Cycling Reading to Oxford – An accidental 100km?!

Having spent 4 years of my life living in Oxford and maybe visited only 4 times since I left back in 2022, I thought it was time to return.
My poor route planning was evidence I’ve spent minimal time actually outside on my bike since lockdown but thankfully my legs remembered how it all works.

If you’re new here, HI!, I’m Isy and im a semi-pro rowing athlete who is dipping my toe into the media world with minimal camera skills, budget and knowledge and a bunch of self-taught editing skills! Any feedback is welcome in the comments – I will read them all!

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Good morning, friends. Sunshining and I think we’re going to go cycle from Reading to Oxford. Oh, the look doggy. So, I find it hard on the bike. Always end up kind of feeling a bit underfueled. So, I’m going to try and put some stuff more in my bottles. That’s just a drink mix that I don’t know where I got it from. I’ve acquired it from somewhere. Going to take some cookies. Three too many. No, the route is about 80k, which isn’t too bad. I just take a lot of snacks. Worst case, Oxford has a train station. I’m hoping it’s not going to get too windy. Everything is just out of charge this morning, but we’re nearly there. So, we’re currently waiting for everything to charge because I turned everything on this morning and it all had like 10%. So, that is my poor planning. Waiting for some more juice and then we’ll get going. Think we’re climbing ready. Just heading into the first climb hill bit. There should only be about two solidly uphill bits cuz once you’re out of reading and into a proper oxy, it’s so fat. First wrong turn. I think this is really hurt out the one road I didn’t want to be on ended up on. So I’m literally hiding in three bus lane. I’m just tucking in and riding in that bus stops trying to avoid it on the way back. Here is pretty flat so I don’t think it’s going to matter too much. [Music] Okay. We just hit 15 minutes. We run just over 35k roads as well. Oh dear. Just killed myself. Think I would help to get up but the bit I actually wanted to go to was the bit at the bottom of all the hills. Actually where I spent most of my time as a student go down there. Yeah, it feels a bit weird being back. I left in 2022. Wasn’t planning to go to the end. wasn’t planning to move to Henley and then within four or five days everything had changed and packing town on one hand the number of times I’ve been back since this is where we like go to the car get coffee [Music] literally hasn’t changed just there I might have missed it but I think I was on that we’ve done 40 just over 46 6k detour added 5k each way. So we’ll do probably closer to 90 than 80. Never mind. I cycled through and actually see the cafe I wanted. So I’m just googling if there’s another one I want to go to or change of plan. I just cycled past cafe where I actually wanted to stop. Um the short one but he pean. Yeah. [Music] So, I did have to do two laps of Cali Road before I worked out or remembered where Pelison actually was. Great cake. Most of the shelf was like gluten-free and vegan, so it was dairy free. ideal. We went there cuz I knew that they would have a wrap for my bike and I could sit outside. The nuffy pecan cake thing 9 out of 10. It was really good. It was like 2.9 which is the cheapest cookie in Henley is now £4 or something ridiculous. I forgot this is the worst traffic. Then we basically will do the same back. The whole ride is going to be going to hedge my bets and go 92. No, no, I’m going to change that. I’m going to say 94 95k. A bit of a sit down. Absolutely fine. My back’s just got really sore, which isn’t unusual. Taking the opportunity to maybe look out a separate route. Might just go out towards Goring instead. I’m also running out of time to get home. Just Someone’s been nice and checked if I’m all right, which is which is lovely. That’s some grass on my face. We’re nearly home to avoid busy roads. Probably longer than I had really anticipated or accounted for. It could be worse. It could be super windy and it could be raining, which I’ve done some of the rides in. So, it’s all right. What does that mean in total? Oh no. 99. No, that can’t be right. I haven’t done one kilometer. Too short. One kilometer. What was the elevation? 650. We might just scrape it. 46.96. Add 53 6. 100k and 500 m. Cavage to Oxford. I’m back. completed. I’m now really hungry. I’m gonna go eat some cookies.