All Roads Lead to Rome

By David Ward

The book is about a sponsored cycle ride undertaken in May 1998, with the objective of cycling from Sheffield to Rome in the space of a fortnight. The story describes the obstacles and hazards involved in trying to complete such a challenging feat.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504990110

David Ward

David Ward is an established lawyer practicing in Sheffield and specializing in insolvency and dispute resolution. He has been cycling since his teenage years both in the UK and in continental Europe.

Book preview

AuthorHouse™ UK

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403  USA

www.authorhouse.co.uk

Phone: [phone]

© 2015 David Ward. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  11/06/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9010-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9009-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9011-0 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Introduction

Day 1    Friday 8 May 1998

Day 2    Saturday 9th May 1998

Day 3    Sunday 10 May 1998

Day 4    Monday 11 May 1998

Day 5    Tuesday 12 May 1998

Day 6    Wednesday 13 May 1998

Day 7    Thursday 14 May 1998

Day 8    Friday 15 May 1998

Day 9    Saturday 16 May 1998

Day 10    Sunday 17 May 1998

Day 11    Monday 18 May 1998

Day 12    Tuesday 19 May 1998

Day 13    Wednesday 20 May 1998

Day 14    Thursday 21 May 1998

Day 15    Friday 22 May 1998

Day 16    Saturday 23 May 1998

Epilogue

INTRODUCTION

There can come a point in one’s life when, after taking stock of one’s achievements so far, and comparing them with one’s expectations and the various successes of one’s contemporaries, the conclusion is reached that the record is relatively disappointing. One might ask oneself the following questions. What have I actually done that is genuinely significant? What might I be remembered for?

Such thoughts were beginning to preoccupy me during the second week of a fortnight’s package holiday in the Algarve, in late summer 1997. Katherine and I had decided to book a last minute self-catering deal with a well-known tour operator, but it had hardly been a great success. Our first allotted accommodation in Vilamoura had proved far from satisfactory, and accordingly we had been moved, after one week, to a holiday village in Albufeira. Although a good deal better, this, too, was not without its problems, and one afternoon I found myself walking alone across some scrubland, to explore the nearby coastal features that were visible from the balcony of our apartment.

The everyday routine of daily working life perhaps did not offer the opportunity of coming up with innovative ideas. However, as I strolled along through this parched Portuguese landscape, I found myself looking back on a summer of fairytale weddings, including that of a friend of a friend, who, it seems, was so perfectly matched with his new wife that they had, allegedly, chosen to spend their honeymoon cycling, for charity, on a tandem bike from Land’s End to John O’Groats. How very romantic.

This had made me think. I had been cycling regularly since I was a child. When I was 18, I had ridden to Manchester Airport and back in a day. I had also been on several cycle touring holidays with the lads, in places like Cornwall, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, and even Yugoslavia. Although they had all been challenging and exciting at the time, they were nothing exceptional or out of the ordinary. Nothing to write home about, so to speak. Was I to be upstaged by some love-struck, newly-married couple, on their fairytale honeymoon?

Quite clearly, there was no challenge, in cycling terms, within the UK, that was going to better Lands End to John O’Groats. That said, I recalled that an old schoolfriend had, at the age of 26, given up his routine job in London to undertake a 14-year cycle tour around the world. Whilst I had no wish to emulate that, I understood that it had begun with him riding all the way from Sheffield to Venice in less than a fortnight.

So it looked like it was, in theory, possible to reach northern Italy within the maximum time normally allowed off work for holidays, i.e. two weeks. But how about Rome? After all, the Eternal City had once been the centre of the civilised world, and had been a popular destination for pilgrims during the Middle Ages, so now that the end of the second millennium, clearly a significant date, was fast approaching, it seemed as good a time as any to follow in their footsteps, and attempt to make that historic journey. Moreover, I did not actually know of anyone having gone there by bicycle all the way from northern England, though I was sure it must, inevitably, have been done a fair few times already. Then again, to cycle all the way from Sheffield to Rome in only two weeks, on very standard and ageing bikes, loaded with luggage, and with no support or back-up, would be a very daunting prospect indeed. Perhaps it was an over-ambitious pipe dream, but yet it seemed, tantalisingly, to be just about within reach, although it would undoubtedly require an incredible amount of physical and mental stamina, and probably also a considerable slice of luck. Was it, though, actually possible? It was appreciably further, in terms of cycling distance, than Venice.

