I’m doing Queen’s (College, Oxford) to Queens’ (College, Cambridge): an academic journey between the two eminent university cities that, over the course of a hundred miles, only moves an apostrophe one letter to the right. Today I did Oxford to the slightly more recent city of Milton Keynes, via a village that isn’t a village, and a promising new railway line that isn’t HS2.
I was in Oxford for a posh reunion-dinner at my alma mater, Queen’s. Strictly, it’s The Queen’s College: using the definite article is polite, in the same way that ‘The Ukraine’ isn’t. No, I don’t really understand why, either.
I was delighted to see a lot of people who I hadn’t seen in forty years. I was also delighted to avoid a few other people I hadn’t seen in forty years. But, no, seriously, the do – the Needle and Thread Gaudy – was fun.
Many of my peers, having retired from their lucrative but stressful and demanding careers, are enjoying their free status by cycling a lot. They hope to go cycling for the rest of their lives.
Not me, obviously. Having avoided stress and demand, and lucre, by being a cycling writer, I’m going to have to work until I drop. In fact, I’m hoping to go cycling for the rest of my life.
Anyway, with a remarkably clear head this morning despite the free food, wine and beer last night, I set off into the cold misty morning with my dinner suit rolled up in my pannier.
Oxford is far more bike-friendly now than when I was a student in the early 1980s. Then, the High Street was crazy and choked with cars. Now it’s calm, allowing buses and bikes only. Then, Broad St was also clogged with motor vehicles. Now it’s pedestrianised and bike-ised and full of planters, and clogged with tourists instead.
I cycled north past places familiar to me during my time at Oxford (such as pubs) and unfamiliar (such as lecture theatres).
South of Kidlington I turned right onto the cycle path alongside the A34. Wide, smooth, well-surfaced, pleasant: it was none of these. It was narrow, muddy, bumpy and dreary. Still, it got me to Bicester.
Or rather, Bicester Village, which isn’t a village, any more than Oxford Circus has a troupe of undergraduates performing tricks under a big top. There’s no farrier, Norman church or market cross mentioned in the Domesday Book here. Bicester Village is a retail park of 150-plus ‘designer outlets’ that dates from 1995, though it’s clearly successful with international visitors: apparently the train service from Oxford has onboard announcements in Chinese and Arabic.
You’re not allowed to take your bike into ‘the village’. This wasn’t a problem. I didn’t feel the need to spend two thousand quid on a watch that tells the time almost as well as my eight quid Argos model. So I snacked in Bicester itself, not far away.
I carried on along humdrum country lanes past huge, work-in-progress building sites for HS2. The high-speed railway route goes dramatically under and over many things, such as under spec, and over budget. Of more interest was the railway line from Bicester to Milton Keynes: the former goods route has just been upgraded to take passenger services, which are due to start this year, though nobody seems able to say when.
The idea is to extend it from MK across to Bedford and hence to Cambridge to provide a rail link between the two university towns. Until it happens – which may not even be in my lifetime – you have to go via London. Or perhaps quicker, cycle it, like I’m doing.
Anyway, after a series of routine back lanes and another snack in Winslow (which will gain a train station thanks to the new project) I squelched and bumped along NCN51’s tatty bridleways and farm tracks to the outskirts of Milton Keynes. From here it was much better: a few miles of decent tarmac paths through parkland right into the centre, and my Travelodge.
This offered several important pluses for the weary, mud-spattered cyclist. The ability to take the bike into the spacious, ground-floor room; a bath; and, perhaps best of all, a Wetherspoons within a five-minute walk.
Miles today: 42
Total miles from Queen’s: 42