After a quiet, normal Monday, I got up early on Tuesday morning, packed all my kit onto my bike, and set out for Herefordshire around 06:00.

As well as my tent, clothes, laptop, and a prudent amount of food and water, I was also carrying my baglamas, in its case in a pannier, protected by a section of 150 mm ducting. Last time, the folk jam was spontaneous, but we kept in touch and planned more for this year.

A loaded touring bicycle in front of a fence; there is a weir in a wide river behind

Stopped for a snack by a weir near Eton

I planned the route with cycle.travel and broke it up over three days: a long first day of 105 km, a shorter second day of 86 km, and a half-day of 47 km on Thursday, to arrive at Electromagnetic Field around the time the gates opened so that I could sort myself out and have a nap before everything started properly. By starting early each day, I hoped to be able to do most of the cycling before the sun reached its death ray zenith.

A map of a route from London to near Ledbury

The route to EMF

As I was looking along the route for rest stops, I realised that the first day route took me directly past my aunt’s pub in Cuxham around lunchtime, near my campsite for that evening. That gave me a goal to aim for on Tuesday.

My journey started with a jaunt through London, very quiet at that hour, followed by a long stretch along the Grand Union Canal. It’s flat (apart from some absurd humps where there are bridges) and pleasant, and the discourteous ebike riders aren’t too numerous, but I wish they realised that just because you can achieve a constant 25 km without much physical effort doesn’t mean you should.

The middle section passed Hampton Court and Eton. It was quiet, traffic-free, but more gravelly than I’d realised, and I spent a lot more time there than I’d anticipated.

After that, the route for the rest of Tuesday consisted of quiet country lanes, occasional B roads, and of course the hills of the Chilterns. I did not at any point in my trip enjoy cycling up gradients of 14% or more with a fully-loaded bicycle. I resorted to pushing on a few occasions; some were so steep that even that was a challenge. There were as many downhill stretches as uphill, though, and those were a joy.

I made it to Cuxham around 14:00, and after a good break, a mushroom and artichoke pizza, and a chat, covered the last 10 km to my idyllic campsite next to the river Thame (not a typo, it’s a tributary of the Thames). I swam in a secluded bend in the river, washed my clothes, read a book in a shaded hammock, and had an early night in my tent.

As it was my first day breaking camp, I needed some time to get everything packed up and loaded onto my bike, and I wasn’t on the road until about 07:00. My route was 80 km through Oxford, along a cycle track next to the Oxford to Witney bypass (safe, boring, noisy). Witney, lately the parliamentary seat of the overconfidently mediocre David Cameron, is a beautiful market town full of stone buildings, and was near the halfway point of my day’s ride.

The rest of the ride featured a lot of hills, but ended in a glorious downhill stretch that had me worrying if I was going to wear out my brakes. After 1600 m of climbing and 1600 m of descent, I made it to the campsite at a fruit farm.

My tent and bicycle under a tree in a field, with laundry hanging from a bough

Second night camp

I pitched my tent in the shade of a tree, set out my solar panel, and hung my laundry from an improvised washing line tied to a bough, accompanied by the occasional whistle from steam engines on the nearby Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway heritage line. Angled towards the sun at 18:00, the panel was still generating a respectable 9 W.

After weeks of unbearably hot nights, it was a shock to be woken by the cold in the small hours. The temperature had dropped to 12 C; I fumbled in my bag for a fleece to layer and went back to sleep.

The last leg of the journey was short but hilly. I saw a hill that looked like a pimple on the landscape – and a deer running on it – and climbed another called, ridiculously, Eggs Tump. The ride ended in 4 km of climbing that I didn’t enjoy. Nonetheless, having set off at 06:45, I made it to the gates of the festival by about 10:20.

I scouted about for a reasonably flat and quiet spot, pitched my tent, took a shower, and found myself a bowl of chickpea masala, rice, and a samosa.

Then I took a long nap until I awoke to the sound of enka drifting from a nearby gazebo.

Electromagnetic Field itself was fantastic, but I’ll write about that in my next post.