This fledgling concept remained with me for the remainder of that package holiday on the Algarve. Whilst we were still in Albufeira, and walking down one of the steep, pedestrianised streets, we caught sight of a sandwich board, propped up outside a wine bar, upon which it was written Lady Diana is Dead, though at a time when mobile phone text messaging was still in its infancy, and making calls from abroad was prohibitively expensive, we were not able to verify the truth of this statement for a couple of days, until the British newspapers belatedly hit the Portuguese newsstands. As it turned out, her funeral took place the day after we returned to the UK, where the outpouring of national grief verged on hysteria.

During the autumn of 1997, I became more and more engrossed with the idea of cycling to Rome the following spring. Not being especially enamoured with the idea of undertaking such a mammoth feat single-handedly, I managed to persuade my long-standing friend and former next-door neighbour from my teenage years, John Ashworth, to take part in the venture. He, too, was still a bachelor at the time, and was also enthusiastic about taking on something that would undoubtedly be a once-in-a lifetime challenge. We decided that the best time for the trip would be the following May, when the weather should hopefully be reasonably good, without yet being too hot, since it was comparatively early in the season, but there would nevertheless be a generous amount of daylight.

Because the journey was, in theory, to take the form of a pilgrimage, the ride was to be as much about the actual route taken as the eventual destination. It was therefore decided to take in some of Europe’s historic cities along the way, such as Cambridge, Canterbury, Amiens, Dijon, Pisa, Siena, and Orvieto, even though the most direct route would be to avoid most of them. We also decided to include London and Paris as well, being the capital cities of the countries we were due to pass through (though to have passed through the Swiss capital, Bern, as well, would have been impractical, given the time we had available).

A further consideration was topography and relief. We were keen to avoid particularly hilly areas, especially early in the ride, when we would probably still not be quite as fit as we eventually hoped to become. We would therefore aim to keep to the eastern side of England, passing through Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, where the flat countryside, and generally fewer conurbations or densely populated areas, should enable us to cover greater distances more easily. Similarly, much of the eastern side of France, within roughly 100 miles radius of Paris, looked to be fairly level, for the most part.

By contrast, the latter stages of the journey would present us with some rather more problematic natural features to overcome. Unless we were to cycle right the way to the southern French coast, and ride across the border into Italy along the Mediterranean highway, we would have to cross over the Alps at some point. There would simply not be the time to make that coastal detour. It would involve travelling an enormous additional distance, and would have added as much as three extra days to the total journey. We could not afford this luxury.

The most direct route into northern Italy looked to be to skirt round the northern and eastern shores of Lake Geneva, in western Switzerland, then traverse the legendary St. Bernard Pass into Italy’s Valle d’Aosta. This, in itself, was a formidable obstacle, considering that the top of the pass appeared to reach a height of just under 2,500 metres. Although we had cycled over a marginally higher pass in Austria back in 1987, (Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse), that had not been midway through an epic venture like this one would be. Attempting such a feat would be very weather-dependent, and at that altitude it could be uncomfortably cold at any time of the year.

