Bicycle Hire for Personal and Corporate Users
At Retro Ride, with its base in Ascot, you can hire Adult Bicycles and Classic Tandems for personal use or corporate use.
| Single Adults Bicycle Hire starts from | £20/day | |
| Classic Tandem hire starts from | £40.00/day |
1 DAY HIRE = 8 HOURS
The price of the hire includes free delivery and pick up to one of the Windsor Park entrance gates where adequate parking is available.
All bicycles are fully maintained and cleaned prior to being hired. They are all easy to ride with nothing to detract from the pleasure of cycling through Berkshire.
Helmets and locks are provided with the bikes as required at no extra cost .
Refundable deposit of £20.00/bike and £50.00/tandem.
Attractively renovated and customised bicycles can also be hired for shop displays and photo shoots.
A list of our terms and conditions can be e-mailed before hire and must be signed on the day of hire.
Cycling in Berkshire
Top of the list of cycling destinations in Berkshire has to be the Windsor Great Park - a massive area of woodland and open grassland stretching from Ascot in the south up into Surrey. The list of attractions in this beautiful area, which includes the Royal Castle at Windsor, is far too long to describe here. Suffice to say that it is a paradise for cyclists. With very little traffic, it is also an especially safe place to cycle.
Suggested Routes
If you enter Windsor Park via the Blacknest Gate (see map below) and turn immediately right, you can cycle around the fantastic Virginia Water Lake, which in turn takes you up to Savill Gardens, where if you want a break you can visit the coffee shop. Or if you enter the Blacknest Gate and keep going straight, you can end up riding along the famous Guards Polo Ground, which in the summer is a delightful spot to have a picnic and watch the polo. By continuing past the polo ground and going straight over the junctions ahead, you come to some large green electric gates (see the button on the left to open them) beyond which is the protected area where the deer roam. The road does get quite undulating but the extra effort is more than compensated by the views of the herds of deer as you approach the Long Walk and the famous Windsor Castle.
Don't be suprised if you see Prince Phillip out riding or Her Majesty the Queen driving in the park. It is their back garden, after all! The park has many suprises, for instance, it has its own post office and shop, bowling green, cricket pitch and a 9-hole golf course, and just recently there has been a rare sighting of otters in the Virginia Water Lake. A circuit around most of the park will amount to a 15-mile cycle ride.The Virginia Water Lake ride is approx 3 miles and the ride up to and around the Polo ground is approximately 5 miles. Another interesting route nearby is to cycle around the inside of the Ascot Race Course (providing there isn't a race). If you hire a bike we can give you printed directions for your ride.
Cyclists who love a challenge and who want to push themselves to the limit might be interested in the 140-mile cycle route around Berkshire taking in everything from scenic forest paths to the architectural magnificence of Eton.
Below is a Google map of the area around Ascot.
- News from Simon and Colin's Travelpod -
Windsor Geat Park
Only days to go until the one-and-a-half-a-thon so here is a quick update.
The Swim
Gastric irregularities and persistent ear ache have severely hampered training this week. Not even the thought of the extra publicity that an involuntary bowel movement would doubtless have caused could lure me to the municipal baths. The ear ache was almost certainly something I picked up when I retrieved my ear plugs from the bottom of the pool anyway, so best avoided for a couple of days.
I thought I'd sneak a quick dip in yesterday, on my day off, just to keep my hand in before the big event, but was horrified when I turned up to discover a pool full of children playing, screaming, laughing and having fun. I could think of nothing worse, And then realised that I was about to spend three weeks surrounded by kids playing, screaming, laughing and having fun, but all in a foreign language. I may need some last minute pre-departure therapy....
The Run
Colin's training has also been hampered by seasonal ailments, and of course the onset of The Second Great Flood. He is confident that he will complete the course, however, and anyone who knows him will agree that he is certainly stubborn enough to keep to his word, provided, that is, that he doesn't get his hair wet, or his nice shiny trainers muddy.
The Tandem Ride
We succesfully completed our tandem initiation on Friday morning at Windor Great Park. Being good Catholics we know that nothing is really worthwhile unless you have to suffer while doing it. So we thought it would be a really good idea to do this with a hangover. But even the hangover was all for the cause. Following free-flowing champagne at the Penhaligons Covent Garden Christmas Party, we had to pay a visit to the local pub to drop off a sponsorship form for their notice board.
As we arrived to the sound of booming eighties anthems, the DJ announced our arrival "the boys who are going to Cambodia". At which point the landlord appeared like the shopkeeper from Mr Benn with a pint glass stuffed full of bank notes. "Proceeds from the fish raffle", he explained. One of the regulars then topped it up with another £20 to take us over the hundred. Thank you everyone at The British Volunteer!
It would have been rude to make a sharp exit so we stayed a while, enjoyed some fine wine and an impromptu workout to the sounds of the resident DJ. Thus it was with delicate stomachs and tired limbs that we embarked on our tandem trial the following day. Thankfully the sun was out, the wind had dropped and Tony, the tandem rental man also had a hangover, and consequently plenty of empathy. He gave us a quick history of our tandem, a reconditioned frame, originally built in 1935, which cheered Colin up as it meant he wouldn't be the oldest member in our newly formed threesome. It also means, rather scarily, that team SiCol (say it fast and it sounds like....Cycle.....geddit?) has a combined age - Me, Colin and the Tandem, of some 166 years.
After a shaky start we began to get the hang of it. I took the lead position with Colin bringing up the rear.
Now I have to say that for someone who likes to be in control, Colin was remarkably calm considering that 1) He couldn't see round me, so had no idea where we are going, 2) his handlebars were fixed which meant he couldn't steer and 3) I had the only brakes which obviously meant that if he wanted me to stop he had to ask very nicely. Now that would make change.
Despite our sinewy litheness we are actually quite a bulk when together, making stopping rather more difficult than originally anticipated. Although I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoying the crescendo of plaintive cries from behind as we careered downhill and I refrained from braking just a little too long...;o) Thank goodness the track around Dorney Lake is flat.The weather forecast for Friday was dry and sunny, it is now foggy. Which, for us has its upside. From the viewing gallery, as we disappear into the gloom, none of you will be able to see if we are still on the bike, or having one of those "Little Britain" Lou and Andy moments, and sneaking off the tandem to push it round the lake when no one is looking.
Final note: Tony Houben of Retro Ride in Ascot deserves a big thank you as he has waived the cycle hire charge - which we will be donating to Globalteer instead.