A slice of life - Notts to London by canal tow paths only.

Sometimes the best approach is "oh fuck it.  Just do it"

That bloke Lachlan Morten is a bit of a (skinny) monster and if you don't get inspired by his Great Divide record or Leal Wilcox and her riding, then you're dead inside.  So that inspired me.   And I'd been watching Peaky Blinders.

Even with all the Zwift riding and other stuff, I had this nugget of an idea rattling my brain - "how far point to point can you get without using roads in the UK?"

Firstly, the UK is a rat hole of densely packed roads, towns, cities, villages and everywhere has tarmac.   Some of it's good, some terrifying, some shit quality, some exciting but mainly........it's everywhere and choking.   So I had the idea of either stringing together lots and lots of short green lanes (with a lot of linking roads) or having to look for alternative options.......canals!   Hell yeah!   UK still has the remains of the canal network so I'd use the towpaths instead!  If Tommy could ship contraband from Brum to the London docks using the cut, then I can ride Nottingham to London using it too.

Easy - (1) plot route using towpaths; (2) use a bike (3) avoid tarmac.  An epic long distance game of "The floor road is lava".

No idea what the surfaces would be like etc, but in my idealistic head view I was riding through the summer evening down gravel tracks all the way to London, trundling along 1.5m wide paths.   I'd have some Gucci bike with 29'er wheels, bento bag, nice rigid frame, either CX MTB or gravel bike and much the miles.   This turned out more epic in eventuality.

To start with, bike choice.   I don't have that Mason bike I dream of, but I do have a 2005 Coyote Dual Slalom bike I bought off a kid I taught years ago.   It's 26' wheels, creaks like hell, has a stripped BB and twisted gear hanger, but it'd work!   I have tri bar extensions, a water tank, Apidure bags and other stuff, so I can use that.  Sexy or Insta ready it is not....but fuck it.   If I held off waiting for the bike....I'd miss any chance of doing it.

Now for the timings.   I had had the idea of end of July to take benefit of long days and warm weather......but thee were 40'th birthdays, annual holidays and other things going on.   Instead, it rolled on to autumn and the UK being hit by storm Babet.  As UK got lashed by heavy rain.... perfect window to be riding canal and river banks!

For the route, it was mega easy.   From my house, a few back paths through the housing estate before The Trent Meadows Embankment got me to the Nottingham Canal.  From here, canal all the way out of the city, wind up on the Grand Union canal and then through London on the Regent Canal.  Simple!  

The ride:

For starters, that was mega fun.   I set off on a nice autumn morning with very high flood waters and river levels going up.

The bike set up.  Yeah yeah, it's a crappy bike (by modern standards).   It was awesome...back in 2005.  But if you wait out for "the perfect bike", then you'll never start the ride.

Starting at Trent Bridge as this is where the locks for the canal kicks out from the navigable river system into-out of the British Waterways Canal system.   In theory, it should be "keep the wet bit next you all the way to London" .   Those who know football may know the stadium in the background.

There should be a path there!   The water levels under Trent bridge were way too high. 

  

Through the meadows, there's no visible path where there's normally banks.  Usually there would be runners and people strolling along the prom here.

Then riding through the Attenborough Marina area, typically these boats on the Trent are around 1,2m below the path, not 02.m.  Here on, water levels were around bottom bracket height for great long stretches.   As long as you kept closer to the shore side and where the clearness of the path should be, it was "roughly safe".

Trent locks was closed, due to water spilling down the approach roads and no way of passing.  After diversions around the nature reserve and trying to rejoin at Trent locks, it was not possible.  Instead, tracking across a field to rejoin later.

Back on the canals, and by Sawley region, the tow path was approx 50cm deep.   Wading through and reaching the end of the marina, the next section past Sawley Weir was a defo no-go area, so rejoined where the canal path where it was "at risk" instead of "potential death"

Once beyond the severe floods, things chilled out a lot.  Outside of the Trent watershed, life slowed, paths were dry but peanut butter mud through the day and night.   Here on, it was fields, rolling through small settlements, occasional locks, locals working out if the have enough logs for their burners and very cool.

And then through  the night, I had the excitement of riding through a hill!

Eventually, I ended up around the back of Kings Cross area.