Once 1998 had begun, I very slowly began to train myself for the tremendous test of endurance that lay ahead. Initially, with it being winter weather, and still dark from mid-afternoon, I began with a few very local rides, making a total of 17 miles covered in January. February was slightly more adventurous, achieving 75 miles altogether, but still nothing much above ten miles in one day. I also undertook a few lengthy hikes on foot across the Peak District moors, in order to try to work off some of those excess kilos accumulated over the festive period, and improve my overall fitness. By March, the cycling practice began in earnest, with 168 miles covered during that month. In April, I took on a pretty tough or lengthy one-day ride each weekend, including the Woodhead and Snake passes, Gainsborough (aiming for Lincoln, but I sustained a puncture), and finally an 80-mile ride to York, on 25th April, giving a monthly total of 365 miles, and 625 since the start of the year.

In preparation for the big ride, accommodation was pre-booked for some, but not all, of our prospective overnight stops. This was because, in some places, we felt we were likely to be arriving relatively late, and availability could well be quite limited. However, in the case of the remainder, we felt that hotels and guest houses would be plentiful, and we did not wish to tie ourselves down to having to arrive before a specified time on a particular day. Therefore the only reservations we made were the first three overnight stops in England, being Cuckney, Cambridge and Canterbury, together with Lausanne in Switzerland, since that looked to be at the end of a long day’s cycling; Aosta in northern Italy, which was on the far side of the St. Bernard Pass; Sestri Levante, on the Mediterranean coast; and, for whatever reason, our penultimate stop in Orvieto. This left four nights in France, one in Switzerland, and, bizarrely, four nights in Italy, including our final destination, Rome, where nothing was pre-arranged.

Another consideration was sponsorship. Surely such an enterprising initiative, the outcome of which was very uncertain, should be used as a way of trying to raise funds for charity. My work colleagues at the time certainly showed an interest in what I was looking to do, and one managed to place an article about my plans in the Law Society’s Gazette, which led to a donation of £150.00 from one London solicitor. A charity bank account was opened with Barclays, for the purpose of holding the funds received for this purpose.

The question now arose as to which charity I should look to support. Although one colleague had initially suggested the National Kidney Federation, I was more impressed by another idea that had been put forward, the Diana Memorial Fund, because Diana was still very much in the public memory, less than a year after her death, and it would probably prove to be a more popular cause.

One of my colleagues actually knew one of the administrators of the Diana Memorial Fund. I had been working in Chesterfield for the last two and a half years, and it turned out that Paul Burrell, formerly Princess Diana’s butler, had grown up in the local area before entering royal service. Over a period of a couple of months I struck up a rapport with him, which eventually led to me being allowed to use the official logo, Diana’s signature, in order to publicise the forthcoming ride.

With a little help from my colleagues, a publicity logo for the Sheffield to Rome bike ride was put together. It consisted of the outline of a cyclist on a bike, the front wheel of which was filled in with the Union Jack, and the rear wheel with the Italian flag, against the outline of the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. This was surrounded by a laurel wreath, such as was routinely presented in ancient competitions.

I then approached a graphic designer, based on the same trading estate where I worked at the time, to prepare two templates, one bearing the logo and the words Sponsored Cycle Ride, Sheffield to Rome, May 1998, and the other showing our itinerary and the proposed dated, 8th to 23rd May. Another template was made bearing the Diana logo, and I took all of these down to a printing shop at the Meadowhall shopping centre in order to have them printed on a number of very cheap, pale blue cotton teeshirts that had been bought especially for the ride.

The laurel leaf logo was printed on the front, with the Diana signature above it and the proposed itinerary on the back, although one of the shirts was printed incorrectly with just the itinerary, but I decided to use this as scruff, for everyday wear and tear. Two similar shirts were also printed for John, but without the Diana logo, because he was intending to raise money for an alternative charity.

During the final week before the planned start of the Rome trip I dismantled my bicycle, replacing the tyres, brake blocks and cables. I even removed the chain and the rear sprocket set, in order to clean them and remove all grease and gunge. Whilst it was sensible to fit the bike with new parts, where needed, in advance of such a long journey, there were inevitably likely to be teething problems, where adjustments to some of the newly- or re-fitted moving components would need to be made, and these may well only become apparent once the cycle was out on the road.

