we just thought it was you. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not all about you, man. Just ruined it downhill. Oh yeah. occasional lovely smooth shaded cycle path. So, first technical issue, mouse pan is broken. Five m or 33 miles in the actual arm to his paire. It’s gone. Should be there. Regard the weather and fighting with us. Apologies for the squeaky break. Let’s talk about how this challenge came about. So, full disclosure, my mother is Claire April, the chairman of City District Council, and uh in 2018, she was uh on part of the charity committee for the mayor of Chicha, Martin Bell, and she said, “We’re looking for someone to cycle from Jon to Chidster.” And I remember thinking like, “Good luck with that.” But well, someone wiser than me once said, “It’s not that your mother pushes your buttons, your mother installs them.” And I have a feeling she kind of understood that. Maybe that’ll stick in my head. But I remember thinking like, “What? I’ve got one condition. I need just to find someone who’s mad enough to join me. Enter stage right, Mr. Malcolm. Maybe.” Okay. So, we did that. Um and then this time obviously didn’t want to do the same thing. So we now decided to do Roman roads. I remember going see my daughter university and just thinking how straight the road was and thinking ah Roman roads. Then of course liter being a Roman hub makes sense to do it. Now my mother is 4’11 of energy and drive. She’s really quite extraordinary in that sense. Um, don’t get me wrong, she has the diplomatic skills, a serial killer with a sledgehammer, but she is quite extraordinary. I’m very proud to be her son. And uh, she was here um, at the start when Stone Pillow was formed. And uh, so it’s charity’s been quite close to her heart. She’s very much uh, someone who uses a position to try and help other people as much as possible. sort of sense of collaboral injustice and tries to do what you can to help. Now, when it comes to the panel house gallery um community program, I’ve got another connection. That’s my uh stepfather Ralph who did, as far as we’re aware, didn’t have an artistic phone in his body. And uh the community program offers a chance to people of all kind of backgrounds and abilities just kind of find their artistic voice. And that certainly helped with him. In the same way, stone pillow is not just about kind of shelter, but it’s also about uh helping people forge uh futures for themselves as well. Um and actually go to the extent where my stepfather Ralph actually had a piece exhibited at World Academy. Um so that’s why we’re doing the two charities and that’s why I’m saying nice things about them now because when I’ve left my backside in Lancaster and my knees in South Shields, I’ll probably be cursing their name. Weather can’t decide whether it wants to punish us or not. Rain, sun, cloud, you know. Music clouds. Okay. So, this is our first Roman road. This is Portway. We’re only riding on on for about 600 y. Um, but Portway is a bit of a misnomer. So, this one goes from London to Dorchester, but Dorchester was never before. Um but it got all its goods from way largely think through canals and stuff like that but it’s known as portway. So when we uh started we started at Fishborn. Um and Fishborn used to be have a kind of port area I think particularly for shallow draft uh boats. Uh but and Fishborn Roman Palace by way largest villa north of the Alps and uh apparently got a bigger footprint than Buckingham Palace. Okay. But this is Portway and uh it’s our first Roman road and it deserves its place in the sun. I know it’s quite hard. There we are. This place is currently vacant. What is it called, Mount? It’s called Portway House. Why is it called that mountain? because we’re on a Roman road and it is Portway Road and it all links way back. So fishbowl is a whole link with that. It’s like listening to Dr. Alice Roberts. 10 miles from Bath. At this point, I don’t even know if Bath exists.