The sense of anticipation was mounting…….

DAY 1

Friday 8 May 1998

The great day had finally arrived, and after weeks of rather inclement weather conditions were now looking quite promising, which put me in the right frame of mind to embark on such a daunting challenge.

For the most part, that spring Friday had been an ordinary working day. It had begun with Katherine, whom I would not be seeing for another two and a half weeks, giving me a good luck card to take on the journey with me. Thereafter I had driven to the office, which at that time was situated in a big old house on the outskirts of Sheffield, where I worked as a solicitor. The morning had been quite routine, though I’d had to take my car in to a nearby garage for an MOT retest after some more work on the rear brakes. In the afternoon I had picked it up, after paying a rather painful bill, and had driven over to Rotherham for a meeting, concerning one of my clients, with an insolvency practitioner. On the way back, I had called at the Meadowhall shopping centre to pick up the last of my sponsored bike ride tee-shirts sporting the official Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund logo. I had returned to the office, compiled a list of the various ongoing jobs for the benefit of my colleagues, and then left the office for my parents’ house at about 17:15.

John’s parents and my own had been next door neighbours for more than two decades, which is how we had become friends initially. He had arrived back earlier in the afternoon, having cycled from Preston to Bolton the previous day, stayed overnight with some colleagues, and then crossed over the Pennines via the Snake Pass. I knew from experience that the total distance he would have covered so far was at least 75 miles, and that the terrain he had crossed earlier today would have made the ride particularly tough. Whilst I have to admit I had perhaps been partially concerned at the possibility of being upstaged by my long standing chum cycling a greater distance than myself to reach the Vatican, the fact was that the official or sponsored ride started from our old local, the Norfolk Arms at Ringinglow. In any event, such exertions prior to even reaching the starting line had the potential to take their toll.

Both of our bikes were now wheeled out ready to be loaded up in our parents’ adjacent drives; my pale blue Raleigh Zenith, which I’d bought in 1987, and which had already had its 501 tubing repaired due to stress fractures, and John’s even older pale green Carlton Corsa - quite a museum piece, although he kept it in meticulous working order.

Our luggage, containing everything we would be taking for the proposed 16 days trip, was then attached to the cycles. In my case, this consisted of a large blue Exmoor saddlebag, with a top pocket and 2 side pockets, which had been bought way back in 1985, and which was made of a waterproofed canvas-type material. The saddlebag contained my toolkit and replacement inner tube, a compact camera and a camcorder, (which John had thought it foolish to bring along, due to the extra weight), waterproofs and locks for the bike. The 2 Karrimor panniers were even older. They had been given to me as a present for my birthday back in 1983. They were made of a dark green waterproofed nylon-type material. The left pannier contained shirts and trousers for evenings, and in the zip-up pouch a folder containing valuables such as passport, air tickets, and travellers’ cheques as well as foreign currency. This was at a time before the advent of the Euro. The right pannier contained indoor shoes, underwear, swimming kit and maps. The panniers were actually slightly the worse for wear, as they were only attached, rather than fastened, to the bicycle frame (rack) by slide-on clips at the top, and a folding, clip-on toggle further down. There were no straps, as such, and one of the top clips, on the right-hand pannier, had partially broken.

We had aimed to set off to the official starting point at 18:15, but our parents wanted to see us off, and there was the opportunity for them to take start of the ride photos in the drive, and then side-by-side outside in front of the houses. Consequently, it was more like 18:35 by the time we finally began turning the pedals.

The journey between our parents’ houses and the Norfolk Arms, up along Ringinglow Road, was for us the most familiar cycling route that existed. A 1.7 mile, almost dead straight, thoroughfare, leading out of the suburbs and into the countryside, climbing gently by around 250 feet, had been the route on which we had cut our teeth on our first serious bikes as teenagers, and had proved a popular and obvious choice for a short leisurely foray on two wheels during our school and student years, particularly as the way home was all downhill. We had even cycled up to the pub in the evenings back in the early days, until I had a nasty accident coming back one night, after which Shanks’s pony was preferred. Consequently a ride up to the Norfolk Arms, in the pleasantly warm sunshine on this late spring evening, seemed the most normal thing in the world, albeit slightly surreal in the light of what we were embarking upon. In fact the pub was situated slightly to the west of the city, which meant the total distance to Rome would actually be slightly greater than would otherwise have been the case.

We reached the Norfolk Arms around 18:50, much earlier than we would normally have arrived walking up there after tea. This had been our local for about 17 years, ever since we were in our late teens. One of the highest pubs in Sheffield, it was situated on the edge of the moors, five miles from the city centre, with commanding views over the western suburbs and the surrounding green belt known as the Mayfield Valley. Built in a tiny hamlet called Ringinglow about 200 years earlier, it dated from the time when two 18th century turnpike roads were built, converging at this point. An intriguing 3-storey octagonal structure, known locally as the Round House, had also been built at the junction, directly opposite the pub, to serve as a toll booth. Nowadays it was merely a private house, although curiously some of its original arched windows seemed to have been bricked up.

The Norfolk Arms had something of a forecourt adjacent to the main road, which tended to be used as a car park in winter, but where, by this time of the year, there were a few wooden picnic tables for those wishing to drink or dine al fresco. Curiously, the frontage was adorned with tiny pennants and bunting, probably in anticipation of the forthcoming World Cup in France, but just perhaps, maybe, to commemorate this phenomenal event. Sitting in front of the pub on this balmy evening was a send-off party, which consisted of the bosses, my colleagues Steve and Andy, and former colleague Jayne with her husband Dave. She had helped me out considerably in the planning stages by contacting various organisations to try to attract sponsors, and she had also arranged for the planned event to be publicised by means of an article and photograph in the Law Society’s Gazette.

The partners for whom I worked soon departed in a flashy convertible with opened top, but not long after they had left another colleague, Rebecca, arrived with her husband and their child. Thereafter John and I both ensured we had a full belly with which to start on our journey; in my case I had a salmon steak and chips, washed down with some refreshing Dry Blackthorn cider, sitting outside at one of these picnic tables. Perhaps not the ideal way to start an evening’s exertions, but there was a sense of euphoria given that this was, for us, hopefully going to be a historic moment.

Having suitably digested our meals, we prepared for the official start of our long trek at 20:00. We did not consider Cuckney, which was to be our first overnight stop, to be very far, nor indeed did we expect it to take us very long to reach it. I had guessed it was around 20 miles away, and had even invited those present at the start to join us for a further drink when we arrived there, at 21:15, as I put it. At this point I fitted my speedometer to my handlebars, set at zero. John, too, had a speedometer, and it would be interesting to see just how co-ordinated they were when it came to recording mileage, since even the slightest discrepancy could add up to a few miles difference over a long distance.

Jayne, in her characteristic demonstrative and flamboyant style, arranged for most of those drinking in the pub at the time to come out to see us off, and of course the obligatory official start photos had to be taken. As it turned out, these looked quite impressive, given that their content showed a scene of 2 riders with their fully-laden cycles, an impromptu crowd of well-wishers in the background, and of course the aforementioned bunting!

Setting off, then, for Rome, at 8 o’clock, in the late evening sunshine, we took the turning directly opposite the Norfolk Arms, to the left of the Round House, known as Sheephill Road. After passing through a shallow dip at first, this was a relatively flat road running along the edge of the moors, but before long we took another left turning into the aptly named Long Line, a dead straight road which, after an initial steep drop, continued gently downhill for about a mile. If anything, the direction perhaps took us slightly back on ourselves, in again towards town, and we had often used it as an alternative route home following a trip onto the moors above the Norfolk Arms.

The straightness of the road, with its gentle downhill gradient, allowed us to cruise along comfortably. Halfway down Long Line, we both sounded our horns to commemorate registering the first official mile on our cycle computers. It was clear, even at this early stage, that mine was marginally more generous than John’s. Although they had been set based on the diameter of the wheels (in my case 700C), they could also be affected by the thickness of the tyres, which could, for instance, be 700x23, 25 or 28C, so it was difficult to be precise.

At the bottom of Long Line there was a crossroads, actually something of an accident blackspot due to poor visibility, where we crossed over the main A625 Hathersage Road, and trundled along Brickhouse Lane, through the famously well-heeled suburban village of Dore, and then down the mansion-lined Dore Road before reaching the A621 Baslow Road in the bottom of the Sheaf Valley. We crossed this too, on this occasion by means of a staggered junction, and then had to climb, for the first time on the ride proper, up Twentywell Lane, actually quite steep towards the top, before turning left onto the Ring Road. This took us around the southern edge of Sheffield, through an area of brick-built council tenements between the two postwar estates of Lowedges and Greenhill, before eventually reaching the Meadowhead roundabout on the A61, which enabled us to turn right, heading out of the city and into the Derbyshire countryside.

A couple more roundabouts, where we turned first left and then right, and then another left turning in the village of Coal Aston, took us out onto the Eckington Road, following the southern edge of the leafy Moss Valley, heading away from Sheffield in a southeasterly direction, past a surprising number of garden centres. Due to all the liquid refreshment consumed earlier at the send-off party, it was necessary to take a comfort stop at the large, mock-Tudor, chain food pub called the Blacka Moor.

Continuing on from here, the meandering road led to a crossroads, where there were options to turn right towards Apperknowle, or to continue straight on, towards Old Whittington, where my work had been based until very recently, so it was still very familiar territory. However, we turned left, heading eastwards, and presently the panorama of the industrial Rother Valley, and landmarks beyond it such as Bolsover Castle, came into view. The road now began to descend into the valley, first through the village of Marsh Lane, and then the small town of Eckington.

We had now travelled about two miles from the Blacka Moor, and ten miles from the start, and it was apparent that we were not going to reach our first overnight stop, the Greendale Oak in Cuckney, before the time we had told them we would arrive, 21:30. In fact it seemed likely to take considerably longer. I had decided I had no need for my mobile telephone on this trip, believing it was unlikely to be necessary, since there were two of us, and John in those days did not even possess one. Furthermore, they were expensive to use abroad. However, this turned out to have been a mistake, as later events will demonstrate.

It was imperative that we contacted the Greendale Oak to let them know we were still coming, so we stopped when we saw an old-style red telephone box on a street corner in Eckington, and called the pub to advise that we would arrive somewhat later than planned. Whether we had set off later than we had intended, or had simply underestimated the time needed, it was difficult to say; but fortunately there seemed to be no problem. They would await our arrival.

We continued on downhill through Eckington on this main road, which was lined by a curious hotchpotch of different-styled buildings of diverse ages; but then, just before reaching the Co-op - another supermarket I frequented regularly - we turned right and passed through the centre of this small north Derbyshire town, where the customary gang of baseball-capped teenagers were hanging around outside the late-opening convenience store, before reaching a T-junction where we turned right onto the main A616 Sheffield to Newark road, which we would be following right the way to its end. Initially this road ran along the floor of the Rother Valley to industrial Renishaw, where there was a sharp double bend to cross a railway line. Beyond this would be the only hill of any significance that I knew we would encounter this evening, because it involved a fairly substantial climb back out of the valley towards Barlborough. As it turned out, however, it did not pose too many problems, and overcoming it proved less of an ordeal than expected.

Close to the top of the rise we turned left into Barlborough village, in order to avoid the more modern continuation of the road that would have taken us to the busy roundabout at junction 30 of the M1. After passing a pub curiously named the Dusty Miller, we did, however, cross over the M1 via a bridge on this old road, and passed through